Page 28 of The Wrangler and the Tenderfoot

She believed me. I could see it. She leaned against a tree, arms crossed. “You want to tell me what you’re really worried about?”

I hesitated, then said, “You ever heard of a man named Lance?”

She went still in a way that told me a lot. “Not locally,” she said. “Why?”

“He came through maybe a year ago. Asking questions about Maddox Ranch. Then he disappeared. Word is, he wasn’t exactly friendly.”

She didn’t blink. “That supposed to scare me?”

“No,” I said. “Just thought you’d want to know.”

She chewed on that. “You think the guns are connected to him?”

“Could be,” I said. Probably not, but I needed to figure out who she was and why she was here.

She squinted at me. “When did you say he was here?”

I gave a non-answer. “A while back. A year or so. I can ask around if you want more.”

She shook her head. “Don’t. I’d rather keep a low profile, if that’s possible.”

We stood there a moment, neither of us wanting to be the first to look away. Eventually, she said, “You know, you could’ve just told me. No need for the performance.”

“It wasn’t a performance,” I said, honest. “Just wanted to see how you’d react.”

She laughed, a short, sharp sound. “And?”

“You’re better at this than I am.”

She leaned in, real close, her eyes gone hard. “You want to kiss me again, don’t you?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to. She grabbed the front of my shirt, pulled me down, and kissed me like it was a dare. I let her have the lead, let her tell me how much she wanted, and when she wanted to stop.

When she broke away, she said, “That’s what you really wanted, wasn’t it?”

I smiled and wiped my lip where she’d bitten. “No, not the only thing.”

She looked at the crates, then back at me. “You think this ends well?”

“No,” I said.

She touched my hand, softer this time, then turned and walked back toward the horses.

I followed, the wolf in me howling to catch up.

We rode the long way home in silence. She didn’t ask questions, didn’t say anything at all.

When we reached the spot where we usually split, patted the mare’s neck, and said, “See you tomorrow?”

I nodded. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

I rode back to the ranch slowly. She hadn’t been surprised at all about the guns. She already knew. Which meant she was either in on it or already investigating it. I had no idea which.

Chapter 13: Reid

There’s a clarity I only got when standing in a soup of sweat, gas fumes, and the feral green reek of chainsawed cedar. Clarity I couldn’t buy in therapy or find at the bottom of a bottle, because it didn’t come from solving anything, just from the raw act of beating a problem into pieces until it agreed to stay down. I’d been at it since sunrise, running the line east of the hayfield, cutting back every sapling and cedar stand that had the gall to muscle in on Maddox grass.

Ash and Buck were working the next pasture over, keeping pace with me but on a different angle. Even over the racket, I could hear them. Ash had a voice that punched through a jet engine, and she punctuated every joke with a cackle so sharp it ought to have come with a warning label.