Chapter 3 Tex
TEX
By the time we’d hauled the tools out of Rowan’s barn, the sun had burned off the last of the frost, leaving the air sharp but bright.
She walked ahead of me, shoulders tight, jaw set, every line of her body saying ‘I don’t need you here.
’ I’d seen that kind of posture before on men who’d been cornered too many times, on women who’d learned the hard way that asking for help came with a price.
But on her, it hit differently. She was fierce and stubborn, but underneath all that there was something else. Something brittle that she didn’t want anyone to see.
We reached the broken fence, and she dropped the toolbox with a thud. “I’ll take the posts,” she said. “You can handle the wire.”
I crouched beside the snapped line. “Are you always this bossy?”
“Do you always ask this many questions?”
“Do you always bite the hand that helps you?”
“That’s not a saying.” She rolled her eyes unfazed. “And do you always struggle to follow orders?”
I chuckled and held up my hands. “I’m following orders, sweetheart.”
She gave me a side-eye. “Good.”
I got to work, threading new wire through the eyelets, tightening it with practiced hands.
I’d fixed more fences than I could count on club land, around safehouses, backroads where someone needed a boundary put back up.
But this felt different, more important somehow.
This wasn’t just land, this was her land, her life.
And someone was trying to tear it apart.
I felt an undeniable protectiveness toward this woman I hadn’t even known twenty-four hours ago, a tug in my chest that said that something was about to change. Though within me or the club, I wasn’t sure.
I scanned the ground while I worked. There were footprints, heavy ones, leading toward the tree line. A cigarette butt was crushed into the dirt. It wasn’t hers or JD’s. I picked it up and scanned it, not recognizing the brand.
“You get a lot of visitors out this way?” I asked.
Rowan didn’t look up from the post she was setting. “Not the friendly kind, no.”
“Anyone specific?”
She hesitated. Just a flicker, but I caught it. “No one worth naming.”
That was a lie. Not a big one. Just protective. She didn’t trust me enough yet to hand over the truth.
I tightened the wire, testing the tension. “You know,” I said, keeping my voice even, “if someone’s targeting you, I’ll find out who they are eventually, but it would all go a hell of a lot quicker if you’d tell me anything you know.”
She stepped closer, chin lifted, and she pointed a finger at my chest. “I’ve been doing just fine taking care of this ranch until now. I don’t want you or anyone else thinking I’m someone who needs saving, or worse, someone who needs protecting,” she scoffed.
“I don’t think that,” I said. “I can see that you can handle yourself. But sometimes a little help is good. Like now. I can help you fix this fence. And I can help find out who’s cutting it and put a stop to it. To them.”
She opened her mouth, ready to argue again, but something in my tone must’ve landed. She closed it, exhaling hard.
For a moment, the only sound was the wind moving through the dry grass.
Her gaze drifted toward the mountains, like she was looking for an escape route. I followed her gaze, and that’s when I saw it.
A glint of metal near the base of a tree.
I walked toward it, Rowan trailing behind me. When I crouched and brushed away the dirt, my stomach dropped.
A Kings of Anarchy Colorado chapter pin, dirty and scuffed from years of wear.
Rowan’s breath hitched behind me. “That’s your club’s.”
It was a statement, not an accusation. And in that moment, everything shifted. The fence. The ranch. Rowan. The sabotage.
I pulled out my cell and JD picked up on the first ring, the Kings pin burning a hole in my palm.
“Tell me,” he said the second he answered.
“It’s bad,” I said. “Real bad.”
Rowan stood a few feet away, arms crossed tight, eyes fixed on me like she was trying to read every word I wasn’t saying. I turned away from her, lowering my voice.
“I found something on her land,” I said.
“What is it?”
“A Colorado chapter pin.”
Silence, heavy and loaded, spread down the line for several seconds like he was pondering his next words carefully.
“You sure it’s one of ours?” JD asked.
“I am.”
There was another beat of silence before he spoke. “Shit.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That about covers it. I’m heading back soon, but this isn’t looking good. Someone from the Kings is definitely involved.”
I ended the call before he could say anything else. I needed space to think, and to get my head around the fact that someone was trying to drag Rowan into club business.
I turned back to Rowan. She hadn’t moved. Her jaw was tight and her eyes stormy, but she wasn’t scared, she was furious.
“What did he say?” she asked without hesitation.
“Not much.”
Her eyes flashed. “I need to know why my ranch is being dragged into your business.”
“I know,” I said, “and I’m working on it.”
“Well work quicker,” she snapped, her voice low.
I looked out over her land. The open fields. The tree line. The long stretch of fence that someone had cut with precision. I had a feeling I knew why, but wanted to be certain before I voiced it, but she picked up on
“So you do know something,” she bit out angrily, her fury rising. “Tell me. I deserve to know, damn it. This is my life!”
