Chapter 47
Rise Up – Andra Day
Gunner
The weather was getting warmer, but there was a breeze, which meant even a week after the fire, there was still a hint of smoke in the air.
Things on the ranch were almost back to normal, not that it had ever stopped being busy, but the cloying depression everyone had been feeling was slowly ebbing away.
Gradually, we were healing, but if anything at all good had come from the fire in the stables, it was me and Cassidy.
We were tight. Like the real deal, couldn’t stop grinning, couldn’t keep our hands off each other in love.
She’d been my rock throughout it all, determined that we were going to push through it together.
I’d never thought of myself as someone who needed much.
A full day’s work, a few beers at the weekend and my family safe. That had always been enough.
But Cassidy?
Watching her trust me with her soft parts, with her whole damn heart.
..it wrecked me in the best way. I’d spent years being the one people leaned on; Nash, when he was heartbroken over Lily, and Wilder when he was too young to handle losing our mom.
I’d forgotten what it felt like to be needed for me, not just my strength, but my softness, too.
Cassidy saw that in me. She wanted that in me.
And for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to keep moving. I wanted to stay still, right here, and build something real. Lasting.
With her. For me. For us.
She was standing next to me now, quiet as we watched Marcus Gruber and his crew wrap up their first day breaking ground on the new stables.
“I’m just glad that he was able to fit us in,” I said, wrapping an arm around her, pulling her closer. “The winter barn isn’t ideal.”
“How long is it going to take?” she asked. “Did he say?”
Nash, Wilder and I had agreed that the new stables should include everything we needed for the camp. Even if the camp ended up being delayed, which looked likely seeing as Nate Jenkins still hadn’t got back to us about a second meeting.
“A month, maybe six weeks. Depends, when his plumber is available.” Each stall was going to have its own faucet and water trough, plus we’d decided on the addition of the showers, like the illustrations that Cassidy had come up with.
We were also adding a cool down area, double stables for mares and their foals and a damn walking machine of all things for rehabilitating horses.
The sort of thing that would have been good for Ariel.
After a moment of heavy silence, Cassidy reached up on my tiptoes to kiss my cheek.
“I know you’re thinking about Ariel.”
I swallowed back the emotion, looking out toward the remnants of the stable. “Keep hearing her.” My voice was rough, barely above a whisper. “In my dreams, I keep hearing her call for me.”
“Oh, baby.” Cassidy hugged me tighter.
“The logical part of my brain knows she’s gone. Knows there was nothing I could do.” Exhaling, my whole body shuddered with the memory. “But the rest of me…the rest of me feels like I failed her. Like I broke the promise I made to Mom to take care of her.”
“But you did,” Cassidy’s voice broke as tears tracked down her cheeks.
I reached out a thumb to gently wipe them away, hating that my pain had become her pain, too. “Hey, sweetheart, don’t get upset, it’s going to be okay.”
“But I hate that you’re dealing with this. That you lost her.” Her chest heaved on a ragged sob as she leaned into me.
“Me too, but at least I had her for all those years,” I said, stroking her hair. “And it’ll get easier. Mom used to say let the bad go, a little bit each day until it’s light enough to throw away. And that’s what I’m going to do,” I kissed her softly, “with your help, if that’s okay.”
“Of course. Even when it’s heavy, you give some of it to me to carry.”
“I don’t want to burden you too much.” I winked at her. “You already have to deal with my huge di—”
“Do not finish that sentence.” She gifted me with a beautiful smile, swiping away the last of her tears. “You are not a burden. That’s what love is, Gunner. Sharing the weight when it’s too much for one person.”
I studied her face, memorizing every single detail for eternity. “How did I get so lucky?”
“We both got lucky,” she whispered as I pressed a kiss to her temple.
Dropping my forehead to hers, I breathed her in, relishing every single second of her.
“Hey boss.”
I turned to see Tally walking toward me, her auburn ponytail swinging behind her.
She had a bounce in her step, all the time, a continual ray of sunshine around the ranch.
Makeup free but always with perfectly manicured nails, usually blood red, she was not exactly what I’d been expecting.
The main thing was she was great at her job and had fitted in well.
Too well with some of the idiots we had working for us.
It was rare I ever saw any of the ranch hands, yet since Tally had started to work for me at least one of them had popped by daily over some ridiculous notion or other.
She was desperate to learn, though, and had made it quite clear to all of them that she wasn’t interested in any workplace romance.
“You okay?” I asked her.
“Yes, great. I’ve just been working with Momma’s Pride.” She gave me a flash of perfectly white teeth. “He’s doing so well. Hi Cassidy.” She pointed to the guys digging for the foundations. “They started then?”
“They sure did.” I straightened my spine, determined to push away the misery for the joy. “You finished for the day?”
“No. I’m going to do some work with Devon, the gray mare.”
I pulled my phone out and checked the time. “Tally, it’s gone six, knock off for the day.”
