KADE
15
“You boys keepin’ close to the house tonight?” Grandma Jo’s keen gaze lands on each of us in turn as we clear the table from our weekly Monday night spaghetti and meatball dinner. When she prepares the meal, we clean. And it’s totally worth it. She’s a great cook, and she’s had a hand in making sure our entire family hasn’t gone to shit. After the accident that left us without parents, if our father’s mother wasn’t still alive, we’d have been completely orphaned. Rhett turned sixteen the day we lost them, nowhere near old enough to head our family, so who knows what would’ve happened if not for Grandma Jo.
I pinch my lips together as I set down a pile of dishes at the sink for the twins to wash and dry. She won’t like what I’m about to say, but here goes. “Actually, I’m heading over to Boozin’ Boots in a little while.”
“Kade Rivers.” Her eyes sharply narrow. “You’ve been over there an awful lot lately. What reason do you have to be goin’ to a bar on a Monday night?”
I hate to think I’m worrying her needlessly. There’s no doubt in my mind she’s thinking of Dad and what he went through with his addiction. I dip my hand into my pocket, working one of his sobriety medallions around and around with my fingers. If she knew the whole of everything I’ve been up to, she’d be madder than a wet hen, but maybe there’s a way I can twist this that she’ll approve of.
As I’m about to speak, Rhett’s brows go up, as if to say, You’re treading a fine line here. Watch yourself. The funny thing is, he isn’t even referring to the murder-y bits of late, because that’s a John Cena situation. It’s more the fact that I’m obsessing over Sage, thereby fucking with the yearslong family feud that I assume is very much still an issue in Grandma Jo’s mind. And from the shotgun Sage’s dad was waving around last Sunday, he feels the same. I’ve secretly hoped for years that the animosity would fade away now that the majority of the people involved in past events are gone, but I’m not going to bring up Sage to her. Not yet. Not if I can help it.
“Just going to make sure a friend is okay getting home. Had a rough go of it lately.”
“Is this a female friend?” One brow arches on her wrinkled forehead. And when I don’t answer, she continues, “Don’t do anything you shouldn’t be doing, Kade.” She lifts her chin, somehow managing to give the effect that she’ s looking down on me through her thick glasses, even though she’s about five foot two. “I’ve always told you boys… don’t ride bikes without a helmet.”
If only she knew . “I prefer pretty fillies.” I bend down to hug her before turning on my heel and leaving the room. As much as I want to please her, I can’t possibly let my wildflower go through this first night back to work alone—especially if she is fulfilling her regular closing duties. I don’t claim to know everything about Sage, but if I’d been attacked, I wouldn’t want to go back to the scene of the crime on my own after dark. And she doesn’t know that Toby is no longer a threat. The way I see it, the least I can do is be there to make sure she doesn’t panic.
Halfway to the front door, I pause when Rhett calls out, “Hey, can I talk to you for a sec?”
He’s been giving me the hairy eyeball all evening, and I don’t know what the fuck I did beyond being out later than usual, repairing the mistake I made. That is, besides making him help me bury a body last week. But it’s not like I’ve asked anything else of him. In truth, we haven’t discussed the human pig corpse in our field since the morning we put him more than six feet under.
“Yeah. Come outside onto the porch with me?” I throw open the door and step outside without waiting for him to agree. He follows me, and we listen to the sound of a million crickets filling the night air. “I can’t stay long. I’ve gotta make sure Sage is okay. She went back to work tonight.”
He clears his throat. “It’s our neighbor I want to talk to you about. I spoke with her earlier today for a little bit while I was over at Lilac Meadows checking in on the mare that gave birth last week.”
“What about?”
“A couple of things, actually. Why’d you…” He hesitates, his lips thinning into a tight smile as he heaves out a breath. “Kade, why’d you think it was necessary to get rid of Toby?”
I give him a confused side-eye. “What the hell do you mean? You saw Sage.”
Rhett presses his lips together, his exhale audible through his nose. “Yes. And I’m certainly not saying the asshole didn’t deserve a good beating for that, but”—he glances back through the windows, making sure neither Grandma Jo nor the twins are within earshot—“the fucker is decaying under one of our fields. And we put him there. Sage told me Toby texted and said he was sorry and would fix shit between them.” Rhett tilts his head to the side. “Did he deserve to die?”
I raise a brow at him. “Those texts weren’t from Toby, Rhett. They were from me. I was dotting all the i’s and crossing the motherfucking t’s. Leaving him alive wasn’t an option. He was going to hurt her again, and I couldn’t let that happen. ”
“I’m well aware you don’t want to discuss shit, but I need to know exactly what you did so I can keep you safe.”
