Chapter 4 #2
“You looked like someone hit you.”
“Would’ve preferred that.”
She knew better than to push. Or maybe she was learning. Either way, she let it sit there between us while the fire popped and Sienna laughed at something Amber said.
That laugh pulled my attention before I gave it permission.
Low. Real. Not some bar-girl performance, not the breathy little sound women used when they wanted a man to feel clever. Sienna laughed like it surprised her. Like she didn’t get much practice. Like her body remembered the motion before the rest of her had decided whether joy was safe.
That annoyed me most.
Because for one stupid second, I wanted to go closer.
Gunner chuckled behind us.
I looked over. “What?”
He took another drag from his cigarette. “You keep watching her.”
“No, I don’t.”
Bullshit.
I did.
Couldn’t help it.
Not because I trusted her. Because I didn’t.
That was what I told myself, and there was enough truth in it to make the lie comfortable.
The real problem was I didn’t like the way she got under my skin that fast. Didn’t like the way she looked at me either.
Straight on. No flinch. No flutter. She clocked every rough edge and didn’t scare easy.
Most women either leaned in or backed off.
Sienna squared up.
Mouth sharp. Eyes sharper. Brain working behind them so quick I could almost hear the gears.
She was road-filthy and exhausted when Regan dragged her in, but she still had the presence of a woman who’d read the room, built a map, found the exits, and prepared three arguments before anyone else finished a sentence.
And when I took that damn cat crate from her, her hand brushed mine.
Warm. Soft. Dusty knuckles. A faint scratch across the back. She smelled like road heat, gas station soap, and something clean underneath it. Rosewater maybe. Apples too, but not sweet. Green apple. Sharp. Weird combination.
Shouldn’t have noticed.
Did.
Her hair had caught me off guard. Dark and messy from the road, falling over one shoulder like she’d been fighting wind for two days and the wind only half-won.
Her body wasn’t polished bar-girl bullshit either.
Curvy. Real. Hips filling denim right. Waist made for a man’s hands if that man had a death wish and a complete lack of self-preservation.
Mouth too smart for peace. Chin tilted like she’d had to defend herself in rooms where men smiled while underestimating her.
And her eyes.
Not fear.
Fight.
That part hit hardest.
I understood fight. Understood it better than softness. Better than love. Better than whatever the hell Regan kept trying to plant around this club like tomatoes and second chances.
Regan snapped her fingers near my face. “Mason.”
I looked back at her.
“She is not your enemy.”
“She isn’t anything to me.”
“Then stop acting like she is.”
“I’m making sure nobody gets hurt.”
“No,” Regan said, quiet enough that it cut cleaner. “You’re making sure nobody gets close.”
I didn’t answer.
She sighed and rubbed her forehead. “You know what it’s like to hit bottom.”
My jaw tightened.
“She needed somewhere to land for the night,” Regan said. “That’s it.”
“She could still be trouble.”
“She’s not.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“How?”
Regan looked toward the fire. Sienna was wrapped in a blanket now, drink in hand, listening while Amber told some overblown version of Spain.
Firelight moved over Sienna’s face, softening the exhaustion, catching the curve of her cheek.
She looked different when she forgot to guard herself.
Younger maybe. Not innocent. Never that. Just less braced for impact.
“Because I know strays,” Regan said.
I glanced at her.
She shrugged, but there was steel under it. “They don’t come in soft. They come in hungry, suspicious, scratched up, and ready to run the second anyone reaches too fast. She’s harmless, except for that feral little demon she calls a cat.”
I almost smiled. Almost.
Then I remembered the photo. Rylee’s polished smile. The diamond. That freckle.
I shoved my phone deeper into my pocket like it had burned me.
Regan noticed. Of course she did.
“Rylee?” she asked softly.
I looked at her. “Don’t.”
Her mouth closed.
Good.
I didn’t want Rylee in this night. Didn’t want her country club picture, her white teeth, her upgraded life pressed against Sienna’s dusty truck and that broke-down cat and the ugly little truth that one woman had left because I wasn’t polished enough, while another had just walked in covered in road dust and somehow made the air feel charged.
That was not a thought I planned to keep.