I pulled out my phone, opening up the maps app and zooming in to where we were currently standing. Rowan came to stand closer, looking down at my phone.
“Point to where the fence breaks have been.”
She scowled and took the phone from me, zooming in and out while she found what she wanted. “Here, umm and here. I think one was here too. And then there’s today’s”—she jabbed at the screen—“here. Now tell me what you know.”
I heaved out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know anything for certain yet.”
She rolled her eyes, and god damn if it wasn’t the sexiest thing I’d seen all week. I cleared my throat and tore my eyes away from hers.
“Tell me what you think you know then. Because I know you’re thinking something in that thick skull of yours.”
I snapped my gaze back to hers, giving her a look that would make most men cower, but all she did was fold her arms across her chest and attempt to stare me down.
Fuck me, what was it with this woman?
“I think it’s because your ranch sits on a route someone wants.”
“A route?” she asked, her brow furrowed in confused.
“Yeah.”
I saw the moment she understood what I was saying. “Are you fucking joking? Someone wants my land to smuggle drugs and Lord knows what else.”
“Yes. And because you’re all alone out here, whoever it is thinks they can push you around and get what they want. But they can’t.”
Her breath hitched, just barely. She hated that word…alone. I could see it in the way her shoulders stiffened.
“I’m not helpless,” she snapped.
“I know that. I never said you were.”
“You implied it.”
“No,” I said, stepping closer. “I’m saying you’re a target. There’s a difference, Rowan.”
She looked away, jaw working. I could almost see the war inside her. The instinct to push me off her land versus the part of her that knew she couldn’t fight this on her own.
I didn’t push, or crowd her. Instead I waited for her to come to the same conclusion I had come to.
Finally, she said in a tone that could only be described as sullen, “So what now?”
“Right now we fix the fence,” I said. “Then I go talk to JD in person. And you stay close to the house until I figure out who’s playing games on your land. I can send someone to be with you so you’re not on your own. We have a couple of prospects that—”
She bristled. “I don’t need babysitting.”
“No one’s babysitting,” I said. “Jesus, I’m just trying to keep you alive, woman.”
Her eyes snapped to mine, sharp and furious. “So you think I’m in danger?” she asked, her mouth pinching in tight.
“I think someone wants you scared,” I said.
“And people who want you scared don’t stop at fences.
Especially if they know you don’t scare easily—which clearly you don’t.
This is only going to get worse before it gets better, sweetheart.
At least until I find out who’s doing this and put an end to them. ”
The wind picked up, carrying the scent of pine and cold earth. Rowan wrapped her arms around herself, not because she was cold, but because she was thinking.
“Fine,” she said finally. “But I’m not hiding in my house like some damsel in distress, because I’m no damsel and I’m certainly not in any kind of distress!”
“Never thought you were.”
She shot me a look. “Good.”
“Well alright then.”
“Fine!” she bit out.
And with that she stomped back over to the fence line and where the tools were still on the ground, and she got to work.
I smirked as I followed after. What was it about this woman that had me smiling like the cat that swallowed the canary?
I wasn’t interested in anything but one-night stands, and yet this woman had me conjuring up images of lazy mornings and late nights.
She had me thinking about a future I had never seen for myself, or wanted.
We finished the fence in silence, but it wasn’t the same silence as before. This one was heavier and charged, like the ground between us had shifted and neither of us knew what to do with it.
When the last wire was tightened, Rowan wiped her hands on her jeans. “Are you going back to town now?”
“Yeah,” I said. “JD and I need to talk.”
She nodded, but her eyes lingered on me a moment too long. “Be careful.”
I wasn’t expecting that. It hit me somewhere low and unguarded, and I frowned.
“Sweetheart, I don’t need to be careful,” I said. “It’s those fuckers that are messing with you that need to be careful.”
Her face fluttered with different emotions before she finally shook her head and looked away.
“What?” I asked, seriously.
She looked back at me, her hair brushing in front of her eyes. “Nothing.”
My gaze met hers and a look passed between us that was almost palpable. She swallowed and let her expression go blank again.
“I need to get back to work,” she said, the moment seemingly over. “Thanks for the help.”
She walked me back over to my bike and I climbed on, the engine roaring to life. “I’ll be seeing you, Rowan.”
As I pulled away, I caught one last glimpse of her in the mirror, standing alone in the middle of her land, chin high, shoulders squared, looking like she was ready to take on the whole damn world.
She kicked at a loose rock in front of her, dust swirling up around her brown cowboy boots, and I knew one thing with absolute certainty: whoever was messing with her had no idea what kind of fire they were playing with.