43. Graham
GRAHAM
I knew something was up as soon as I came in from feeding the horses.
I’d seen Holden and Audrey pull through the gate, but I’d been busy in the barn, and I’d wanted a few more minutes to brace myself for the sight of the woman who had started to dominate my dreams.
Now Holden was sitting in one of the chairs in the living room, a beer in his hand, while Ridge wore a groove in the wood floors with his pacing.
“I’ll kill him,” Ridge said.
I took off my hat at the door and hung it on one of the pegs. “Who?”
“Who do you think?” Holden asked.
Of course. Ashcroft.
I crossed the room. “What did he do?”
Holden frowned at my feet. “Doc says we shouldn’t wear shoes in the house.”
I looked down and realized Holden was bare foot, Ridge in socks.
“For fuck’s sake,” I grumbled. “Will someone tell me what the fuck happened?”
“Ashcroft followed Audrey to her apartment this morning after she dropped Ella at school,” Ridge said. “Holden got there in the knick of time.”
Every nerve in my body went still. “What does that mean?”
Holden took a drink of his beer. “It means that fucker had his hand around her neck when I busted into the apartment.”
Fury turned my blood to ice. “Motherfucker.”
“We’re going to have to take care of him,” Ridge said.
I stalked to the bar for a whiskey.
Make that a double.
“I took care of him just fine,” Holden said while I poured two inches of whiskey into my glass.
“I’m not talking about throwing him out on his ass.” A shadow staked Ridge’s voice, a darkness I hadn’t heard there since he’d landed at the ranch a decade earlier.
“She okay?” I asked, dropping into the chair opposite Holden.
“As okay as she can be,” Holden said. “I put her to bed a couple hours ago, made her call in sick to work.”
“Good.” I took a drink of the whiskey and let it burn a path down my throat.
“Dealing with Ashcroft is a risk.” I stared at the liquid in my glass. “For all of us.”
We’d built our lives around the rule of staying under the radar. Farm the land, take care of the animals, move a few guns now and then.
Don’t speed on the highway.
Pay the taxes on time.
No fighting at the bars.
“It’s a risk I’m prepared to take,” Ridge said.
“You’re not the only one taking the risk.” Holden set his beer on the coffee table.
“You saying you don’t want to do it?” Ridge asked him.
Holden scowled. “Fuck no. I’d burn that fucker’s house to the ground with him in it tonight if I had the chance. But Graham has more to lose than both of us.”
I didn’t meet their gazes. I’d fought for two decades to keep the ranch, had literally become a criminal to do it. Risking it all for Audrey Sterling was an easier proposition than it should have been.
But there was no reason to be stupid.
I took another drink of whiskey. “Let’s talk about the end game.”
“We put that motherfucker in a wheelchair,” Holden said. “Maybe burn his house down for good measure. The end.”
“How does that help Audrey?” I asked.
“If we’re lucky, it scares the fuck out of him," Ridge said. “Knocks some sense into his head.”
“And if we’re not?” I asked.
“Then we do the job Audrey would have asked us to do if we hadn’t caught her in the Hunt,” Holden said.
“If we get pinched, they’re going to be hard on you with your record,” I said to Ridge.
His gaze didn’t waver. “And you’ll lose the ranch with no one to keep up the payments.”
The ranch was a sacred tie to my parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. A sacred trust with the land and the animals to protect and nurture.
So why did it now pale in comparison to the living, breathing woman upstairs who was in danger? To the little girl with the gap-toothed smile who’d carried the barn kittens around last weekend, who’d asked if she could have cowboy boots like mine?
“I’m in if you’re in,” I said.
“I’m all the way in,” Ridge said.
“You don’t even have to ask.” Holden leaned back in the chair. “Better yet, I have an idea.”