Chapter 16
We walked back to the house with the intention of talking more, but I excused myself to my room and didn’t come back out.
I needed distance more than resolution.
We had our arms around each other and it felt too good.
Even now, after shutting myself away, after sleep, after a shower meant to wash it off, the strength of his arms is still around me.
Why did he feel like that?
I showed emotion. My wall cracked.
That hug—it felt like he… cared. Like he didn’t want me upset. Didn’t want me spiraling.
I didn’t know what to do with that, so staying away from him was my only option—despite him trying more than once to talk to me last night.
When I step into the kitchen the next morning, I almost jolt because he’s there. Yesterday morning, he took off super early. Today he’s here?
Surely, he has to work?
He leans back against the counter, coffee in hand, jeans, boots, t-shirt fitting him as though it’s been painted on around the bulge of every muscle. He holds a half-filled coffee cup.
His gaze lifts the second I walk in, and his eyes stay on me as I move toward him, reluctantly, as if I’m fighting gravity.
He doesn’t move from the machine, so I have to step close enough that brushing his arm is inevitable.
Tina trots behind me but soon rushes up to him. This time, instead of simply staring down at her while she scratches at his heel for attention, he bends his tall body, and pulls her up to his chest with one, big strong hand.
He puts down his coffee cup and strokes her fur.
It’s hard to hate him when Tina loves him and he’s so gentle with her.
I know my way around his kitchen now. It’s still awkward having him watch me. I glance at him sideways. “Don’t you have work?”
“I do. Meeting at noon.” He pauses. “With the guy who’s digging into Rourke.”
“Mmm.” I should learn more but yesterday, my desperation came through the floodgates.
Today, I need to recalibrate. Figure out how to move this forward myself. I’ve come to realize that it’s not as easy as I thought it would be for Rio to find the women without unleashing the very secret I said I’d keep. It’s a catch-22, so why would he help me?
I thought about it a lot overnight.
I need to figure out another way to find Beatriz and Isabel. Maybe I’ll just go to every cop who will hear me out? I’ll have to get further away from Sacramento. Maybe I’ll have to go into Witsec, though the thought makes me shiver.
As much as I’m perfectly fine with not being a Cross anymore, that’s a level of hiding that exceeds my lake shack in Wisconsin. Also, even with new identities, people have ways of finding witnesses.
Still, I won’t give up and there has to be at least one decent female cop out there who will help.
Just as my thoughts settle into giving up on GhostEye figuring this out for me, Rio throws a lifeline.
“I gave my guy extra clearance, and I hope we’ll have more to talk about this afternoon.” He gently places Tina back on the floor. “Maybe a ride this morning will take your mind off of it.”
What?
He’s deepened the search?
Wait–
Is he offering to take me out?
The idea of being up close and personal with a majestic creature today is scary and exciting. But the four-legged beast isn’t the one I’m as worried about as the one in perfectly fitting jeans and a bicep-hugging t-shirt.
It was just a hug.
But it changed my ability to keep my guard up. I had time last night to think, and I did something I should have done from the start– I put myself in Rio’s shoes. I’ve put him in an almost impossible situation.
I thought I was walking into the office of a ruthless and powerful man who would pay the price to keep his sordid past buried.
But I’m starting to see that his past, wrong as it was, helped build this place for his family.
I’m staying on guard with his brothers, but they seem like a tight family that sticks together.
They all live here, for God’s sake. They spend time together with a dad who still makes them soup.
Maybe his family knowing about everything is even worse for Rio than the public.
But he had time to think last night, too, and what he came back with is hope for the women and the offer of spending time together.
Is he saying all of this to keep me from running off?
After all, I know too much.
I take the espresso cup off the machine and sip, trying to act casual, though the thought of spending time with Rio today doing something I consider romantic sends butterflies rioting in my chest.
“You don’t strike me as the take-a-morning-off type.” I move away from him and take a stool at the island.
He leans his forearms on the counter, ink shifting over muscle. “I’m not.”
Our eyes meet, and if I trusted my gut, I’d say he looks concerned. Softer than usual. Like he’s doing this… for me.
