I swallowed hard. “You’re sure.”
“Yeah.” He finally stood, brushing dirt from his hands. “Someone wanted this fence down.”
I hated the way my pulse jumped. I hated the way fear tried to creep in. I’d been holding this ranch together with grit and stubbornness for months now, and I didn’t have room for fear. All I had wanted was to come back home to the place where I had always felt safe and loved. I’d wanted to watch sunrises and sunsets, ride horses and say my quiet goodbyes to my parents.
Tex watched me, eyes steady, unreadable. “How long’s this been happening?”
I thought about lying to him. But what would be the point in lying? He could see as well as I could what had happened, and if the ranch had caught the attention of the Kings so much that they had sent one of their men to come take a look, well, I was in enough trouble to know that I needed to tell him everything.
“A couple of months,” I said. “It started small. Tools going missing. Gates left open and animals getting out, even though I’m careful to always lock them away. Then the fences started being…” I gestured toward the broken fence. “Last week one of our mares got out and when we found her she was…well, let’s just say she’s no good for breeding anymore.”
He pulled a face of irritation and I knew it was for me not at me. “You report it?”
“To who?” I snorted. “The sheriff’s office doesn’t care unless someone’s bleeding or dead. But yeah, I reported it, and all the other stuff, but nothing ever came of it barring a visit from one of your friends.
Tex nodded. “JD.”
“Yeah, well, he turned up and asked me a bunch of questions. He said he was bringing in an old friend to figure out what was going down. And now I guess, here you are—his old friend.” I rolled my eyes at him.
“Yeah, here I am,” he said quietly.
I looked away, toward the mountains rising in the distance, their peaks dusted with snow. The land had always been my anchor. My inheritance. And now my responsibility.
“Why would someone do this to me?” I said, and I hated how defeated I sounded. I wasn’t a weak woman. My parents had raised me to be strong and independent. Though right now I felt anything but. Instead, I felt tired and worried.
Tex stepped closer. Close enough that I felt the weight of him beside me, his strength pouring into me.
“I don’t know, but I’ll find out,” he said. “You’re not alone in this now. We’ll fix the fence. Then I want to check the north line. JD said that’s where the last break was.”
“We?” I raised a brow. “You planning on staying all day, Cowboy?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Cowboy?”
“Figured you didn’t much like being called darlin’ either.” I was angry and sad, and worried, and yet it took everything in me not to smile at the way his features softened for just a moment. I had caught him by surprise.
He cocked his head to one side, assessing me. “I guess I could live with cowboy.”
“Well, if you’re staying to help then you follow my lead out here. This is my land and I don’t need you throwing your weight around like you own the place.”
Tex’s mouth twitched. It was almost a smile, but not quite. “Yes, ma’am, I hear you. Do as I’m told—gotcha’.”
I let out a heavy breath and shook my head. Annoyed that every time he spoke it made something in my stomach flutter, though with what I wasn’t sure. He wasn’t my type in the slightest, though there was no denying he was handsome with his dark hair and light eyes. His skin was tanned from years of being on the road and his jaw sported a tidy beard. He clearly looked after himself too. But from the way he held himself, heknew he could have any woman he wanted, and I had no desire to be another notch on his bedpost.
We walked toward the barn to grab some tools, the silence stretching between us. It wasn’t awkward or hostile, just charged. Like the air before a storm.
