Chapter 7
Brie
By the time Harper and I reached her car, Gunner’s dually was nothing but a sun-silver glint on the flat Texas road, followed by a comet-tail of cattle dust. I watched his truck disappear, the pit in my stomach growing instead of going away, like the calories of a single powdered donut I was already planning to eat for breakfast. I clutched my scarf tighter and tried to play it cool, but Harper saw everything.
“You know you’re allowed to have a crush, right?” She said, unlocking the Lexus with a chirp. “It’s not a federal crime.”
I snorted and flopped into the passenger seat, staring straight ahead as she buckled up. “It’s not a crush,” I said too fast. “It’s more like a chronic illness.”
She laughed, a light, bell-like sound that didn’t match the rest of her—she was all long limbs and neat muscle, hair back in a no-nonsense braid.
She was annoyingly beautiful, but even more annoying, she wasn’t even trying.
“There are worse things,” she said, putting the car in reverse.
“At least he’s easy on the eyes. And great personality too, apparently. ”
The drive from the ranch into Dairyville was all empty, pale blue and yellow, telephone poles leaning like drunk frat boys, the only traffic the occasional feed truck or a flock of buzzards circling above.
I rolled down the window and let the wind slap my cheeks awake, sucking in the scent of sweet grass and something else—smoke, maybe, or the ghost of a prairie fire.
It was better than perfume. It felt clean, or at least honest.
Harper drummed her fingers on the wheel, humming along to the radio, which was playing a song I hated from a band I’d never admit I liked. I watched the world slide by, counting the fences and the miles.
We hit Dairyville’s Main Street in under fifteen minutes.
The town was literally a square of connected streets dotted with two-story connected buildings: a hardware store, antique shops, children’s clothing stores, a hair salon, boutiques, and even a furniture store.
It was like a scene from a Hallmark movie.
And slap-dab in the middle of one of the blocks, Buttercream probably from the prenatal vitamins.
Her stomach had officially crossed the line from “maybe she just likes bread” to “yep, that’s a baby in there (or in her case, two babies).
” She wore a floaty, cream-colored dress and sat at the largest table, fending off a tray of lemon bars from Maddie and Parker.
I got the sense that Aspen had already been through and orchestrated everything. There were matching mugs at every seat, flowers in a pretty little thrifted vase. That little witch put a comfy touch on everything.
Harper pulled up a chair, and I let myself be dragged into their orbit. The table was round, which made it impossible to ignore anyone, and within thirty seconds I had a cup of coffee in my hand and a lemon scone the size of my fist on my plate.
“Brie! Darling!” Juliet reached for my hand, squeezing it with more strength than I thought a pregnant woman could muster. “You look… radiant. Am I seeing some color in your cheeks?”
Maddie, who wore a tie-dye hoodie and had recently decided to dye her own hair pink, leaned over and said, “Don’t be weird, Jules. She looks exactly the same as yesterday. Except maybe more murder-y?”
I snorted, a crumb flying onto my scarf. “Wow, thanks for the compliment, Maddie. I’ve been working on my serial killer aesthetic. Trying to stay ahead of the trends.”
Parker, who looked like she hadn’t slept in three days, just grinned at me over the rim of her mug.
“Honestly, I respect that. If I had a face like yours; all sweet and cute, I’d be mean as hell too.
Keeps people on their toes.” Man, I loved Parker.
I hoped her lack of sleep was because her monster of a mate, Wrecker, was wearing her out in the sack and not because she’s tracking bad guys.
The banter ping-ponged around the table, with Harper reining it in when it threatened to go too far off the rails. It was easy, almost cozy, and for a few minutes I felt like maybe I’d landed somewhere safe, even if only temporarily.
The conversation turned, as it inevitably would, to men.
“So, Gunner,” Juliet said, slicing a lemon bar with a plastic fork. “How’s that working out? You two seemed… close at the pens today.”
I choked on a sip of coffee, nearly spraying it onto the table. Parker pounded my back, not gently. “Wow, subtle,” I wheezed. “I see where this is going.”
