Chapter Four
Pope had slept, but not much.
What little sleep he managed came in broken stretches between too many thoughts and the memory of Summer standing in that parking lot looking tired enough to fall over while still trying to push him away.
By the time dawn broke over the ranch, he’d given up on going back to sleep. So he went to sunrise yoga with Zee.
The classes started as an optional program, and somehow they’d become a regular thing for most of the vets. Most days it was held outside so they could commune with nature, whatever that meant. But when there was bad weather, the classes were held in the dining hall in front of the big windows.
Since there was a light drizzle this morning, Zee stood at the front of the room instructing a bunch of former military men with old injuries trying not to complain through stretches they secretly enjoyed.
Pope kept mostly quiet through it, moving through the poses with the same discipline he tried to bring to everything he did. His body had loosened a little by the end, but his head didn’t. Summer stayed right beneath the surface.
The flat tire. The way she looked when she realized she needed help.
The way she sat next to him on the ride to her place, silent, hands twisted in her lap.
After Zee concluded the yoga session with everyone sitting on their mats going through the final breathing exercise as the sun streamed over them, he gave up on getting Summer out of his head.
By eight o’clock he was out with the horses, moving through the rituals he’d performed every day since he came to the Black Heart. He filled his lungs with the sharp, cold morning air, taking in the traces of hay and leather and the bite of Wyoming spring.
One by one he greeted the horses and led them out of their stalls to stretch their legs in the pasture. When he reached Flint, the gelding shook his head and whinnied.
Pope settled him with a low command and a hand along on his neck.
“You’re getting too damn smart.”
The gelding flicked an ear back at him like he understood every word. Pope wouldn’t be surprised if he did.
Training the horse had become the one task where his head quieted down some. Horses didn’t care about complicated emotions or therapy evaluations or whether a woman decided he wasn’t built for forever. They just reacted with trust.
By the time he finished working with Flint, sweat dampened the collar of his shirt despite the cold. He turned Flint loose to graze with the rest of the horses and started toward the lodge.
He slipped a hand into his pocket and felt the set of keys. Willow’s keys. He took a detour toward the security office where she spent her early mornings to return the keys to her. But his phone rang halfway across the yard.
Pope saw the screen and everything inside him gripped.
Summer.
He whipped the phone to his ear. “You okay?”
A tiny pause met the question before she spoke. “Yeah. I just…wanted to thank you again.”
Relief made him stop walking and face the sun, as if Zee’s instruction to ground himself was ingrained in him now.
“For taking you home? Wasn’t a big deal.”
Another silence followed. Then quieter, she said, “I meant for paying for the new tires.”
“What?”
“The garage called this morning. Said there was a credit applied to the account. I know you did it.”
He froze. Because he hadn’t.
Worse, he wished he’d thought of it first.
“Summer,” he said slowly, “I didn’t pay for the tires.”
More silence, not the comfortable kind. The air seemed to be sucked out of the line, and he pictured what her expression might look like on the other end, that little crease forming between her brows she got when she was confused.
Or worried.
“Oh. You really didn’t?”
“No.”
Another long pause stretched between them. “Okay,” she said finally, voice almost inaudible. “I just… Okay.”
“Summer—”
“I gotta go.” Her tone came out with an underlying urgency he didn’t like at all.
The call ended, and he lowered the phone, jaw clamped hard enough to ache.
None of this felt good.
He took off for the Black Heart Security office. He needed to talk to somebody before he climbed into his truck and drove straight into town.
Willow sat at the long desk with a newcomer to the ranch sitting beside her. The new trainee, Ayla, redheaded and freckled. Both women turned to look at him as he burst in.
“Morning,” Willow said.
He set her set of keys on the corner of the desk. “Is there someone I can talk to?”
Concern flickered over Willow’s face, and Ayla’s eyes widened.
“You mean besides me?” Willow chose her words with care.
“Yeah.”
“Rhae?”
He shook his head once. “No. I mean somebody on the security team.”
Willow pushed away from the desk. “What’s going on, Pope?”
“I’m concerned about Summer.”
She stood to face him. “What happened?”
He explained quickly about waiting outside the Stockyard to make sure Summer got to her car safe.
Then the flat tire and how he took her home.
