Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
RAVEN
As she sat in her truck at the edge of Miller's Pond, watching the sun sink toward the horizon, Raven had to admit: Jesse Hollister wasn't what she’d expected.
He was almost certainly involved in whatever scheme had Uncle Martin trapped, but he played it differently than his father.
He was quieter, almost relaxed in the way he moved through town.
She couldn't figure out if he was the mastermind hiding in plain sight or just another piece on Bo Hollister's chessboard, designed to confuse the opponent.
Tailing him had been for research, evidence gathering, she told herself.
The kind of careful observation that might save her family's ranch and Uncle Martin's life.
She'd followed him through town with the patience of a hunter tracking prey.
What she'd discovered didn't fit the picture she'd painted of Bo Hollister's eldest son and heir apparent.
She'd initially cast him as just another tool in his father's arsenal, brutal and swaggering. The kind of man who enjoyed inflicting pain and wore his family's reputation like a brand. Someone who'd greet threats with a smile and violence with enthusiasm.
Instead, Jesse stopped at the hardware store to help Mrs. Patterson load supplies into her truck.
It was the same Mrs. Patterson whose husband had "sold" his land to the Hollisters last year and died of a heart attack two weeks later.
He paid for groceries for the Morales family, the ones who'd suddenly left town after their recent "meeting" with his father.
And he'd spent an hour yesterday fixing a broken fence for old Tom Richards, whose arthritis made manual labor impossible.
None of it made sense. The son of Fredericksburg's most feared family, helping others for no benefit that she could see, acting like a man with a conscience. Either Jesse Hollister was playing a very long game, or he was nothing like his father. Or maybe both.
It was the smaller details that had really caught Raven's attention.
How he diffused an argument between his brother and the hardware store owner over a perceived slight.
Or the way he'd quietly redirected a drunk ranch hand away from a waitress at the diner last month, his intervention so smooth most people missed it.
Most telling of all was what she'd witnessed a week ago outside the Roadhouse Bar. Knox had gotten into a fight with a cowboy over a woman, the kind of violence that erupted when someone with too much power met someone with too much pride.
Jesse had arrived just as Knox was preparing to use a broken bottle on the other man's face.
Instead of joining in or encouraging his brother, Jesse had talked Knox down with quiet words and steady pressure, defusing the situation before it could turn deadly. Then he'd helped the injured cowboy to his truck and made sure he got home safely.
Through it all, Jesse worked quietly in the background to bring peace, not war.
It was a contradiction with everything Raven knew about that family.
It seemed he knew the difference between being strong and being cruel.
So why was he still working for his father, still carrying the Hollister name like it wasn't stained with blood and built on a foundation of broken families? The contradiction gnawed at her.
Raven checked her phone: 7:45 PM. Only fifteen minutes until sunset. Her text had been a risk, she knew, but after seeing him step between her and his father, she needed to know which man she was dealing with. The predator, or the protector.
The sound of gravel crunching under tires made her glance up. A black Ford pickup rounded the bend, moving slowly, deliberately. Jesse parked twenty feet away and climbed out, his movements careful and non-threatening. He acted as if she was a wild animal he was trying not to startle. Men.
Jesse Hollister was all brawny Texas male.
His broad shoulders, thick with muscle, stretched his dark t-shirt, faded jeans hung low on narrow hips, and his boots were scuffed from real work rather than for show.
His face was weathered, harder than someone his age should carry, marked by a thin scar along his jaw.
His posture was military-straight, his shoulders squared in a way that suggested years of discipline, though his eyes held a weariness that no amount of training could hide.
Raven stepped out of her own truck, one hand resting casually near the Glock tucked into her waistband.
Uncle Martin had taught her to shoot when she was twelve, and she'd been practicing ever since.
If Jesse Hollister thought he was meeting some helpless little girl, he was about to learn otherwise.
The gun was a recent addition. It had been Uncle Martin's idea when she'd started asking too many questions about the ranch's new security measures.
