“Delilah, what are you doing here?” He rushed toward me, his gaze racing over me. “Are you okay?”
The men who had caught me outside came in, prodding Jasper’s brothers along with the barrel of a rifle. “Caught this group sniffing around outside. Somebody want to tell me what the hell’s going on?”
Jasper stepped toward me, his hands up, palms out. “Let’s all keep our cool. What are y’all doing here?”
“You told her you had to go help one of your brothers in trouble,” Davis said. “Didn’t make sense to any of us since we were all at the festival, getting ready for the pumpkin float.”
“He did have to help one of his brothers.” A man stepped out from the shadows.
I squinted. There was something familiar about him, but I knew I’d never seen him before.
“Colin?” Trent stepped toward him, his arms wide. “What are you doing here?”
The two men embraced as Jasper pinched the bridge of his nose.
Colin. That was Jasper’s older brother. The one who’d moved away. I glanced back and forth between the brothers. Besides Trent, the other two didn’t look quite so happy to see their sibling.
“What the fuck’s going on?” the guy with the rifle asked.
“It’s okay, they’re with me.” Colin’s voice was steady.
Jasper edged close enough to pull me into his side.
“The fuck we are.” Mitchell’s glare could have burned the whole place down. “Please tell me you’re not involved with this. I’m outta here.”
“Not so fast.” The guy with the rifle tapped it against Mitchell’s leg. “We didn’t know we were having a family reunion of sorts going on.”
“Let them go.” Jasper motioned for Davis to move next to me. “Colin and I will stay. If the others don’t get back to the festival, they’re going to be missed. You don’t want Mayor Cherish sending her husband out with a search party looking for the missing guest of honor, do you?”
The men murmured among themselves, and I slid my gaze over the roughly constructed ring of hay, noticing several splatters of something red. I immediately glanced back to Jasper. He didn’t appear to be injured, making me wonder whose blood it was.
“We’d better scram.” One of the men ran in through the door. “Cops are on their way. I can see the lights headed this direction.”
“What did you do?” Jasper yelled at his brothers.
The men gathered the crates, scattering like ants abandoning a flooded anthill. Engines rumbled, tires scraped on gravel, and I stood there the whole time, wondering what in the world I’d gotten myself involved with this time.
CHAPTER 28
JASPER
“Come here.”I moved toward Delilah, my only goal to protect her, to shield her from the sheer hell we’d found ourselves in.
“Stay away.” Her green eyes, usually a place of refuge where I could forget my worries and hide for a while, held a world of fear.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I want to keep you safe.” I held out an arm, desperate to guard her from the chaos.
“I think you’ve done enough.” Mitchell slung an arm around Delilah’s shoulders.
My heart cracked. Then, as Delilah turned her back on me, taking comfort in my brother’s arms, it shattered. What had I done?
“It’s not what you think.” How could I explain? As I tried to come up with the right words to defend myself, Bodie came through the door of the barn. The sheriff walked in behind him, followed by a few other men.
“What’s going on?” Bodie moved toward me, his hand ready to grip his service weapon. “Somebody needs to fill me in, fast.”
My brothers began to talk at the same time.
Bodie held up a hand. “Delilah, what did you see when you got here?”
