20. Holden
The way Mayor Dixon observes the rides reminds me of a king looking out over his slaves. Haughty and debating how he can squeeze more money out of them.
“What’s that fucker doing here, you think?” Sterling latches his helmet on, preparing for his ride.
I shake my head. “Ignore him. Focus on the ride. You’re up in two.”
The cowboys who run The Riders are similar to us—ranchers who don’t care for big government involvement. Redford Ranch supplies the bulls for the event, which we are paid well for. There’s nothing illegal about that part of the operation because we report the income. The betting is illegal. If they can’t tax our money, they don’t want it changing hands.
Sterling walks over to the chute, where he’ll get on the bull. Everything we make riding is ours to keep, but who knows if any money will go out for these rides? The Riders are getting more cautious every night. They might wait weeks to pay out after this one, if any bets are even made.
I look down at my phone screen, gritting my teeth when I see that Rosie hasn’t replied to my text.
That’s what you get for being a dick.
The fact that I’m even waiting for her to text me back sets me on edge. Her existence is becoming too important to me.
You killed her uncle.
She fucked your brother.
I chant my reasons for disliking her to myself.
I push off the fence, walking over toward where Mayor Dixon is talking to the county sheriffs. They’re all buddies, the law enforcement officials and the mayor. The night I was arrested, he had them take me out of the jail cell, and he beat me to a pulp. I was left bleeding in the cell for two hours before my lawyer finally got there.
They claimed the injuries were from a fight with another cellmate. I told my lawyer to let it go. We’d never be able to prove it, and I wanted to focus on not going to prison for murder.
After a year of constantly being targeted in prison by groups of violent criminals, I finally found out from making internal connections that the good mayor was paying them to assault me and attempt to take my life. I would defend myself, inevitably ending up in solitary confinement for sixty days at a time for fighting. It never stopped, not for the three and a half years I was there. My muscles are coiled for an attack, even now.
“Came to support the boys, Dixon? You’re too good for this town.” I’m a few inches taller than him, but I still stretch out to my full height.
He turns to look up at me, his blue eyes sizing me up coolly. The sheriff takes a step toward me, like I might pull out a gun at any point and shoot the mayor.
How would he hold up in a fight?
Dixon holds up a hand to the sheriff. “It’s all right, Jim.” His eyes stay on me. “Well, I’d heard there was overcrowding all over. Good for you. I’m sure your family was happy to have you home.”
The way he clearly just spews lies sends adrenaline shooting through my veins. It doesn’t surprise me that he’s not going to acknowledge that I was pardoned. One thing I do miss about prison was being able to find a time and place to clock a guy who’d pissed me off with generally no consequences.
“You know, it is good to be home with my family. They hired some damn good help while I was gone. I’ve always had a weak spot for a woman who knows her way around the kitchen.” I smile at him, seeing the invisible smoke rising from his ears. “And redheads,” I add.
After a few tense seconds of silence, he chuckles. “My daughter can make anything. She’s been telling me all about how much she loves that ranch. We have lunch every Sunday. I’ve really enjoyed hearing about it.”
I clench my fists at my sides.
What has she told him?
The radio strapped to the sheriff’s shoulder crackles to life. “Altercation at the Sundance Pavilion. We’ve got a man in custody. Need you here ASAP, Sheriff.”
My head whips in the direction of the sheriff. Before he has a chance to answer the radio, I’m reaching for my phone. When I look down, Duke’s name is on the screen with an incoming call. My thumb slides across it to answer as I walk away from the mayor.
“What happened?”
The announcer says Sterling’s name and number, so I turn to watch his ride while Duke talks.
“Some guy from the crowd jumped up onstage and attacked Monroe Blue. Her security was apparently held back, gone, I don’t know, so Cash got up there, pulled him off of her, and beat the shit out of him. I mean, beat the living shit out of him. An ambulance just hauled the guy off on a stretcher, and …”
“And what?” I bite out.
The other end of the line is silent.
Sterling held out for four seconds before violently being thrown off into the dirt. He stands up and walks toward the exit gate, clearly not hurt. I stride over to where he is, dusting the dirt off his jeans. He removes his helmet, and I jerk my head toward the parking lot to let him know we’re leaving. He slides through the opening in the fence, following me.
Finally, Duke speaks. “And I can’t find the girls. They’re gone.”
My blood runs cold. My little brother sounds scared, but he’s not nearly as scared as he’s gonna be when I get there.
“Find them. Now.”
