Stockman’s Showdown (The Stockmen #4)

Twenty-one

Just after midnight, Bree stood at the cottage’s front gate. Dressed all in black, with her rifle in one hand and a small cooler in the other, she was ready to play commando with Captain Cupcake and his offsider, Sergeant Stormcloud. And she was looking forward to it. Hello, it was sneaky, illegal, and everything that made her pulse tick that little bit quicker, as she waited.

Dex had suggested they take the Razorback, but Ryder said it was too noisy. Surprisingly, Ryder was using his fancy ute, that was worth more than most people’s houses, so said her grandfather, who’d hammered away on their PC’s keyboard to learn more about the car Ryder drove when the Riggs brothers had first arrived.

She had taken great pride in teaching her grandfather how to use the internet, where Charlie was now part of a stockmen’s chat group that shared stories in the region. It was amusing watching Charlie type with two fingers, while cussing under his breath, complaining about some silly sod’s comments, in between gulps of his beer. She’d learned to walk away in those moments.

Now she couldn’t stop thinking about how she was going to tell Charlie that all the evidence was pointing to Harry being a murderer.

Charlie must have known about Jack Price accusing Harry in such a damning way. And with Bree not believing Harry’s innocence in the first place, Charlie may have kept that piece of news to himself.

Poor Charlie.

Doing this sneaky raid on their nasty neighbour was the best thing for taking her mind off her family dramas—because so far, her murder-solving skills just sucked!

She gazed up at the stars that seemed extra bright tonight without a moon. On the other side of the large compound stood the farmhouse with its pantry light barely casting a soft glow inside.

To the left of that, the boardroom lights had just switched off.

They were coming.

She cocked her head, straining for the sound of a vehicle starting.

Then, in disbelief, she watched the ute’s taillights disappear down the back of the property, leaving her behind.

‘That a-hole!’ A surge of anger had her slinging the rifle strap over her shoulder as she marched towards the back shed to take the quad. She wasn’t getting dressed up like a plus-sized Catwoman for nothing.

When the ute spun around, its bank of powerful spotlights shone over her when she was halfway down the fence line.

‘Were you going to saddle a horse?’ Dex asked, with his head out the window as Ryder stopped the car beside her.

‘You were going to leave me here.’

‘I contemplated it,’ Ryder said, his deep voice tinged with amusement as he climbed out of the vehicle. ‘But we both knew you’d either take a quad or saddle a horse. Which one?’ He walked around the back of his ute, all dressed in bad-arse black. No hat, but a black beanie.

Oh, lordie!

‘Quad.’ Wait, she was supposed to be mad at him, not perve on him!

Ryder opened the back door. ‘Get in, cupcake.’

‘That’s not my name.’ Wow, the guy opened the door for her.

‘I’ll have to find you one. Please excuse Dex for hogging the front passenger seat. He wanted to play shotgun.’

Nope, she was not going to ease up on him for his gentlemanly actions. Okay, maybe a little. ‘That’s fine by me. I’ve done my fair share of opening and closing gates, and I know how many there are between here and the eastern boundary.’ She scooted into the middle of the back seat.

‘Damn, I didn’t think of that.’ Dex swivelled around from the front passenger seat. ‘Do I smell food?’

‘For the drive.’ She opened the small cooler, revealing foil-covered burger rolls, and let it rest on the middle console. ‘Or does the driver have a no food policy?’ It did have that new vehicle smell to it.

‘Too bad, I’m starving.’ Dex peeled back the foil to unleash the aromas of beef patties, with her special barbecue blend. ‘Yum, hamburgers. When did you make these?’

‘It was supposed to be dinner, but Charlie wasn’t hungry, and I always cook when…’ When she was thinking, or worried, because yes, she was a girl who ate her feelings—then drank her gin to not feel.

‘Thank you, Bree.’ Ryder took his burger, peeling back the foil. ‘Have you eaten?’

‘If you count the cupcakes.’ She had to do something with her hands, taking the smallest one.

‘This vehicle is huge.’ It was so smooth a ride, she couldn’t believe they were driving down a dirt track filled with potholes and corrugations even at speed, thanks to Ryder’s lead foot. With a steel bull bar on the front, this twin-cab ute was a tank on wheels, that came with air conditioning and an actual windscreen, where she didn’t cop bugs in the face, or suffer with windblown knots in her hair, like she did when hooning around in the Razorback.

‘It’s fancy.’ It was also a big reminder of how rich Ryder was. While she was nothing more than the caretaker’s granddaughter, hustling for pennies as a smart-mouthed blacksmith.

‘It’s not as fancy as my ute.’ Dex grinned with his cheeks full of food. ‘And it’s a thousand times better than that monstrosity you drive.’