She was staying in our guest bedroom until the stables were finished but then we were building her a small cabin adjacent to the office.
The idea that someone could have been above the stables when they set alight had scared the life out of me.
I knew a cabin could just as easily go up in flames, but I didn’t want to take any risks.
Besides which, I knew Charlie had done it, but who wanted to live above the stench of horse shit.
She shrugged. “I don’t have anything else to do.”
I knew she was avoiding going back to the house. Not because we hadn’t made her welcome because we had, she just felt like she was encroaching on our privacy.
“Ruby has left us dinner, and if you’re not at that table at six-thirty with the rest of us Bertie will not be happy.”
Glancing over her shoulder and then back to me, she shrugged. “If you’re sure. I’m happy to—”
“Tally, go get ready for dinner.”
“Okay.”
As she skipped away, Cassidy reached up on tiptoes and kissed my cheek. “You’re a good boss, you know that.”
“I do my best.” My grin turned to a frown when I saw Wilder and Nash stalking toward me, both with expressions as black as thunder. “What the hell is wrong with these two?”
My brother’s strides were long, their feet stomping angrily on the yard. As they reached me, Wilder thrust an envelope at me.
“What’s this?” I asked, moving my arm from around Cassidy and taking it from him.
“The fire report,” Nash bit out, running a hand through his hair.
I opened the envelope and took out a stack of papers. “And?”
Wilder’s nostrils flared as he inhaled slowly, thrusting his hands to his hips. “It’s fucking arson, Gun. Someone set fire to our stables and when I find out who, I’ll kill them.”
Cassidy gasped as my fingers gripped the edges of the paper looking down at the words in front of me.
The paper trembled in my hands as I scanned the report.
The words jumped out at me” ‘deliberate ignition’…
‘accelerant used’… ‘point of origin identified’.
My vision blurred, rage and disbelief battling for dominance.
“Arson?” The word sounded strange in my head, like it was someone else saying it. “How do they…what did…shit.” I looked over to the beginnings of our new stable block having no idea what to think.
“They found gasoline traces,” Nash said, his voice unnaturally controlled. “The other side of the wall to Ariel’s stall.”
Cassidy’s hand found mine, squeezing tight. “Were there any witnesses? Security cameras?”
Wilder shook his head. “Nothing. The cameras we had were destroyed in the fire, but they didn’t pick anything up before that.”
I felt dizzy, like the ground beneath my feet was shifting. Ariel hadn’t just died in an accident. Someone had deliberately set that fire, knowing horses were inside. Knowing they would suffer.
Looking at Nash and Wilder I didn’t think I’d ever seen them look as angry.
“My family was in the house.” Sounding dangerous, barely audible over the wind Nash’s hands curled into fists at his sides, knuckles bleaching white. “My entire world. If they had—” He cut himself off, turning away sharply.
I placed a hand on his shoulder, feeling the tremor running through him. My gaze drifted to the ranch house in the distance, and a cold, sick dread pooled in my gut as reality crashed down. This wasn’t just about Ariel or the stables. We could have lost everything. Everyone.
“The sheriff is coming by tomorrow morning,” Wilder continued. “They’re treating it as a serious crime, not just property damage but animal cruelty.”
“Do they have any suspects,” Cassidy asked.
Nash and Wilder exchanged a look that sent a shiver through me and my stomach rolling. She’d been asleep in my bed that night. She’d been out here helping with the horses. What if she’d been hurt or worse.
As a breeze ruffled the papers in my hand, I turned to Wilder. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Nate sighed. “Sheriff thinks it might be connected to the development dispute. Some kind of intimidation tactic.”
“J-Jenkins?” The name felt like acid on my tongue.
“No way of knowing,” Wilder bit out. “Could be someone working for the development company, could be someone with a personal grudge against us.”
I looked over at the foundations being dug for the new stables. What should have been a moment of hope, rebuilding from tragedy, was now tainted by the knowledge that someone had deliberately done this to us. To me.
“I want the security upgraded,” I said, my voice sounding distant to my own ears. “Cameras, motion sensors, the works. And I want someone watching the horses at all times until we figure this out.”
Nash nodded. “Already on it. I’ve got Ray setting up a rotation with the hands.”
Cassidy’s arm slid around my waist, her warmth anchoring me when I felt like I might fly apart with rage. “We’ll find out who did this,” she promised quietly.
“And when we do?” Wilder’s question hung in the air.
I folded the report and slid it into my back pocket, my mind made up. “When we do, they’ll learn exactly what it means to mess with the Millers.”
A breeze kicked up, carrying away the last traces of smoke and bringing with it the scent of freshly turned earth from the construction site. Whatever came next, whatever battles we would have to fight, one thing was certain was that we would rebuild. We would rise from this stronger than before.
Whoever had tried to burn us down would regret the day they struck that match.
Turning to my brothers, my blood boiled with anger and determination. “Just promise me one thing?”
“What’s that?” Nash asked.
“When we found out who did it, let me be the one to kill the bastard.”