Chapter Five
~ Ransom ~
I always liked the barn at this time of day—just after dinner, when the light through the west windows turned every dust mote into gold and made the ancient timbers look like bones under the skin of the world.
It was one of the few places on the homestead where nobody asked me about my future, my relationship status, or the “bad attitude” my grandfather swore was going to land me in the penitentiary.
Here, I could lean against the stall, rhythmically brush down Old Blue’s mottled hide, and pretend for five minutes that I belonged in my own skin.
Old Blue didn’t care that I’d moved out, that I’d inked half my body, that the closest thing I had to a significant other was the guy who’d arrested me three times before we were legal adults.
He just leaned into the bristles, eyes half-shut, and let me work the dust out of his coat.
He was the only living thing in the valley older than the rumors about my moral character.
I’d almost relaxed—almost—when I heard the crunch of tires on gravel outside. Not the lazy, rolling crunch of a family car, but the slow, calculated roll of a county-issued SUV. Engine low, doors heavy, tires way too expensive for what the taxpayers wanted to believe.
My pulse jumped. I set the brush on the ledge and ran both hands over my hair, tucking the strays behind my ears. Blue flicked an ear and grunted like he knew who was coming, too. I didn’t need to look to know the exact make, model, and paint oxidation pattern of the rig pulling up.
From across the yard, my mother’s voice rose over the clatter of dishes in the kitchen. “Ransom, you’ve got a visitor!” Like I needed an engraved invitation.
I could have pretended not to hear, could have ghosted out the back and made Floyd chase me through the orchard. But I stayed put, hands on Blue’s withers, waiting for the door to open. I wanted to see how long he’d hesitate at the threshold, if he’d track me by sound or sight.
Boot-steps on the concrete. A pause, just long enough for him to square himself. Then the door swung open, catching on the warped jamb, and the air changed—same barn, same evening, but charged with static that prickled my arms.
Sheriff Floyd Hardesty in the flesh, looking like he’d been cut out of a recruitment poster and dipped in starch.
Even off the clock, his uniform never had a wrinkle.
He surveyed the room with that cop gaze, registering horse, hay, cluttered saddle racks, and me, all in one pass.
He kept his arms loose at his sides, but I could see the tension in his fists, the way he flexed each finger before he took another step.
“Evening,” he said, voice flat as a two-by-four.
I grinned, showing a little more teeth than necessary. “Sheriff. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Official visit,” he said, and produced a notepad from his shirt pocket. The movement was crisp, automatic. “I’m supposed to ask if you’ve noticed any unusual activity out this way. Couple of the neighbors reported seeing trucks on the access road after dark.”
“Is that so,” I said. I let my accent drag a little, just to watch his eyebrow twitch. “I’ll keep an eye out, boss.”
He gave me a withering look, the kind designed to flatten a perp or make a rowdy kid piss himself. It never worked on me. I’d seen that face pointed at me from the time I was thirteen and shoplifted beef jerky from Miller’s General. It was the only look he had, as far as I could tell.
“Not here to bust your balls,” Floyd said, “just need the facts. You see anything, you let me know.”
He glanced at Old Blue, then at my hands, like he was counting for evidence of dirt under my nails. I wondered if he wanted to touch me as badly as I wanted to mess up that perfect part in his hair.
“You can relax,” I said. “No meth labs out back, unless you count the yeast Dad uses to homebrew.”
He didn’t smile, but the edge of his mouth softened. “You’d be surprised what counts as probable cause these days.”
“Try me,” I said, and took a slow step forward, closing the gap between us to two feet. In the barn, that’s intimate. In our world, it’s a challenge.
He didn’t back up. He never did. He just set his jaw and looked down the bridge of his nose at me. “I am trying you, McKenzie.”
I laughed, just loud enough for the horses to flick their ears. “You gonna frisk me, Sheriff? Might need a warrant for that.”
“Don’t tempt me,” he said, but it didn’t come out as a joke. It landed somewhere between a warning and a plea.
The sun slanted through the window, turning the floating dust into a white-out. For a moment, we were the only two things in focus—the battered roan in the stall, and the two men pretending not to remember everything they’d done to each other before the world taught them better.
I let the silence stretch, enjoying the way it made him fidget, then tipped my head toward the back of the barn. “You wanna see if the perp’s hiding in the tack room?”