She grinned, sitting back in her seat. ‘Don’t knock the Kombi van, stormcloud. It can go anywhere, and it’s reliable.’

‘It runs on elastic bands and sewing machine oil.’

The mention of elastic bands had the one in the crime-scene photo playing on her mind. How could it be part of a murder scene? ‘Go on, admit it, you like the Kombi. You’ve got it plastered on your wall at home, that I bet you worship it every night.’

‘I’ve put Sophie in charge of getting a new picture for that wall. Hey, can you teach her to make these?’ Dex held up what was left of his meal.

‘Nope. That’s your kitchen. Your girlfriend.’

‘Have you invited Sophie to your cooking lessons, yet? Like you do with Harper and Mia.’

‘Sophie says she’s busy with work and knows how to cook.’ Not that they ever cooked much at their cooking lessons at the cottage.

Ryder peeked back at her, one hand on the steering wheel, the other holding his half-devoured burger. ‘Did you explain to Sophie that your cooking lessons are code for long liquid ladies’ lunches?’

‘I’m sure Harper or Mia have told her.’ It wasn’t Bree’s place—well technically it was, because they held it at the cottage. ‘I hardly see Sophie.’ No, she kept right away from the blonde who had started a stampede. And Bree was not apologising for getting up Sophie either.

Poor Dex was stuck in the middle. And Dex was her buddy, and he loved Sophie, and Sophie did make Dex truly happy, and he deserved that. Which meant Bree should be playing nice to the straitlaced nurse for Dex’s sake.

Ugh! The things she did for people.

She sat forward and tapped on Dex’s upper arm. ‘Next time I’ll be sure Sophie gets word to come.’ But she doubted Sophie would come, because Sophie had never warmed to Bree, after assuming Bree and Dex were a couple.

How could Sophie ever think that? Not when Bree’s broken dial for attractive males was swinging only in Captain Cupcake’s direction.

‘Thanks, Bree.’

Ryder didn’t say anything, but he was watching her through the rear-view mirror.

She wasn’t used to this much attention while in such a small space, he was too close. Especially when she had no exit and was truly exceeding her ten-minute limit of breathing the same air as Ryder. ‘What’s the plan?’

‘You show us where you found the pipe.’

‘Where are you hiding this beast? Now that you’ve cleared that space along the fence line?’

‘Among the trees by the overflow creek.’

‘Then what?’

The brothers hesitated.

‘You’d better not ask me to stay by the car, like a child stuck out front of a supermarket with the promise of an ice cream. I found the irrigation pipe. I know the direction it’s going—’

‘Okay, Bree.’ Ryder grabbed her waggling finger and held it.

She pulled away, not expecting the warm tenderness of his touch to send tingles up her spine to creep over her scalp, then down the front to her chest. Her chest!

She grabbed her water bottle and took a deep gulp, washing down the desire that had surfaced so hard and fast, all from the simple touch of his hand.

‘Is the AC on?’ She fanned her face.

‘Yeah, there’s a vent back there.’ He reached back.

‘Stop looking, I found it.’ Again, their hands met. Only this time she pulled back as if he’d burned her, with her eyes flicking to meet his in the mirror.

There was no way a mere male should have that much power over her, making her body hot and super aware of his touch.

Come on, she’d held Dex’s hand at the hospital and that never bothered her. Cap was a serial hugger, especially when she’d delivered her homemade dog stew to feed his many muster dogs. And Ash, he’d grabbed her hands plenty of times when she’d given him lessons on how to change his son’s night nappies, or when she helped him put on the baby carrier for those days he took his son in the saddle. None of them made her react like this.

Had she always been unconsciously aware to steer clear of Ryder, to not get within his personal space, or let him in hers, and most of all, to never touch him? But it was hard to miss the man, built like a machine, sitting behind the steering wheel, giving her the perfect view of his broad shoulders and muscles that went for days.

Honestly, Ryder was so wrong for her, just as she was so wrong for him. It was simple girl-maths really, especially when she was using all her ancestral strengths to live life like a country music song that skipped the happily ever after to a condensed playlist of over 600 songs all about being unlucky in love.

She was quite prepared to end up as a cat lady seeking all her emotional support from her pile of unread romance books shoved to the back of her cupboard.

But this was different.

Trapped in his car, all she could see, smell, feel was Ryder.

But she wanted to be here. She was curious to see where that hidden water pipe was going to lead them. And if it was as bad as Dex and Ryder were speculating, she needed to plan for Charlie’s sake.

Maybe she should have taken the quad for her own sanity and put up with the bugs, because this drive was like some B-grade movie marathon—where the opening credits took too long and you just wanted to get to the action—as they drove down the dirt track under the cover of midnight, to go peek at their nasty neighbour’s property. And Leo never played by the rules. Good thing was, she never did either.