He'd claimed it was standard ranch protection.
There were coyotes roaming, rattlesnakes everywhere, and the occasional roaming vagrant who saw a pretty girl on a remote ranch as an opportunity.
But Raven understood the real message: the world had become dangerous enough that a woman needed to be prepared to defend herself.
She'd taken the lessons seriously, spending hours at the makeshift range behind the equipment barn until she could hit a target at twenty-five yards without thinking about it.
She practiced moving and shooting, reloading, shooting around obstacles such as hay bales and old barrels.
The Glock felt comfortable in her hands now, balanced and familiar.
She hoped she'd never have to use it, but recent events suggested hope was a luxury she wouldn’t enjoy much longer.
Even from ten feet away, she could see the firm jaw, the way he moved like a stalking panther. Something about the controlled strength in his graceful yet powerful stride made her pulse quicken in a way that had nothing to do with fear.
"You came," she said as he approached.
"You asked me to meet you. Why?" Jesse stopped ten feet away, hands relaxed at his sides.
"Because yesterday, you protected me from your father. I want to know why."
Jesse was quiet for a long moment, studying her with those pale blue eyes that seemed to see too much. Up close, without his father's shadow looming over them, Raven could see the wariness etched in the lines around his eyes, the tension that lived in his shoulders like a permanent weight.
"Because it was the right thing to do."
"Your family doesn't exactly have a reputation for doing the right thing."
"No. They don't." Jesse's blunt honesty caught her off guard. She'd expected denials, justifications, the kind of smooth lies that powerful men used to deflect uncomfortable truths. Instead, he gave her something that felt honest, a confession.
"So why are you different?"
"Who says I am?"
Raven stepped closer. His eyes weren't just blue, they were glacial, pale and piercing in a way that should have felt cold but instead sent heat racing down her spine.
The faint scar along his jawline drew her attention, and she had the absurd urge to trace it with her fingertips before she caught herself.
"You're playing a dangerous game, Raven." Something flickered across Jesse's face, his jaw tightening. "You've been following me."
It wasn't a question. Raven lifted her chin, refusing to let him see the unease crawling up her spine. If he'd known all along, why wait until now to confront her? Unless he'd been watching her just as carefully as she'd been watching him.
"Call it research. I've been watching you.
Learning your patterns. You're not like them.
" Raven kept her voice steady, even as her heart hammered against her ribs.
Standing this close to Jesse Hollister felt dangerous in ways that had nothing to do with his family's reputation.
"I needed to know if you could be trusted. "
"And what did you conclude?"
"I'm still deciding."
Jesse laughed, a sound without humor. "Trust is expensive in my world. It usually costs more than people can afford to pay."
"What about you? What does it cost you?" Raven wasn't sure why she asked, it had nothing to do with saving her family or gathering evidence. But something in Jesse's expression made her want to know what it felt like to carry the weight he seemed to bear.
Jesse turned away, staring out over the pond where the last light of day painted the water gold and crimson.
The sunset turned him into a silhouette of broad shoulders and silent strength, and she had to force herself to focus on why she was here.
This wasn't the time to notice how the fading light caught the angles of his face or made him seem impossibly tall.
"Everything," he finally answered quietly. "It costs everything."
Raven felt something inside her shift. She'd come here expecting to discover something that might save her family. Instead, she found herself looking at a man who seemed as trapped as she was, caught in a cage made of blood and legacy.
"Your father threatened us yesterday."
"Yes."
The cold, casual way he said it—like of course his father terrorizing innocent people was just another Tuesday—made her want to hit him and demand answers in equal measure.
"Uncle Martin is involved with him somehow. Doing something that’s making him sick with himself."
"I know that, too."
"Are you going to help him destroy us?"
Jesse turned back to her, and Raven saw something calculating in his expression.
"I’m going to stop him completely, not just keep him from destroying you.
But you need to understand something—my father has never lost. Ever.
People who go up against him end up dead or disappeared or broken in ways that don't heal. He won’t go down easy. "