His eyes narrowed, reading for subtext, but he nodded. “After you.”
I led the way, deliberately slow, making him follow.
The tack room was barely big enough for two, maybe three if you liked each other.
The door shut with a damp click and cut off the outside light, so we were left in the afterglow of a single dusty bulb overhead and the sour-sweet reek of old leather.
Floyd leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “You always this cooperative, or am I just lucky?”
“I like to make the sheriff feel special,” I said, leaning opposite him, palms flat on the rough wood.
He let his eyes drag over my arms, the curve of my back, the tattoos that snaked up my left bicep and disappeared under my sleeve. He was looking for a weak spot, but I was done hiding them.
“So,” he said, “you really haven’t seen anything suspicious?”
“Depends on your definition,” I said. “Some folks in this town think every time I breathe it’s a crime.”
He smirked. “Maybe if you didn’t advertise so hard, they’d let you be.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” I pushed off the wall and closed the gap between us, slow and deliberate. He braced, but didn’t move. Our bodies almost touched—his uniform and my sweat-dark flannel, his badge and my ink, his careful order and my practiced chaos.
“Careful, McKenzie,” he said, and I heard the catch in his throat. “That’s resisting a peace officer.”
I grinned, all teeth. “You gonna cuff me?”
I watched his eyes, watched the pupils blow wide. I could feel the heat off him, the charge that’d been building for weeks, maybe years.
“Do you want me to?” he said, voice gone hoarse.
And that was it. The last sandbag against the flood. I pressed him into the wall, hard enough to knock dust loose from the planks. He made a noise—half protest, half hungry—and grabbed my shoulders, but I was stronger. Always had been.
I pinned his wrists over his head, one hand gripping both with ease, and leaned in until our mouths were a hair apart. His breath was hot, laced with coffee and the metallic tang of adrenaline.
“You got something you want to say to me, Floyd?” I whispered.
He glared, but it was already over. He let me have him.
I crashed our mouths together, rough, teeth knocking before we found the angle.
His lips were chapped and tasted like desperation.
He kissed back, hard enough to bruise, and then let out a shudder when I pressed my thigh between his legs, pinning him to the wall from chest to groin.
His badge dug into my sternum, cold and sharp, and I liked the way it felt—like evidence, like proof.
He tried to break the hold, but I just squeezed his wrists tighter. He moaned—actual, honest-to-god moaned—and I used the free hand to grab his belt, yanking him flush against me.
“Fuck,” he gasped, but he didn’t tell me to stop.
I worked his wrists higher, grinding our bodies together, and let the weeks of wanting pour out. I bit his jaw, licked the sweat off his neck, felt him buck under me. He was rock hard, no hiding it, and he shoved his hips up to meet me, the friction making both of us gasp.
He turned his face, trying to get a breath, but I caught him by the chin, forced his mouth open and kissed him until he whimpered. I knew what he needed. I’d always known.
When I finally let his wrists go, he left them up, fingers flexed like he didn’t know how to use them. I slid my hands down his chest, found the buttons on his shirt, and popped the first one.
He grabbed my wrists, but I just stared him down. “You really want me to stop?”
He didn’t answer. He just let his hands fall away, and stared at me like he wanted to eat me alive.
I grinned, all triumph and want, and pressed him to the wall one last time, badge cutting into my ribs, every muscle in my body singing with it.
I thought he’d fight harder. For all the times Floyd Hardesty tried to pin me with his lawman stare, he never had much left in the tank once you got your hands on him.
He bucked against my hold, trying to twist away, but I just rode the momentum, catching both his wrists and pinning them to the rough planks above his head.
The struggle felt real for half a second—he grunted, and his chest heaved against mine—but then something in him flickered and folded, like a wild horse catching the scent of water.
His mouth was open and he made a sound—pure want, no filter—before our teeth clacked together again. I felt the split of his lip, tasted salt and coffee and the bitterness of a man who’d denied himself too long. He didn’t kiss like a man with regrets. He kissed like a man starving to death.
I dug my thumb into the bone of his wrist, holding him steady, while my other hand shot down and gripped his hip.
The fabric of his uniform was thick, almost slippery under my palm, but I got a fistful anyway, dragging him tighter into me.
He was already hard, and I used my thigh to press up against the line of him, grinding until I heard him gasp into my mouth.