Gunner flicked ash into the dirt. “You gonna glare holes in the house all night?”
I rubbed a hand over my jaw. The beard there rasped under my palm. “You got somewhere better to be?”
“Not me. I enjoy watching you pretend not to care.”
“Careful.”
He smiled like careful was a language he had no interest in. “She’s pretty.”
I looked at him.
He held up one hand, cigarette between two fingers. “Scientifically speaking.”
“Don’t.”
“Smart too, from what I heard.”
“You eavesdropping on women now?”
“Hard not to. They’re loud.”
They were. The firepit had turned into a damn confession circle.
The women were laughing again, interrupting each other, glasses catching light.
Sienna leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, wrapped in that blanket, smiling like she didn’t trust how good it felt.
I knew that look because I’d worn versions of it before.
The face a person made when warmth showed up and they were already calculating the cost.
Maybe that was what bothered me.
Maybe not.
Women like her weren’t my problem. She didn’t need fixing.
Didn’t need saving. Had a job waiting, a cat that would probably outlive us all through spite alone, and a mouth sharp enough to cut her way out of most rooms. She’d be gone tomorrow.
We’d get her truck looked at, send someone to ride escort, and she’d disappear into Santa Fe like every other stranger passing through.
That should’ve been relief.
Instead, the thought left a bad taste in my mouth.
My phone buzzed again.
Another snap from Tank.
This one was the mechanical bull in motion, Tank holding on with one hand, crown sideways, brothers screaming around him like civilized society had collapsed. The caption read: STILL ALIVE BUT LEGALLY QUESTIONABLE.
I stared at it for half a second, then sent back: Regan finds out, you’re dead.
Tank replied almost instantly with a picture of Bullet wearing the veil and holding a margarita pitcher.
Tell her we were doing wedding research.
I almost laughed. Almost.
Then River texted again.
Ignore the Rylee thing. Come back and drink. You’re too sober for your personality.
I typed back: Guard duty.
His reply came fast.
Regan’s spa hostage weekend?
I didn’t answer.
Another message.
Heard she picked up a stray. Human or animal?
I looked toward the fire.
Both.
I didn’t send it.
Regan had gone back inside, probably to check on food or feelings or whatever else women managed while men stood outside pretending to be useful.
Gunner stayed near the porch rail. I walked a few steps farther into the dark, needing distance from the laughter, the photo, the pull in my chest that felt too much like wanting something I had no business wanting.
The desert opened in front of me, black and silver under moonlight.
Scrub, sand, low rock, long shadows. Out here, a man could see danger coming if he knew how to look.
Tracks in dirt. Dust where there shouldn’t be dust. Silence where animals should be making noise.
The desert told the truth, but only if you respected it.
People were worse.
People wore smiles.
People wore diamonds.
People wore dust and exhaustion and a brave little smirk while hiding how close they were to breaking.
I turned back toward the house.
Sienna had stood from the fire and was heading inside with empty glasses in her hands.
She moved carefully now. Not drunk, not sloppy, but tired in her bones.
The blanket slipped off one shoulder, and she caught it with her elbow without stopping.
Her head turned slightly, like she felt me watching from the dark.
I stepped back, staying out of the light.
Pathetic.
I was acting like some prospect mooning over a bar girl.
Gunner’s voice came from behind me. “You ran her info?”
I didn’t look at him. “Plate. Name. Job offer. Nothing flagged yet.”
“Yet.”
“Exactly.”
“Regan know?”
“She knows enough.”
He hummed. “So you pissed off Regan and watched the new girl all night.”
“Useful summary.”
“Busy evening.”
“Keep talking and I’ll make it your last.”
He chuckled.
I headed toward the side patio because I needed to talk to Regan again before she got too comfortable pretending this was fine. I found her near the door, half in the light, half out of it, phone in one hand and murder in her expression before I even opened my mouth.
“Shh,” she snapped. “Don’t talk so loud.”
“I haven’t said anything yet.”
“You were about to. I felt it.”
“Stop upsetting yourself and listen.”
“Stop upsetting me. Can’t you just let me have one night?”
“You don’t know anything about her.”
Regan’s eyes flashed. “I know enough.”
“She’s a risk.”
