Chapter 9 #2
I kissed her hard. Hard enough to walk her backwards to the bench and lift her tiny frame up against it. “Never. Fucking. Again. He doesn’t come into this house and he’s never alone with you. I don’t give a fuck if he’s dying. Is that clear, Evie?”
It was the only rule I’d ever give her, and only because I’d never trusted the man.
From the way she looked at me, she knew it too.
“Alright,” Eve whispered.
I eased my hold in her hair, stepping between her thighs. “Did he hurt you?"
She shook her head. “No. Nothing like that. It just felt…wrong. So wrong, Rhys.”
I kissed her again. “Good girl for being so damn strong.” She shivered in my arms and I crushed her against me. “Now, tell me what we’re doing for the day.”
What we were doing for the day included checking on that little doe. The creature seemed to have imprinted on me. Eve found that hilarious when the damn thing chewed a hole in my jeans. Not so much when she realized we weren’t going anywhere without it.
“Come on. Bring your other girlfriend,” she grumped at me, casting the doe a baleful eye.
But even Eve couldn’t stay snarky for that long.
“Just because you got me all muddy and cold for a day doesn’t mean you can steal my man.
Got it?” She tapped the doe’s nose, offering the deer a tiny handful of dried corn.
“Hey, that’s too much," I protested.
She looked up at me, surprised written all over her face. “Look who’s been researching,” Eve approved. “Maybe I can make a rancher out of you after all.”
I shook my head and dug my lunch pack out that she’d handed over reluctantly from the fridge before we left the big house an hour earlier. “Here. This is much better for you than that sugary crap," I told the undersized doe as she munched chopped carrots out of my hand.
“Fucking women hanging off you,” Eve muttered.
I grinned. “Jealous, firecracker?”
“If she ends up in your bed, I am out.”
“Noted.” I watched her as she sashayed away from me, her hips swaying with more emphasis than usual, I was certain.
It was nice being on the other side of that moral dilemma, if only for a short period.
I scratched the doe under the chin until she ran off too. Then I had my own girl to chase.
Eve climbed into my truck, her fingers brushing the back of my hand as I rested it between us. She’d wanted to check the boundary where I’d found her with that doe that attached itself to me once the critter drifted away, sated and full of both cuddles and food.
I had no objection, needing to work out where the excess wire came from where it should have been attached to something fixed, not wrapped about her livestock.
The drive up to the place I found her all muddied and cute with a doe in her lap was quiet.
, but not pensive. The tension between us had shifted from tight and fearful to a different sort that neither of us seemed to mind.
The few points of contact we had left sparks shearing across the back of my hand. It took everything in me not to pull the truck up, unhook her seatbelt and haul my girl into my lap, but Eve hated being rushed. That was part of what got us into this mess in the first place.
Hell, I’d had more patience back when I first arrived at Red Hart.
I let out a soft laugh as we drove, and Eve sent me a sideways peek through her hair.
She said nothing as we pulled up, jumping down from my truck to meet me near the fence where I thought we might start.
It was back a bit from where I’d found her beneath the ruined tree with its lightning charred trunk, but when we arrived at the place where the fence line was cut, someone else was already working on the damage.
My mouth tightened as I counted Joe Brunel’s team, each with their big black trucks parked in a neat line like a preordained barrier beside the fence.
Specifically on the wrong side of the fence, parked beside the wrong landowner.
Pierce leant me some workers.
I’d had reservations then, and more now.
“I thought you gave Joe a different assignment this morning,” I murmured to Eve, turning my head away in an attempt to keep our conversation private.
She shrugged and shook her head. “I was a little occupied,” she whispered back, meeting my eyes with intent written all over them. “Maybe Jude did, but…I kinda missed everything, thanks to you.”
“That’s fair.” I folded my arms. “But a distraction shouldn’t cost you a day’s full wages for work another man organizes on your behalf."
