Chapter 4
four
The wedding was in four days, and Valor Ridge had turned into a goddamn arts-and-crafts convention.
X stood in the middle of the main house with a roll of burlap ribbon in one hand and a hot glue gun in the other, watching Gemma Robinett direct traffic like she’d been born on the ranch instead of showing up a month ago on River’s arm.
She had the seating chart spread across the kitchen table, a dozen mismatched mason jars lined up on the counter, and a smile that made everyone want to help.
“ándale, Vega.” Gemma pointed the glue gun at him like a weapon. “Those chair sashes aren’t going to tie themselves, and I still need you to move the hay bales off the east pasture before the tent crew gets here.”
“You know I’m the PR coordinator, right?” X set the ribbon down and crossed his arms, leaning one hip against the door frame. “My job is to make this place look good on TikTok, not to wrestle hay bales. That’s Boone’s job. Or River’s. River loves hay bales.”
“River’s busy stringing fairy lights. And Boone’s already out there. You want to tell him he’s doing it all alone?”
“He prefers alone.”
She snorted. “Okay, go tell him that. I want to see how hard he punches you.”
X thought about Boone Callahan— six-four, built like a brick shithouse, perpetually scowling—and decided he didn’t feel like pressing his luck today. He pushed off the door frame and grabbed a pair of work gloves from the bench by the door.
He left Gemma to her mason jars and walked out into the July afternoon.
The sun was high and bright, the sky a deep blue that made the mountains look painted on.
A half-dozen ranch dogs sprawled in the shade of the porch, tongues lolling, too hot to do anything but breathe.
Kavik lifted his head when X passed, let out a low, dramatic howl, then dropped back onto the boards like the effort had nearly killed him.
“Same, amigo,” X muttered. “Same.”
The east pasture had been mowed and now looked like a wedding shop had puked all over it.
White folding chairs stood in rows that didn’t quite line up yet, stacks of rented tables waited under blue tarps, and River stood on a ladder stringing fairy lights between trees while badly singing “Free Fallin’. ”
“You’re off-key, pendejo,” he called as he passed, and River just grinned at him and turned up the volume, serenading every man within a five-mile radius.
Boone was at the far end of the pasture, hauling hay bales off a flatbed like they weighed nothing.
Which, for him, they probably did.
“Why the hell would you provoke him?” he grumbled and winced as River held a sustained high note.
“Just so I can watch your eyelid twitch.” X grabbed a bale and immediately regretted every life choice that had led to this moment.
The twine bit into his palms even through the gloves, and the bale weighed approximately as much as a small refrigerator.
He staggered three steps before finding his balance, then dumped it next to the growing pile by the fence.
They worked in silence for a while. The sun pressed down, and X felt sweat start to bead along his hairline.
He wasn’t built for manual labor. He was built to hold a phone at a flattering angle and make ranch life look aspirational.
He was built for show and fun and occasionally getting bucked off a bronco for views.
But Gemma had that thing about her—that way of asking that made you want to say yes, even when you knew damn well you should say no.
He’d noticed it the first night River brought her up to the main house.
How she’d looked around at all of them, these broken-down men with their rough edges and their silences, and she hadn’t flinched.
She’d just smiled and asked who wanted to help her carry in the groceries so she could treat them all to a decent meal.
And a bunkhouse full of grown men had stood up like she’d pulled their strings.
X didn’t trust it.
He’d spent too many years watching people use charm like a weapon to buy it at face value.
Hell, he’d weaponized charm himself for most of his life.
But Gemma hadn’t asked him for anything except burlap ribbon and hay bales, and she looked at River like he was something worth keeping, and that was enough.
“You think she’s good for him?” X asked, nodding toward the couple as Gemma wandered out to give River a fresh bottle of water.
Boone set a bale down and straightened, taking off his black Stetson to wipe sweat from his brow. He looked at the couple and shrugged. “You ask him.”
“I’m asking you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve known River longer than I have. And because if I ask River, he’ll make a joke and change the subject.”
Boone considered this. His face was all hard angles and old scars, but there was a patience in the way he stood there, like he had all the time in the world.
“She’s good,” he said finally. “Question is whether he thinks he deserves it.”