Impossible.
But being here all morning stewing until Rio has another update is a shitty option compared to learning to ride a horse.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll come.”
My gaze flicks to the floor, where Tina is glued to my ankle again. “Tina will lose her mind if I leave her.”
“She won’t be alone.”
I guess nobody ever has to be alone at Monarch Hills if they don’t want to be.
“Santi’s boy’s around. He’ll keep her busy.”
I try not to see this as him arranging both a date and the babysitter, but it’s hard to convince myself not to be swept off my feet by the gesture.
And for one, thoughtless moment, I let myself go. “That sounds really nice, Rio.”
We dropped Tina off with Owen, who laughed when she peed on Santi’s boots by the door. Owen, like everyone around here, is completely at ease with animals. It’s as if the chaos they cause is just part of the rhythm.
We walk toward the stables; the morning is still quiet enough that I can hear the horses before I see them.
“There’s a big age gap,” I say, glancing at Rio. “Between Owen and… Theo, right?”
“Yeah.” Rio keeps his gaze ahead. “Owen came first.”
“From another woman?”
“No, Owen was Santi’s foster kid.”
That gives me pause. A single man, taking in a kid that age?
We walk a few more steps before Rio adds, “But he adopted Owen not too long ago.”
Something inside me shifts.
First Luis. Now Santi. Two seemingly decent men.
I press my lips together, pushing the thought down before it settles anywhere permanent. Before I soften.
That’s not the world I come from.
In my world, good men don’t exist. But if Santi and Luis are good, and maybe the others, too, how did Rio end up in a motorcycle club? It doesn’t really seem like he’s the black sheep of the family. He’s the CEO of his very own Justice League for God’s sake.
The barn rises ahead of us, doors wide open. The smell hits first—hay, leather, something almost autumnal—and I slow a fraction as we step inside, taking it in.
The barn holds a different kind of quiet than I’m used to, and it’s one I could almost welcome into my life. I’ve always loved being around dogs. Animals in general, really. Guinea pigs, gerbils, cats… Horses, though…
I step farther inside and glance past one of the stalls at a massive dark head hanging over the door, ears flicking, eyes bright and watchful. My pulse gives a small, stupid jump.
It’s huge.
Heavy enough to crush me, strong enough to break something without trying. One wrong step, one bad kick, and I’d be learning a very painful lesson about animals built like trucks.
It’s not fear exactly.
It’s respect.
This isn’t something I can bluff my way through.
Rio moves farther into the barn ahead of me, easy in the space, and stops at the third stall. He taps the stable door with the flat of his hand. “This girl is yours today.”
I come up beside him and look in.
Thankfully, this horse is smaller than the giant I passed on the way in.
She’s beautiful, shiny like tempered chocolate, with a white stripe down her face.
She has one white sock at the back that makes her look just imperfect enough to be real.
There’s something in her expression that feels alert but not skittish.
A little wild around the edges, but also somehow interested in me.
Rio opens the stall and reaches for a halter hanging nearby. In his hands, it all looks simple. He slips it over her nose and behind her ears with practiced ease. The mare accepts it as if it’s an old conversation between them. She settles under his touch.
I settled under his touch yesterday, too. Suddenly, my back remembers his hand rubbing circles, my cheek feels the warmth of his chest.
Watching him with the horse is doing strange things to me.
It’s the side of Rio I see with Tina, but on steroids.
There’s certainty in his movement. No force.
He expects cooperation— and gets it– but without needing to dominate.
“Her name is Ember.” He hands me the lead rope.
I blink at it, then at him. “You’re handing this to me like I’ve done this before.”
He offers me the cutest crooked smile. “We’ll start with tacking up. Lead her out.”
And just like that, I’m in charge of a thousand-pound animal with a soft nose and hooves that could kick the shit out of me.
Rio steps out of the stall and walks toward a set of ties fixed to the wall. I stay where I am for one second too long, rope in my hand, feeling ridiculous.
He glances back at me. “Walk forward. She’ll follow.”
Right. Of course she will. No pressure.