When he told her about Summer’s phone call and how she thanked him for paying for them, Willow’s full lips had gone flat and Ayla’s cheeks grew pink with alarm.
“I’d like someone on the team to look into the matter. Find out who paid for Summer’s tires. If it’s nothing—a family member or a friend—good. But I didn’t like how quiet she got on the phone.”
“Oh dear,” Ayla said quietly, her freckles standing out even more thanks to how pale she’d become.
Willow’s gray eyes, a trait every Malone shared, filled with sympathy. “You’re right to ask for help for Summer, Pope. But she has to be the one to hire security.”
“I’ll pay for it,” he said. “Look, it’s important. It’s not just Summer I’m worried about—she has a young son.”
Worry crossed both women’s faces. Willow stared at him for a long second, and whatever she saw on his face must have made up her mind because she nodded.
Behind them, the office door opened. Carson Malone, eldest of the family and the founder of Black Heart Security, stepped in with an enormous coffee mug in hand, stopping when he caught the tension hanging in the air. “What’s going on?”
Willow didn’t miss a beat. “We’re going to the bar for lunch, brother.”
His brows drew together. “Layne was going to make us lunch.”
“We’re going to the bar.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so, Carson.” Her word was usually final.
Ayla looked impressed and Carson looked like he wanted to argue more and then thought better of it. “Fine.”
“Good.
For the first time since Summer’s call, Pope felt like he could exhale.
He felt better knowing Willow shared enough of his concern to take action, but he still hated that his hands were tied. And he hated that Summer was scared and wouldn’t allow him to ease her mind.
He met Willow’s gaze. “Thank you.”
She set her hand over the keys on the corner of her desk. “We’ll figure this out.”
He nodded and headed toward the barn again.
He’d planned to grab breakfast but now his appetite was gone. The knot in his gut filled the entire space. He looked into the distance at an older barn, original to the property, like something forgotten but still strong enough to stand.
He didn’t even make it to the barn door before tiny footsteps pattered the ground behind him. He already knew what—or who—made that sound, and he turned to catch the toddler rushing his way.
“Neeeeeigh!” Navy did one heck of a horse impersonation, and it wasn’t possible to keep a straight face despite his worries.
He caught the child and swung her up onto his shoulders, where she sat like a queen, little pink cowboy boots lightly beating against his chest.
Rhae rounded the corner, smiling at the sight of her young wayward daughter, the new baby strapped to her chest in a carrier.
“There you are. Can you keep an eye on her while I run back to the lodge for a half hour or so?”
“I can manage.” Horses brought him calm, and Navy was a good distraction from the things weighing on his mind. She was one blessed little girl to be part of the big Malone family.
Rhae smiled. “I figured. Thanks, Pope. Listen to Pope, Navy.”
She wiggled on his shoulders and he lowered her to the barn floor. She shot off down the center aisle, boots pounding. Her favorite horse stuck her head over the stall door, long nose reaching down for Navy’s outstretched hand and a slice of apple she always had stuffed in her pockets.
The little girl laughed, all bright joy and trust that the world was good, but Pope’s mind shifted right back to Summer.
He wasn’t so carefree.
Especially when somebody out there was watching her close enough to know exactly what she needed.
* * * * *
Summer had worked the eleven-to-seven shift enough times to know lunch and dinner meant more tables and better tips if she kept moving and smiled like her feet didn’t ache in her worn boots by one-thirty even though she still had most of a shift left to survive.
She moved between tables with a coffeepot in one hand and an order pad tucked into her apron, smiling through complaints about the fries being too crispy or too soggy while her mind kept returning to the same thing it had all morning.
She should feel relieved every time she looked out the front windows and saw her car sitting there with four new safe tires instead of balding rubber and a patched sidewall.
All paid for by a credit on her account that she never created and shouldn’t exist.
She should feel relieved she didn’t have to come up with a large sum of money she didn’t have. Instead, she had so many questions she could barely keep the orders straight.
The guy at the garage had told her the puncture looked deliberate.
Not caused by road debris or a nail she picked up driving—deliberate.
Then he’d told her the car was all-wheel drive and she couldn’t replace just one tire.
They were pretty worn, he’d said, like he wasn’t giving a total that made her stomach hollow out.
He told her she needed new ones before the next Wyoming winter anyway, like she had a money tree growing in her back yard.