"Yeah."
"I'm hungry."
"Let's go eat."
He pulls me up out of the chair and tucks a piece of my still-damp hair behind my ear.
He looks at me the way he's been looking at me since the tack room yesterday— that same slow, steady look that makes me feel like I've been seen for the first time in my entire life.
We walk out of the main house onto the porch, hand in hand.
The ranch is in late-morning sun.
The same two prospects on the bunkhouse porch see us come out, and word will be all over the property by lunch.
I don't care. I'm walking across the gravel of the main house yard with my hand in his, his shirt down to my thighs, warm rocks under my boots, and a sun overhead that I haven't felt in months without a knot in my chest.
For the first time since my mother left, I’m happy.
Then my phone buzzes.
I pull it out of my back pocket without thinking.
Unknown number. A photo loads.
Me. Spur. From above.
From an angle that's somewhere up—the hayloft of the main barn, maybe, or a tree line near the round pen—both of us walking off the main house porch hand in hand.
Taken maybe thirty seconds ago.
The text under the photo:
I told you he can't watch you every second.
The phone goes cold in my hand. I stop walking.
Spur sees my face and stops too. "What’s wrong?"
I hand him the phone and the second he looks at it, his face changes. "He's on the property."
He doesn't say anything else.
His hand is at the small of my back and he's walking me fast—faster than I can keep up with—back across the gravel toward the main house porch.
His free hand pulls his piece from the back of his waistband first, then his phone.
The door of the main house is opening before we get to it because Pops heard us coming.
Pops is in the doorway.
Spur into his phone, low and flat. "Banshee. Get to the main house. Now."
He hangs up and looks at Pops. "Prez. He's here."
CHAPTER TEN
Spur