I step out slowly, hyperaware of the size of her behind me, the quiet strength of her, the soft clop of her hooves on the floor. Her breath brushes warm against my arm, and my body tightens before I can stop it.
The nerves surprise me.
I’ve ridden motorcycles at speeds that should have scared me a hell of a lot more than this thing. But there’s something predictable about a machine. Metal does what it’s built to do. An animal has moods. Instinct. A mind of its own.
Still, she follows.
By the time I get her to him, I’m trying very hard to act casual.
Rio takes the rope from my hand and ties some neat, efficient knots at the wall with fingers that move with quiet precision.
“All right,” he says. “Now I’ll show you how to tack up.”
He heads into the tack room and comes back with an armful of leather and weight, a saddle balanced on his corded, inked forearm. The smell it is wonderful– warm hide, oiled leather, musk.
He talks me through each part of the bridle, what it’s called, what it does, where it goes, and how I’ll use the reins. He’s patient in a way I wouldn’t have expected from him.
Seeing him like this makes it harder to keep him in the box I built for him.
I watch his hands more than I should.
They move like they already know everything—how much pressure, where to pull, what needs adjusting.
Suddenly, I’m heavy between my legs. What would those hands do on my bare skin–
He swings the saddle up, and the shift pulls his shirt tight across his back, muscle rolling under the fabric in a way that drags my gaze with it. His biceps flex, the weight of the leather clearly nothing to him.
My pulse is too high.
This is ridiculous.
He’s just a cowboy in a barn. Dust on his boots, leather in his hands.
Except he’s not.
This version of him is a problem.
This one is very, very hot.
He settles the saddle, checks it, then glances toward the tack room again. “Okay, now go back in the tack room in Ember’s section, it’s labelled, and grab the girth for me.” He keeps his hand on the saddle.
“Girth?” I walk into the tack room and frown. “What’s that?”
“It’s like a…” He searches for the word to describe it. “Just grab the belt.”
Just grab the belt.
The words land wrong, and suddenly I’m not in this barn anymore. I’m not even in Monarch Hills. The world tilts around me, the dusty barn floor becoming tiles of my kitchen back home.
Get the belt.
The past echoes in my head.
Get the belt, Delilah—
My whole body locks, tightening on instinct, bracing for the blow before it comes—for the bite of leather, for the crack that always split the air a second before it split skin.
Don’t move. Don’t make it worse, stupid girl.
My feet somehow take me into the tack room, but I’m floating. I can’t feel contact with the floor. I’m not here.
My eyes close. My hand tightens around the leather hanging on the wall, but I don’t even know what I’m holding. I don’t know where I am. I can’t breathe. Can’t swallow.
“Delilah?”
Rio’s voice cuts through, close enough to reach but not loud enough to pull me back.
I swallow dry rocks. The memory doesn’t clear.
“Are you okay?” Rio’s voice comes over my shoulder.
I silently try to pull myself back.
You’re not there anymore.
I repeat it to myself, but my body doesn’t listen. It tenses. It braces for the whip of leather. Every nerve in my body remembers the rage taken out on me. The times the belt missed my backside and lashed me on the back. The panting I’d hear behind me afterward.
“I—” try to say something, but that’s all that comes out.
“Hey…” His hand lands on my back, an anchor I badly need.
My throat constricts, even now, I’m not allowed to cry out. I can’t say a word.
“Delilah. You’re in the barn. At Monarch Hills.” Everything he says is grounding, as if he knows exactly how to bring me back from the violent memories in my mind.
He soothes me. “It’s just you and me. No one else is here.”
I force my eyes open.
He’s right beside me, something protective in his expression. His hand moves along my back, slow and steady. The same soothing feeling from yesterday makes its way through my body.
Air drags into my lungs, uneven, but it’s something.
“Sorry,” I mutter, my voice rough, the past loosening just enough to let the present back in. Heat creeps up my neck.
His gaze fixes on mine, something dark settling in it. “Who did this to you?”
The question lands heavier than the belt ever could.
I’ve never told anyone about it.
He presses. “Was it your dad?”
I shake my head once and surprise myself with how easily the truth comes.
“My mom.”