I abruptly stop pacingmy bedroom floor, towering over her. I’m still wearing my hat and boots, unable to sit still for long enough to remove them. Adrenaline is pumping through my bloodstream at one hundred miles an hour.
“You and Dolly just ran off to the bar to get a drink, leaving Cash and Duke? Did you realize how fucking dangerous that was?” My voice betrays how deeply pissed off I am, but I can’t manage to even out the tone.
Rosie is standing at the foot of my bed, arms crossed and lips sealed. She’s wearing a ridiculous dress, her boobs practically spilling out of both sides of it.
And every man there got to see it, got to see her like this. She’s an arrest waiting to happen.
I know I’m being irrational. The rage and frustration I’m already feeling with Cash getting arrested is making it difficult for me to process the night. After what Mayor Dixon said about Rosie having lunch with him and talking about the ranch, I’m debating whether or not a random girl from a bar would be a better option for me to get some sleep tonight.
I need to get rid of her, but I can’t force myself to do it. I need her here.
She has an effect on me that has become vital for my sanity. Ironically, she also drives me mad.
I slept a solid seven hours when she was here on Wednesday. It would’ve been longer, but I got up early to check the bulls we had just cut the day before. I only got two hours on Thursday night, sleeping alone before waking up in a cold sweat, and spent the rest of the night trying to hold back the panic and convince myself I wasn’t back in prison.
At this rate, I can’t afford to not go to sleep soon. It’s already midnight, and our lawyer, Warner, said we have no choice but to bail Cash out tomorrow. They won’t let him go tonight.
I have no doubts about what he’s going through right now.
“Cash will be okay, Holden. He had thousands of witnesses tonight. He was saving her.” Rosie’s voice is soft.
I stop pacing, peering down at her. I’m suddenly overcome with intrusive thoughts of what would happen if I took her to bed, stripped her out of that sinful red dress, and explored her body like I’ve been craving to do.
What would happen? You’d fucking betray every major conviction you have.
Still, I desperately need a distraction from the fury I’m experiencing.
“What’s going on with you and Duke?” I demand.
She blinks up at me innocently. I see the way he is with her. It’s not exactly … direct desire. It’s flirtatious and forward, but the other day, when he and I went to lunch, he seemed about ready to take the waitress home for the night.
And Rosie is clearly not interested in him, although she plays along.
She flicks her hair over her shoulder, looking down. “What do you mean?”
I step closer to my bed, reaching my arm out to rest on the bedpost. “I mean, are you still fucking my brother?”
Why the hell it matters, I don’t know. But it does.
Her eyes shoot up to mine. She looks down at my lips for a split second before slowly shaking her head.
I exhale.
“I’ll have you know, I’m still a virgin,” she says, lifting her chin.
Her words end me and bring me back to life in the same instant.
She’s still a virgin. She’s never slept with Duke.
An invisible rope around my neck is suddenly loosened and removed. Her words settle inside my bones, their weight bringing a sense of calm over me.
Her tongue darts out to wet her lips as she studies my reaction to her words.
“I’m gonna need you to expand on that statement,” I say slowly through calculated exhales.
How far did they go?
My heart pounds.
That doesn’t solve any of the issues you have with her father and her spying on the ranch.
That doesn’t change things.
But doesn’t it?
She slowly sits on the bed, pulling her bare feet up under herself. “It means, I’ve never had sex before. I’ve never done anything close to it.”
I can’t stand here and look at her without touching her, so I start pacing again.
She’s a virgin. Inexperienced. Too good and pure for me.
“So, you and Duke dated for over a year and he never fucked you?”
She shakes her head. “I was still sixteen when it started. My father had made threats about charging him for it. He said we had to wait until I was eighteen. Once I was, I just … didn’t want to yet, I guess. I wasn’t ready.”
I stop, facing the wall away from her. “What about after, while I was locked up? There was no one else?”
I find that impossible to believe. She’s a walking, talking temptation. Every man in her vicinity leers at her like they’ve never seen a woman before.
“I haven’t been in a serious relationship since Duke,” she says simply. “I fail to see how this is any of your business.”
I flip around, seeing that she’s lying back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
Even when I thought she was off-limits because Redford blood is thicker than water, I nearly succumbed to all my carnal urges and twisted desires when I was sleeping next to her. I could never be with a woman who was with one of my brothers. But if what she says is true and she and Duke were never together like that … I have no earthly idea how I’ll do it now.
If I’m being honest with myself, Rosie Dixon has been my obsession for three and a half years, since the night she walked in on me with Madi in the barn.
And it just got ten times worse.