Eve made a kitten sound beside me, one I couldn’t quite decipher as either agreement or dissent.
“I didn’t expect to see you out here, Archer.” Pierce watched his men work, his ass parked on the hood of one of the trucks I suspected he had supplied for the season’s work as a boost in their income.
I frowned, making a note to check who exactly was paying these men and if they were double dipping.
“I go wherever the lady needs,” I answered him softly, not really paying attention to the spoiled landowner’s son.
I checked myself. Prior landowner’s son.
Now the heir himself, Pierce had full control of Black Hill and everything that entailed by himself.
I hoped he took better care of the property than his father had, and with a better attitude, though I doubted it.
Joe looked up from his work as a long piece of barbed wire that I remembered vividly sprang free, slicing the arm of the man beside him.
“You’ll want leather gloves for that.” I nodded to the freely bleeding mark on the man’s arm.
“Shane. I have something for that.” Eve turned back to my truck and sighed. “Wait. No I don’t. Not my truck. Archer, do you—”
“In the back.” I tossed her my keys. Eve rummaged around, intent on saving the man from his own stupidity in rolling his sleeves and not bringing his own first aid kit.
Instead, she ransacked mine, patching up the minor hurt and talking quietly. Joe downed tools, wandering over. I straightened, all too aware that the man never did anything casually, without a deeper purpose.
“Pierce mentioned that you traveled all the way across the country to be with the lovely Miss Eve,” Joe folded his arms across the fence post, leaning into Eve’s side of the property. His greasy hair dangled across his face.
I doubted I could keep the dislike off mine.
“Did he?” I clenched my teeth.
Pierce smiled with his own brand of slimy as he observed our exchange, keeping one eye on Eve and his other man.
“She’s a beautiful woman,” Joe continued, as though Eve wasn’t there to hear, or that worse, he thought the words a compliment. “You’re blessed to have found each other. Such love is a rarity.” He nodded to Eve, pushing away.
Joe disappeared into the knot of men who continued working as the one Eve tended excused himself without so much as a thank you for her efforts and joined his brethren.
Eve glanced at Pierce who reached for her.
She sidled away, slipping through the gap in the fence unscathed.
I slipped my arm around her shoulder, my interest peaked when he used Eve’s neighbor’s first name so readily.
Weren't you a Black Hill hire, Joe? I doubted they were meant to be on a peer to peer basis.
Eve stiffened at the contact before the workers, her body jerking in a hard line.
Too late I recalled her policy on sharing relationships before the staff, but hell, they’d have to get used to it, if she let me stay around.
I didn’t drop my arm, both of us still watching Pierce with a close gaze, half expecting him to let loose with something else crazy to screw with our day.
After a moment, Eve relaxed the slightest fraction, leaning back into me. A soft breath left her at the admission. I sent Pierce a shit eating grin. His eyes flashed as he turned away, barking orders to his crew working his land.
A slight ripple coursed through her and I wondered who she watched more closely—Peirce or Joe. The level of distrust grew with each until I knew exactly how she felt.
As we turned away, I couldn't help risking a glance over my shoulder.
Joe waved genially, smiling at Eve, who made no move to wave back.
The longer I studied him, the more my gut tightened.
Something about the way his smile and his eyes didn’t match up left me on edge, like there was something missing in him.
A connection with his brain that made him more predator and less human.
Loathe to turn my back on the man, I waited until Eve started off, disappearing between the trees as she headed back to the truck. She paused in the shadow, waiting for me with a small frown on her face.
Offering her a quick grin that I didn’t feel I followed her lead, my heart jerking when the backs of her fingers brushed mine, then curled inward, seeking more contact.
I interlaced our hands, torn between the hope that the woman I loved still felt the same about me. That same emotion warred with the fear that Joe saw just how much Eve meant to me as a weakness.
Especially when I couldn't see him—either his men, or Pierce—as anything but a threat that lay far too close to home.