River had met her one night at the Rusty Spur, and X had watched him fall for the bubbly blonde the way River did everything—fast, loud, and with his whole chest. It made X’s teeth ache.
Not because he was jealous.
Nope. Wasn’t that at all. So what that all of his friends were pairing off while he was still pining after a woman who continued to ice him out.
He glanced toward the wooden arch where Jax and Nessie would say, “I do.” Mariah was there, measuring, sketching, planning the flower arrangements.
There was a kind of music in the way Mariah moved—not flashy, not meant for an audience. It made everything else on the ranch go blurry at the edges anyway.
He didn’t realize he’d been staring until Boone cleared his throat behind him.
“You planning on helping, or just burning a hole through her back?”
X pulled his glove back on and grabbed another bale. “I’m helping.”
“Sure.”
He carried the bale past the arch. The twine bit into his palms, and he told himself he wasn’t going to say anything. Just keep walking. Drop the bale. Walk back. Easy.
Then Mariah shifted her weight on the ladder, and the lowest rung squeaked in the dry grass, and the thought of her falling—of anyone catching her—made the words come out before he could stop them.
“You need a hand up there?”
She didn’t turn around. “I’m fine.”
“I know you’re fine. I just figured you might want somebody to hold the ladder.”
“It’s stable.”
“Now it is,” he said. “But one good gust off the mountain and you’re decorating from the ground.”
Mariah’s hands paused on a bundle of pale pink roses. Then she reached up and tucked a sprig of greenery into the arch, smooth and unhurried, like he wasn’t even worth an eye roll. “Go help Boone, X.”
The sound of his name in her mouth hit him somewhere under the breastbone. He hated that it did. Hated that one flat syllable could make him stand there like an idiot, searching for a comeback that wouldn’t sound like begging.
“I’m giving you my valuable construction expertise in exchange for a dance at the reception,” he said. “Offer expires in five seconds.”
“Good.”
That wasn’t quite a smile twitching at the corner of her mouth. And it wasn’t a no either. He took it. He was pathetic enough to take it.
He dropped the bale and wiped his hands on his jeans, turning back toward the flatbed. Boone had already unloaded two more and wasn’t even breathing hard.
Fucker.
He turned back to the flatbed, but paused when the dust cloud appeared on the road. At first, he thought it was one of the ranch trucks coming back from town. But the vehicle that emerged from the dust was black, unmarked, with government plates and a driver who sat too straight behind the wheel.
Corbin Brandt.
He stopped in front of the main house and slid from the driver’s seat.
He was tall, broad through the shoulders, and wore the same dark suit he always wore, regardless of the heat.
His expression gave nothing away. The kind of blank that meant something very bad had happened, and he was about to be the one to break the news.
Across the ranch, everyone stopped what they were doing.
Walker, who had been working on a secret side project with Anson, emerged from the forge and took his soot-stained gloves off, shoving them in his back pocket.
Jax stepped out of the kennels, where he’d been working with the newest batch of dogs they’d rescued from a hoarder, and worry creased his forehead.
Brandt had been his future wife’s handler when she was in WITSEC, so he knew better than anyone the the deputy US marshal rarely stopped by with good news.
Johanna came out of the house with Maggie and Nessie right behind her, and Nessie stopped short when she spotted Brandt, her hand going to her throat.
Ghost appeared from wherever he’d hidden away for the day and strode out to meet the Marshal, getting there at the same time as Walker.
“Marshal,” Walker said and held out a hand. “How can we help you?”
Brandt shifted a manila folder under his arm to accept the handshake, and didn’t waste time with greetings. “We have a situation.”
Puta madre.
Sentences that started with we have a situation never ended with and it’s gonna be fine.
X dropped the hey bale and drifted closer to the group. If there was a new threat to Nessie or anyone else in his adopted family, he wanted to know.
Boone and River also stopped what they were doing and followed.
Walker nodded toward the house. “Let’s go inside.”
The living room and kitchen had been a hive of wedding chaos an hour ago. Now it felt like a tomb. Gemma cleared the kitchen table of mason jars and seating charts, and she stood in the corner with her arm around River, watching. Everyone else crowded in.