Maddie waggled her eyebrows, being silly. “Was he lookin’ hot? Or just like, Gunner cute? There’s a difference.”
Harper, for her part, pretended to study the donut in front of her, but I could see the way her eyes crinkled at the edges. “I think they’re asking how your home improvement project went,” she said.
I wiped my mouth and looked at the ceiling, buying time. “First of all, Juliet, I didn’t see you at the pens this morning.”
She smiled. “Well, Bronc has eyes everywhere, honey. And if he does, I do too.”
I just nodded. “And as far as Gunner. He fixed the door yesterday. Very competently. And then he accused me of being a brat and a project, and then he left.”
Juliet winced, and her hand found mine again, thumb rubbing circles. “Oof. That’s harsh, even for Finn.”
Parker snorted. “Not really. He’s been in a shit mood for weeks. You should’ve seen him at last month’s poker night. He barely spoke and almost broke a chair over Eli’s head.”
“That was Eli,” Maddie said, deadpan. “He could have deserved it.”
I shrugged, trying to seem unfazed. “Maybe I did too. He’s not wrong. I’m not exactly low-maintenance.”
Juliet’s voice dropped, all the air of a therapist with a thousand hours under her belt. “You’re allowed to be complicated, Brie. Trauma isn’t something you just walk away from.” She squeezed my fingers, and this time I didn’t pull away.
For a split second, the urge to spill everything—to tell them about the bath, the accidental call, all of it. But I swallowed it hard and tried to smile.
“It’s fine. Honestly. He’s just…” I gestured helplessly, searching for the right word. “He’s Gunner. I don’t know how else to put it.”
Juliet nodded, her expression soft. “He’s the pack’s enforcer for a reason. I’m just glad you’re not scared of him.”
I opened my mouth to correct her, but stopped. Was I scared of Gunner? Not exactly. I was scared of what he made me feel, which was worse.
The others had already moved on, Parker telling a story about a malfunctioning security system and Maddie one-upping it with a tale about a raccoon that broke into the motorcycle shop. I let their voices wash over me, picking at my scone until it crumbled to dust.
That was when I felt it—a sudden, sharp tingling at the base of my neck, like a static shock from inside my own skin.
For a split second, the bakery went blurry around the edges.
I looked up, expecting to see someone watching through the window, but all I saw was the empty street, the post office across the way, the Oscar statue outside the door.
I rubbed my neck, trying to chase the feeling away. “You guys ever get that thing,” I said, as casually as I could manage, “where it feels like someone’s thinking about you so hard it burns?”
Maddie nodded, solemn. “It’s called anxiety, babe. Welcome to the club.”
Juliet caught my eye, and for a moment, I wondered if she saw more than I meant to give away. “Sometimes it means a storm’s coming,” she said, voice dreamy. “Or maybe you just have a new pack. Takes a while to adjust.”
I tried to laugh, but it came out thin. “Maybe that’s it.”
The tingling faded, but the unease lingered, sticky and cold under my skin. I tried to shake it off, but couldn’t. I sat there, surrounded by women who’d survived worse than I ever had, and still felt like the only person in the room.
A shadow passed over the front window, just for a second, but when I looked up, there was nothing there.
The moment snapped, the laughter picked up again, and the spell broke. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was coming for me, fast as a pickup on an empty Texas road.
Harper and I walked the two blocks from Buttercream & Blessings to our new space, shoes crunching lightly tapping on the sidewalk, the sun a strobe between clouds and power lines.
Dairyville’s main drag looked like a diorama of “Old America” you’d see in a Norman Rockwell painting: flags on every pole, window displays of antique furniture, little mannequins modeling tiny dresses, shop owners sweeping the same three feet of curb for the thousandth time.
We came upon our storefront, and I tried to imagine how my gallery windows might look one day.
Harper unlocked the door with a flourish, giving me a look that said, “You better be excited about this.” I was. I truly was.