4
ROWAN
The ranch always felt different after someone left. Quieter, like the land was listening for footsteps that weren’t there anymore. But after Tex rode off, the silence felt heavier than usual. Almost charged. Like the air still held the echo of his engine and the weight of everything Tex had said.
I stood in the middle of the yard, arms wrapped around myself, staring at the fence we’d just fixed. The wire gleamed new and tight in the morning sun, but all I could see was the pin he’d found. That small piece of metal had cracked something open inside me and fear, anger, and confusion were all tangled together.
I walked back toward the barn, boots crunching over the frost-softened ground. The horses shifted inside, sensing my mood. Animals always knew. People pretended better.
Inside, the familiar smell of hay and leather wrapped around me, grounding me. I grabbed a brush and started working through my mare’s coat with long strokes in a steady rhythm. It usually calmed me, but today it barely made a dent.
“Sorry, Daisy,” I said to her.
Someone had been on my land. Someone had cut my fences and harmed my animals. And now Tex—quiet, steady Tex with those too-sharp eyes, was supposedly going to figure it all out.
I didn’t want him here. I didn’t want the Kings anywhere near my life. I didn’t want to be anywhere near their world; in fact, I wanted to be far away from the violence and the lines you couldn’t uncross once you stepped over them. But the truth I didn’t want to admit was simpler still: I felt safer with him here.
That thought made my stomach twist because I didn’t like to rely on anyone. I didn’t trust anyone to show up when it mattered. People left and people disappointed me. But mostly, people died. The ranch was the only thing that stayed. Ever present and solid. It was my sanctuary from a world I had never felt a part of. A world I had never felt wanted in. Until now, at least.
I set the brush down and leaned both hands on the stall door, breathing hard.
“Get it together,” I muttered to myself.
But my mind kept circling back to him. Tex. His voice, low and certain.
‘I’m keeping you alive.’
The way he’d looked at me when he said it, like he meant it. Like he’d already decided I was his personal responsibility and he would go to war…for me.
I hated that. But God help me, I didn’t hate it nearly enough.
I stepped outside again, needing the cold Colorado air. The mountains rose in the distance, steady and unchanging. I’d always taken comfort in that. Today, however, they felt like walls closing in.
Tex was right about one thing: whoever was doing this wasn’t going to stop at fences. Things had started out small and explainable, but they had been gradually getting worse. Last week it had finally occurred to me—and Lord knows whyit hadn’t before then—that someone was doing this on purpose. It wasn’t a succession of explainable incidents. It was an act of malevolence.
I wrapped my arms tighter around myself, staring down the long dirt road he’d ridden out on.
“Don’t get attached,” I whispered. “Everyone leaves.”
I sighed and got back to work, trying to push away thoughts of Tex and the Kings and all the damage that they could do to me and this ranch, and I let the silence fall back over me.
The quiet didn’t last long though.
I’d barely finished sweeping the barn aisle—more for something to do than because it needed it—when the horses’ ears snapped forward in unison like a warning. Their bodies went still, muscles tight, eyes fixed on the open doorway. I froze too.
A truck engine rumbled up the drive, slow and heavy, and something about it made my pulse kick hard. My nerves were already jangled, but now they were going crazy as I watched the truck grow larger as it got closer.
Tex had only been gone an hour or two, and it felt too soon for him to be back. As was my headstrong way, I stepped out of the barn, wiping my palms on the front of my jeans, as I tried to look like I wasn’t already bracing myself for trouble. I knew my shotgun was within reach just inside the barn door where it always was. I was a woman who came prepared, after all, but I had never had a reason to use it before. I’d never needed to threaten anyone with it, that was for certain.
The truck rolled into view. It was a dented black pickup with mud caked along the sides and a cracked windshield. No plates on the front. The kind of vehicle that didn’t want to be identified, and it stopped ten yards from me.
The driver’s door opened and a man climbed out. He was mid-forties, with thick shoulders, sun-leathered skin, and abeard that looked like it had been trimmed with a pocketknife. He wore a faded denim jacket and a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, but even from here I could see the way his eyes swept over the property, assessing everything. He paused briefly at the fixed-up fence, a slow smile climbing his face, and my stomach tightened.
I didn’t know him. But he sure knew me. I could feel it in my bones.
From under his lowered cap, he gave me a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Something blazed inside of them, but it wasn’t anything friendly. “Morning, Miss Hale.”
He had an accent, though I couldn’t pinpoint it. It definitely wasn’t anything local, though.