The words came out harder than I meant them to. Regan’s mouth flattened.
“Oh, please.”
“I mean it. This could be staged. You pick up strays all the time. For all we know, she was planted.”
Regan scoffed. “You think she’s some cartel mole?”
“I don’t like it.”
“You don’t like anything.”
“I pulled her info.”
That did it.
Regan took one step closer, her voice dropping into that dangerous quiet men underestimated right before regretting it. “I said don’t.”
“Regan—”
“You don’t get to do that to people I bring in.”
“I do when they’re sleeping under the same roof as club women.”
“She’s not here to hurt anybody.”
“You don’t know that.”
“What kind of woman walks out of a random bar with people she doesn’t know?” I asked.
Regan didn’t blink. “Desperate.”
The answer hit too clean.
I hated that.
She leaned closer. “Back off, Mase. You know what it’s like to hit bottom. She needed somewhere to land for the night. That’s it.”
“She could still be trouble.”
“She’s not.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“How?”
Regan looked past me toward the house. Her voice softened, but the steel stayed. “Because trouble usually tries harder to look harmless. She doesn’t. She looks like she’s one wrong word from grabbing that demon cat and running.”
I didn’t have a clean answer for that.
“She’s harmless,” Regan added. “Except for the cat.”
I glanced toward the door. Something moved inside. Maybe nothing. Maybe a reflection. Maybe Sienna.
Regan caught the direction of my attention and narrowed her eyes. “Do not make her feel unwelcome.”
“She shouldn’t get too comfortable.”
“Why?”
Because she’s leaving. Because women who make a man wonder don’t stick. Because I still had Rylee’s diamond flashing behind my eyes and Sienna’s laugh under my skin, and I didn’t trust either one.
I said none of that.
“Because she’s not ours,” I muttered.
Regan’s expression changed. Not soft. Worse. Understanding.
“Mase,” she said quietly, “not everything that leaves was yours to lose.”
I stepped back like she’d swung on me.
“Don’t.”
She held up both hands. “Fine. But hear me. You scare her off tonight, I’ll make you regret it.”
“You threatening me?”
“Yes.”
I looked at her.
She stared back.
Damned if I didn’t respect it.
“Noted,” I said.
“Good.”
She turned toward the patio like the conversation was done.
Maybe it was. I stood there a second longer, jaw tight, hands flexing at my sides.
Inside the house, I thought I heard the faint clink of glass.
Then silence. Then the patio door opened from the other side, and Sienna stepped back into the firelight with drinks in hand and a smile on her face.
Smooth.
Too smooth.
I knew fake when I saw it.
She handed out the glasses, sat down, and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Regan looked at her with a quick frown, concern flickering, but Sienna gave her nothing. Just that polite little curve of her mouth, easy as a locked door.
She’d heard.
Something ugly twisted in my gut.
Gunner moved beside me, low voice barely carrying. “Nice work.”
“Shut up.”
“She’s running.”
“She’s sitting right there.”
“She’s already gone in her head.”
I knew that too.
I watched Sienna laugh at something Amber said, and there it was again—that wrongness. Not suspicion this time. Not the gut-scratch that warned of danger.
Guilt.
I didn’t like guilt. It was useless unless it made a man fix something.
But I didn’t know how to fix this without making it worse.
Walk over there and apologize? She’d probably gut me with one of those sharp little science words.
Pretend I hadn’t said it? Coward’s move.
Let her leave in the morning and tell myself it was safer that way?
That one felt easiest.
Which meant it was probably the wrong choice.
I looked toward her truck under the mesquite.
The thing wouldn’t make it ten miles without boiling over, let alone five hours.
Her phone had been dead. She had no backup.
No family here. No one waiting except a job and an apartment she hadn’t even slept in yet.
She was alone in a way I understood too well, and I’d just made sure she remembered it.
The fire popped, sparks jumping up into the dark.
Sienna smiled with her mouth and nowhere else.
I dragged a hand down my face and tasted dust when I breathed.
Women like her weren’t my problem.
That was what I kept telling myself.
But the desert had gone quiet around us, and my instincts had shifted. They weren’t scratching danger anymore.
They were pointing straight at her.