Now, it’s time to pay the price.
“I don’t need Weston to take us to Wyoming, you know,” I say, knowing my truck must be long fixed. “I can drive myself. I’ll leave tomorrow morning with Bruce, bright and early.”
“In the stolen trailer and truck? Without backup?” Before I can respond, he continues. “Not gonna happen, darlin’. If the Feds don’t know about the truck and trailer, your old bosses do. They’ll all be out looking for it, and for you.”
Crud.
I didn’t think of that.
“Does Weston have a trailer that’ll work?” I ask, still hating the idea.
“No.” He pulls into the bar parking lot, which is nearly empty, and parks near the back. “He has a truck, and we’ll wrangle up a new trailer somewhere. Not Drake and Bella’s this time. I can’t be making their names mud if something goes haywire.”
“Whose?” I ask as he opens his door.
“Plenty of folks with trailers around here.” He climbs out and closes his door.
I follow and meet him at the door to the bar, feeling like I’m wading through cement.
“Don’t you think you’ve already involved enough people? It started out with just us, then Faulk and Weston, and Ridge and Dr. Walton, Drake and Hank, Bella and Tory and...Jesus. Why don’t you just post it on Facebook?” I regret the words as soon as they’re out.
He jabs me with a wounded look.
I grab his arm. “Oh, Grady, I’m sorry. I feel so guilty asking for so much from everyone. I just can’t stand to see anyone hurt or in trouble with the FB-freaking-I.”
“Me either. I wish I’d been focused on that this whole time.” He opens the door and nods for me to enter ahead of him.
His words sting because I know the distraction he means is us.
What we’ve been doing every night.
Every kiss that tasted like perfection and shredded my heart.
Now, our love—did I really just think the dreaded l-word again?—is nothing but a ruthless liability.
We sit at the bar in our encroaching misery.
Weston is tending the place tonight and a young dark-haired woman waits on the few tables where a couple customers are seated. Grady talks to him about bar business for a while and orders us platters of chicken tenders with fries and coleslaw before he brings up Weston’s schedule.
There’s a noticeable shift in their voices then. They go quieter, discussing who can cover the bar so Weston can help with another job over the next two days.
“Sure, Uncle Grady.” Weston agrees with a slow, accepting smile before he even asks what the job is.
He’s a young man in his mid-twenties or so with a muted sadness in his face that makes me wonder what put it there. The family resemblance is mostly in the face, the strong jawline, and the smile.
Grady’s nephew has short sandy-blond hair and restless blue eyes that grow wide when his uncle tells him he’s just been drafted to drive me to Wyoming with Bruce.
“Shit, the tiger?” he whispers, tilting his head.
“The one and only,” Grady echoes.
“Man, that’s a big job. I’m game to help out, but I’ve gotta ask...why me?”
“Why not you, West?” Grady fires back, slapping a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. You’re one hell of a mechanic, and you’ve been through some shit like the rest of my crew. Unlike them, you’re not tied down with a woman and kids—not yet.”
“Lucky me. Winding up tiger meat because I haven’t tied the frigging knot.” Weston shrugs and gives back an aw-shucks grin. “When?”
“You need to be at my place tomorrow morning for planning. Once I hear back from Faulk, we’ll have a more exact time to embark. In the meantime, I want you to make a list of everyone you know with an extra stock trailer who’d be open to renting it out. Ideally somebody who isn’t big into farming or the traveling rodeos so they don’t have any highway violations sticking around. Then we need another truck, a trailer, and somebody with a clean driving record who can keep their mouth shut if we pay ’em well and won’t mind playing decoy.”
“Decoy?” Weston whispers.
Grady just nods, his dark eyes twinkling with amusement.
“You’ll see, my boy.”
I look at Grady and blink at the decoy thing myself, wondering what in Hades he’s plotting.
Whatever it is, I know what I have to do.
Once I get Bruce settled in Wyoming, I need to head home. Back to California.
I’ve caused enough havoc for this lifetime here in North Dakota.
I thought I’d known exactly what I’d wanted when I came here, but the truth is, what I wanted doesn’t even exist. It was a fantasy.
My father warned me, but I’d been too pigheaded to listen.
Big cats need help surviving in this world, in the wild against poachers as much as they need a hand against other evildoers in captivity.
I hadn’t taken any of that into account in my fantasy world.
I’d been too focused on myself. On the prestige I’d gain rather than thinking about what the animals needed.
Grady and Weston are still talking, but I’m not listening.
Instead, I’m thinking about how much my life has changed forever over the past month. Is this what it’s like to grow up?
My father always said that had to happen before I’d figure out what I wanted out of life.
Like every headstrong girl with a shiny new college degree, I hadn’t listened.
I thought I was grown-up as soon as I graduated.
Surprise—I was wrong.
And maybe I still am because I’m not sure responsible adults run around stealing tigers in distress and dumping them in the laps of handsome small-town single dads.
The ride home from the bar is silent for good reason.
We both know things have changed.
I can’t help wondering what would’ve happened if Grady and I met under different circumstances, without Bruce in the picture.
Would there still be this magnetic pull?
Would I have ever pierced his gunmetal heart?
I’ll never know.
I’ll never know a lot of things about the two of us, because there won’t be a lasting us to worry about soon.
As he parks the truck and turns if off at his house, Grady says, “I’m gonna call Joyce and ask if the girls can stay with her for a few days. It’ll be easier on them when you and Bruce leave if they aren’t around.”
I nod, despite my heart turning inside out.
“Sorry. I need to protect them.” He sucks in a slow breath. “From everything I can, you understand. So I’d appreciate it if you just...if you wouldn’t make saying good-bye a big deal.”
A suffocating pain fills my chest like an angry fist gripping my heart. I can’t help the dagger look I throw his way.
“Sure. Whatever.” I throw the door open and climb out. “I’m going to check on Bruce. ’Night.”
“Goodni—”
I barely hear his response because I shut the door before hearing the last syllable.
My eyes burn like lit coals, this bleary veil across my vision as I walk to the barn.
Bruce is blissfully sleeping, and as I sit on the edge of the wall, looking at him, visions of the past few weeks crisscross my mind.