10. Evan
TEN
EVAN
I wanted to rip that guy’s head from his shoulders. The fact he thought he could disrespect Val like that burned acid through my veins. Younger me wouldn’t have thought twice about beating the shit out of him just because I didn’t like the way he looked at my girl.
My girl.
The thought was there before I had time to stop it.
But Val wasn’t my girl. She was a cop and someone on the ranch who knew I was never the good guy I was pretending to be.
I may have skirted the law more often than not, but with her resources as a cop, she could easily look up the muddied life of Evan Marino.
I let the hot spray of the shower pound over my shoulders and run down my back. All I’d wanted tonight was to take her out and try to lighten her mood. I could tell she felt stifled by life on the ranch and the weight of the secrets we all kept.
Instead, I’d nearly hiked her ass up on the pool table and driven into her.
A low groan escaped me at the thought, and my cock thickened.
Lately, fantasies of Val interrupted my daily work and absolutely consumed my nights.
All week I had tried to keep my distance, to let my initial attraction fade into the background, but it wasn’t working.
I ignored my aching hard-on. Jacking off in the shower would only make me want her more.
I knew that for a fact because I’d tried it a few nights ago and was even more amped up than before.
There was no getting Val out of my system.
Clearly, she was here to stay, and the fantasy and my hand just wouldn’t do.
No.
I needed more of her.
I’d always been good at torturing myself, so instead of going to bed, I toweled off and slipped on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Val had left her chunky sweater in my truck, and I nodded to myself at the reasonable excuse for knocking on her door so late.
The ride to the lodge was short and dark. Others had mentioned that the vastness of the ranch could be overwhelming, but to me it represented everything I was grasping at and desperately trying to keep hold of: freedom .
The gravel crunched beneath my tires, and when I swung around the hood of the truck, I nodded a silent acknowledgment to the agent posted outside the entrance.
Staying at the lodge wasn’t ideal—the rooms were small and communal living could take some getting used to, but I liked knowing Val was guarded around the clock.
She was a cop and I was sure she could hold her own, but the murky pasts of the people who lived at Redemption meant danger was never far from our doorstep. My boots were heavy on the wood floors of the lodge, and after a few strides, Scotty came into view.
“Evan.” He nodded in greeting. He was dressed casually in jeans and a flannel, but his posture was rigid, alert. Scotty was on night duty tonight.
“Agent Dunn.” I shook his hand.
His easy smile split his face. “Get out of here with that shit.”
I laughed. Scott was a good guy, and we’d become friends. In addition to working on the ranch, he was, in fact, an agent, and I loved giving him shit about it.
“What brings you ’round tonight?” His eyes caught on the feminine sweater I clutched. “Sniffing around the new gal?”
I tightened my grip on the sweater. While we were expected to lead “normal lives,” I was keenly aware that everyone here was being watched. Judged. Sex made people stupid, and the federal government didn’t want their cases blown because people couldn’t keep it in their pants. “No,” I lied.
He lifted one eyebrow. “Hmm.” After eyeing me a beat longer, Scotty decided to let it go. “Well, I’m glad I ran into you. There’s news.”
My skin prickled. Scott had been assigned to the ranch around the same time Gemma and I had arrived.
He’d been a marshal for some time and had connections all over the country.
Those connections helped keep tabs on my brother and his movements.
If Parker discovered that Gemma and I were alive, it would be only a matter of time before he sent his men to hunt us down.
“He knows.” The gravity of his words settled in on my shoulders.
Fuck. Parker knows.
He knew that Gemma was alive. That I didn’t die in that courtyard as reported.
“How?” I ground out the word .
“How the hell do any of these guys get their dirt? They’re parasites—eyes and ears everywhere. Somehow he found out that you are very much alive. Though it doesn’t seem like he knows where you are. Yet .”
My nostrils flared as Scott droned on about the details he knew.
Heat crept up my neck. My thoughts flashed back to finding Gemma in the basement of that house, broken.
Her chest and neck carved into, covered in blood and piss that weren’t even hers.
Parker had had his own sister kidnapped, and it had taken me six grueling days to find where his men had taken her.
The names and faces of the four men I killed as I dragged her from that basement didn’t haunt me. I felt no remorse for doing what had to be done to save my little sister. Had it not been for the fifth who’d gotten me with a baseball bat to the ribs, we would have gotten out and disappeared.
Instead, the cops had shown up, the man had fled, and I had hunted him down.
Twisting and turning through the alleyways, doubling back and searching, I’d reveled in the hunt.
When I’d come up on him beating the shit out of a female police officer and Gemma cowering behind her back, I’d panicked.
That piece of shit had shot an approaching cop and raised his weapon toward her.
Val.
At the time, I didn’t know who she was or that she was funny and stunningly beautiful and strong. All I knew was that she had protected Gemma, and when the gun was turned on her, I did what I had to do. When the bullet tore through me, it all went black.
I’d take that bullet again in a heartbeat, though now it might be for slightly different reasons. Val had a way of crawling under my skin, and whenever she was in the room, it felt like my chest was cracking open.
“Just don’t do anything stupid.” Scotty’s words snapped me back to the present, and I nodded. Somehow Parker knew that Gemma and I were alive. Gemma had uncovered his secrets, and to him that was all it took to turn on his own blood.
“Thanks, man.” I shook his hand again. “If you could keep this between us, I’d appreciate it, but I understand if you can’t.”
“Just looking out for you, man. Long as this shit isn’t dropped at my doorstep, I figure it’s no one’s business but yours. I’ll have my guy keep digging. But if this gets bad or he makes a move ... I’ll have to tell Ma about Parker.”
“’Course. I understand.”
Scotty turned and made his rounds through the darkened lodge.
Gemma was in danger. It was only a matter of time until Parker sussed out what had happened to us. We should probably leave the ranch. Run. It would be the only way to stay one step ahead of his unending reach.
The soft yarn of Val’s sweater burned beneath my fingertips as I clutched it tighter. If I left and Val was still here, she’d be as good as dead too.
I couldn’t win.
Defeated, I trudged back to my truck and headed back to my cabin. Val’s sweater lay in a gentle heap in the passenger seat, her soft scent filling the cab of my truck. I could have left it in the lodge for her to find in the morning, but for some reason I didn’t have the heart to leave it.