“Not your fucking job, Rhett. I appreciate your help, but I don’t know that you need to know more.” He aims a steely look at me, and I relent. “Okay, fine. I took the time to look at his phone and study how he’d message her before I sent the texts.”
“This was when?”
“When I went to clean up the mess. I fuckin’ took care of business. Thorough is my middle name. I made it look like he took off. That goddamn bag we buried with him was for his trip to hell, Rhett. You were there when we got rid of all the evidence. Anyway, my point being Toby did not apologize and did not tell her he was going to fix things. I did what I thought was necessary and made Sage believe he’d taken off so she has closure and can move on. I needed to make sure no one would look for him.”
“Okay.” Rhett exhales harshly. “I guess I should have known better?—”
“Damn right.” I wet my lips. “Well, let’s get it all out in the open, then. What was the other thing you wanted to talk about? You said there were two.” Can’t imagine what the hell else has got his panties in a twist.
“This also came out of the conversation with Sage I had earlier today.” He grips the porch railing, looking away from me. “I think you’re scaring the shit out of her.”
My brows dart together, a hard line creasing my forehead. I’ve never taken my brother for an idiot, but I might have to start. “The fuck?” I mumble, wondering where this is coming from.
He shakes his head, letting out a heavy sigh as he stares at me like I’ve gone batshit crazy, which maybe I have, but it’s only because the memory of Sage’s huddled form in the alley haunts me day and night.
I release an exasperated sigh. “How am I scaring her?”
Rhett rakes a hand through his wavy hair as he stares pointedly into my dark eyes with his slightly lighter ones. “She feels like she’s being watched. Gave some examples of when she felt eyes on her—like mucking out the stalls and tilling the garden. You need to cut that shit out.”
My skin prickles. Nope. Not me. My eyes narrow on him. “Did she say anything more than that?” I work my jaw to the side, contemplating what I’ll do when I find out who’s messing with what’s mine . “I’m pretty fucking careful. She doesn’t know I’m there when I am.” Hell, she’s usually sound asleep. Like in the barn loft.
“She said it’s happening more frequently. Just a weird feeling she has. I couldn’t tell if she thought it was Toby or someone else. Of course, she has no idea it can’t be him. It could only really be… you .” He stares grimly at me, crossing his arms over his chest. “Our families might have a past, but I like the girl, Kade. She wants to run that ranch someday. Did you know that? Going to take business classes so she’s ready when the time comes. If you’re gonna fuck around with her, maybe you shouldn’t also put the fear in her eyes that I saw earlier today. She was trying to hide it, but I saw it all the same.”
“Rhett. I haven’t been near her during the day. I’m telling you right now, neither of those instances were me.”
He snorts. “Liar. If our group text held even a nugget of the truth, you were getting very familiar with her just a few days ago.”
My jaw locks up, and it’s all I can do to breathe now that I’m aware Sage has a stalker who isn’t me. “Check your amusement for a sec. Think about when she’s telling you she feels uncomfortable. I’m not fucking available during the day for it to have been me. I’m off in the fields with the cattle or tending to business in the office. There’s hardly enough time during the day to get everything done. We’re going from sunup to sundown. I generally feel the need to see her at night, the exception being when I realized she was down by the river that one day. Even then, she never saw me—until I meant for her to see me.”
Rhett grasps the back of his neck, and he draws in a deep breath that he holds, his jaw twitching as he thinks. “You’re making me more nervous than if you said it was you.”
“Yeah, well, if I don’t want her to know I’m there, I make damn sure there’s no way she’ll spot me.” I pause, watching the blood drain from his face, then nod, raising my brows, waiting for it to fully sink into his head that whoever is setting off Sage’s internal alarms sure as fuck isn’t me. “Have I been watching her? Sure. But it seems as though Sage has more than one pair of eyes on her. This is exactly why she needs someone to look out for her.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do by being her friend.”
Perturbed at his familiarity with her, I ask, “And why do you reckon it should be you and not me?”
“I guess I’ve gotten to know her enough that she trusts me. And… I think I might be the only friend she’s got since Noah left.”
I’d whip out my dick and mark my territory, but I don’t have time for this. If someone is stalking Sage, I need to be there to watch over her. “Contrary to what you might think, Rhett, I know her on a deeper level than you ever will. A whole nine inches deeper.” With that, I place my hat on my head, wink, and get the fuck out of Dodge. Okay, maybe I did whip my dick out after all.