“She’ll be here, Pete. I’m telling you. My word is good on this. I haven’t let you down yet, have I?”
He purses his lips, indecision etched in the lines of his face. “But what happens when your contract is up, huh? You don’t stick around most places long. Rumor has it you’ll be moving on soon.”
Fucking rumors. I feel like a traitor uttering these words to him before I’ll ever admit them to her . . . or even to myself, but he needs the truth, not some bullshit sales pitch. “Because I’m in love with her, Pete.”
His startled intake of air is exactly how I feel—staggered by the admission.
“Come again?” He laughs around the words because he’s known me long enough to have never heard them grace my lips.
“You heard me. I’m in love with Tatum Knox . . . and if you think I’m going to leave her here alone to fend off the wolves, then you don’t know the man I am. That’s part of the reason I proposed the progress payment plans. I know it isn’t the norm in the industry, but you want these horses, Pete. Trust me on that. With your crew coming every month to check in, your presence will be noticed and, in turn, will give the ranch not only security with the payments but also help me keep these assholes from thinking they can push her out.” I glance out toward the pasture where his men are slowly preparing for their departure tomorrow before looking back at him. “You know my word is good.”
Pete just shakes his head. “I know it is. I know what you’re made of. The question is, how are you going to take care of this little problem, Sutton? Because we can’t leave here without it being resolved.”
“It won’t be a problem by the time you load the horses up in the carrier tomorrow afternoon.”
He nods, and I toss the ledger onto the table before leaving.
It only takes me a few minutes to find Tate. Her strokes are carving across the water, one confident strong movement after another. I step toward the edge of the pool so when she reaches it, she’ll notice me.
I told Pete I loved her.
She touches the wall and then looks up to me, lifting her swim goggles off her eyes to her forehead. “Hi.”
But I couldn’t tell her.
“Hi. Should I be worried that you’re swimming laps?” I ask, afraid something is upsetting her enough to make her want to scream underwater.
“Funny.” She rolls her eyes. “Just getting some exercise.”
“Whew.” I smile. “I, uh, have to head into town to take care of a few things.”
Tate treads water but looks confused. “But what about the barbecue?” she asks, referring to the farewell dinner we have planned for the Steely Brothers crew to celebrate four weeks of hard work and, hopefully, pregnant mares.
“I know. I’ll try to make it back in time.” Her eyes narrow, and I know I need to go before she can look too closely and see the rage beneath the surface. “It’s just some loose ends I need to tie up so that Pete can leave with all of the i’s dotted and t’s crossed.”
“I’m sure he’d be fine if you took care of it tomorrow so that you could join us tonight.”
“I’m sure he would, but I don’t want to give him any reason to head back with doubt of any kind.”
“Okay.” She takes a deep breath. “Hurry back.”
“I will.”
And when I walk away, I hate that the lies keep piling up.
But is it really lying when I’m doing it to protect the person I love?
47
JACK
Luckily, Ginger’s directions where to find the Destin twins are spot-on. The parking lot of the strip mall located in the next town over is well lit and void of any cars. I look at the storefronts for a dry cleaner, a pizza joint, and a silkscreen shop as I drive toward the alley that runs behind the structure.
The back lot is where I find all the cars as well as the door that leads to the hole-in-the-wall bar I’m looking for. The kind with windows painted black and a solid slab door with nothing but a padlock on the outside for security when the establishment is closed.
As if on cue, the dark, four-door sedan rolls up and parks right outside the entrance. Ginger said that one of the brothers stops by every two hours to take wagers and make payouts. I guess tonight is no different.
Before I can think this through rationally, I let the rage that brought me here spark to life as I climb out of the truck. Each step ratchets it higher. Each sidewalk panel I cross allows it to build.
When the driver’s side door opens and the bald brother steps out, I don’t give him a second to think before my fist plows into his nose.
The crunch of my knuckles on his cartilage is sickening and satisfying at the same time. But I don’t revel in it. I’m too enraged, too focused.
Before he can recover, I have my hands fisted in his shirt and am slamming him against the car hard enough for his skull to bounce off it.
I don’t care about the blood pouring out of his nose.
I don’t think twice about it being just him and me in a dark parking lot or that he might be carrying a gun—it is Texas, after all.
My only thought is Tate.
My only goal is to stop this bullshit once and for all.
“Tatum Knox.”
Those two words are all I have to say for him to know what the punch was for.
“So?” The asshole smirks, so I swing for the softness of his gut. My fist lands with a thud, and I can feel the whoosh of air come out of his chest in reflex.
I can smell the alcohol on his breath, the marijuana on his clothes, and I know that in and of itself is the only reason he isn’t fighting back.
Thank fuck for that because I have a feeling all it would take is a whistle from him to get his customers in the bar out here . . . and then I’d be a dead man.
“Do you think the bets her husband made in that stack of spreadsheets are going to scare someone off?” I growl, my face inches from his. People from the bar stare as they come out on their own accord, and I just give them a glare to tell them to leave us the fuck alone. “Do you think that pathetic fuck’s debts, which you let him run up only so you could nail him to a wall and try to get him to leverage his land, are hers to pay?” I slam him against his car again. “She is not selling. You are not going to run her off. And if you ever so much as say Tate’s name again, let alone try to badmouth her or her business again, I’ll kill you.”
“Try it,” he grits out, the blood pouring from his nose spraying me as he speaks.
“Give me a reason, and I will.” My chuckle is long and loud and manic enough that, when I look in his eyes, I don’t think he wants to find out if it’s true or not.
He believes me.
Though, technically, I wouldn’t kill him, but I’m the fucking great white in his goldfish bowl. There wouldn’t be a minute of sleep lost if I used the ranch I inherited and my connections to swallow his whole operation.
And for some reason, a puzzle that had been mostly dismissed as unsolvable becomes clear. Tate’s accident. Sylvester’s comments about the dark sedan that ran her off the road in front of the ranch.
Perhaps the same dark sedan that I have this asshole pressed against.
Makes sense now why it seemed like no one looked all that hard for the person who ran Tate off the road. Perhaps it was because he was one of their own.