Chapter 22 Devon
DEVON
Crossing my arms over my chest, I propped my shoulder against the wall at the mouth of the barn. In the distance, Lofton had Zoey on Snicker’s back as she stood in the middle of the round pen holding a long rope connected to his halter.
Even as my eyes tracked up her toned legs, over denim cutoffs and a tight black tank, the rest of me was still on that blanket with her.
“He didn’t need to do any of it because the only time I feel actually normal…is when I’m with him.”
I’d heard the whole thing. Top to bottom. No gaps. No mercy.
I’d been heading over to let her know I was going to do a perimeter run and to text me if she needed anything. I’d always tried my best to give her space and at least the illusion of privacy, but as soon as I’d heard my name, there was no turning back.
So yeah, I’d eavesdropped.
And fuck me sideways, I had loved every single word of it.
Not in the way I was supposed to. Not in the detached, professional way where I noted a client felt safe in my care and filed it accordingly.
Nah, this was all fucked up Devon Grant copping feelings for the woman he was supposed to be protecting.
The same way that had kept me awake for the better part of three weeks and showed absolutely no signs of changing.
Especially not after last night, and again this morning, and God willing, the minute her bedroom door shut later that night.
“He fucks me like he’s been waiting his whole life to find me. Because I sure as hell have been waiting all of mine to find him.”
That had been the highlight playing on repeat in my head all day. And as I stared out at her in that round pen, it sent the same complicated warmth sliding through my chest that it had the first three hundred times.
Though the most complicated thing of all—the part that made all of this worse and better at the same time—was that she was absolutely, one thousand percent correct.
She wasn’t Lofton Beck to me. I’d never actually met that woman.
From the day I’d laid eyes on her, she’d never been dolled up, covered in diamonds, walking red carpets.
This woman wore boots with her overalls.
Slept in baggy t-shirts. And seduced me in one of my shirts instead of lingerie that probably cost more than my mortgage.
My Lofton existed on a completely different plane than Lofton Beck.
My Lofton.
Yeah, fuck me on that too.
Because everything I’d told myself in the dark only a few nights ago was still true.
The storm was going to pass. Her life was going to reassemble itself.
The stalker would be caught, the farm would return to whatever version of normal it had settled into, and Lofton Beck would walk back out into the world that had been waiting for her.
A world that had nothing to do with a bodyguard from Fresno who was allergic to feelings and absolutely-fucking-terrible at staying in his lane.
I’d accepted it though. Before I’d ever broken and taken her body. I’d accepted that as long as I was the only one who got hurt, I could live with the consequences.
I wasn’t setting myself up for failure.
I was setting myself up for when it failed.
There was a difference, and I was living and breathing in that difference—for however long it lasted.
In the round pen, Lofton started jogging until Snickers built up to a slow trot. Zoey bounced in the saddle with her small hands twisted into his mane, her face split with pure joy.
Brooke stood at the fence with both hands gripping the top rail, scared out of her fucking mind. I wanted to laugh, but I wasn’t the total asshole she thought me to be.
Partial asshole, sure. I’d take that. I knew she didn’t like me. No surprise there.
The creak of the screen door at the house caught my attention, pulling my gaze away.
Lawrence Beck shuffled out into the afternoon sun in his jeans, work boots, and another University of Tennessee polo faded at the shoulders from too many summers in the sun.
He squinted against the brightness, moving like a man whose body still remembered what it was capable of, even when everything else had become blurry.
My pulse spiked as I glanced toward the round pen. Lofton’s back was to us, talking to Zoey.
I had approximately three seconds to decide.
I was nothing if not consistent—so I made the wrong one.
Snagging a pitchfork, I ducked into the closest stall and tried to look busy.
His footsteps stopped outside the stall.
“The hell are you doing in there?”
Fuck.
I kept my head down. “Working.”
“Why?”
My mouth clamped shut, not sure how to answer that one.
“Dammit, Roger, you’re supposed to be looking at the mower, not screwing up my stalls.”
I froze. Roger. Who the hell was Roger?
He most likely wasn’t part of the FBI, so I guessed that was a step in the right direction.
“I’m headed there next,” I replied.
He stomped into the stall and snatched the pitchfork from my hand. “You don’t have to dig to the dirt. Just get the shit off the shavings.” He made a sound that landed somewhere between a grunt and a harrumph. “Come on. I’ll take you to the shed.”
“You really don’t have to—”
“I do if I don’t want to pay for another truckload of shavings.” He walked out of the stall, leaned the pitchfork against the wall, and then shot me an expectant glare. “You plan to stand there and argue with me over horse shit, or are you gonna fix my damn mower?”
Right. Okay. Clearly, I was fixing a mower.
“Lead the way,” I said.
As we passed the round pen, Lofton finally saw us. She did a double take, her eyes growing wide as her face filled with panic.
I gave her a thumbs-up. “Seems Lawrence doesn’t like when Roger touches his stalls. So I’m headed out to see if I can fix the mower.”
She nodded in understanding, but no more convinced than I was that this was a good idea.
“Can I help?” she called, guiding Zoey and Snickers to the fence.
Lawrence never slowed down as he grumbled, “Keep working with Lofton. And for Pete’s sake, tell her to put her heels down. That pony so much as trips, she’s gonna end up in the dirt.”
Her lips thinned as she eyed him closely before flipping a questioning gaze my way. I did not want this to blow up into another episode that was going to have her normal turn into a spiral of chaos. But he seemed pretty chill about Roger fixing his mower.
“I got it. They don’t call me Roger Repair for nothing.” I shot her a wink that at least made her shoulders relax.
“Um…okay. I’ll be here if you need anything.”
One more wink, and then I lost sight of her as I followed her father to the equipment shed, some twenty yards away. As we walked, he grumbled, pointing out things that needed to be fixed. Not necessarily asking me to do it, more just voicing his judgments out loud.
The fence line that needed a new post.
The paddock gate that was leaning.
The overgrown remains of an unkept garden. On that one, he mumbled something about Clara under his breath.
He talked about it all with such proprietary concern and devotion that I made a mental note to take care of it after Brooke and Jenn took off the following day.
The equipment shed was dim and smelled like oil and gasoline as we stopped at a machine that appeared to be held together with nothing more than optimism.
“Here she is,” he announced.
I crouched beside it with my hands on my knees and studied it with the trained focus of a man who had absolutely no idea what he was looking at.
I was relatively handy, but I would have needed a scroll unearthed from ancient ruins and a team of archaeologists to have any idea where to start with this thing.
Lawrence settled onto an overturned crate in the corner, his attention focused in the distance.
“Look at ‘em,” he said. The sharp suspicion he’d aimed at me in the barn was gone. In its place, a slow, beaming smile pulled at his mouth as he watched Lofton walk with Zoey, Brooke leaning against the rail.
“She’s always been such a good mama,” he said, a smile curling his mouth. “More patient than I could ever be, that’s for sure. If the world were fair at all, my Clara would have been named a saint by now.”
I flicked my gaze out to the round pen, a hollow ache of understanding settling over me.
He wasn’t seeing Lofton, Zoey, and Brooke.
He was seeing Clara, Lofton, and Jenn.
It felt wrong not to correct him. But if he wanted to see his wife, this was the only way it was going to happen.
“Jenn would rather be off chasing boys, but I swear Lofton taught herself to walk just so she could follow her mama out to the barn each morning.” He chuckled.
“Not a scared bone in that child’s body.
” He leaned forward on the crate, elbows on his knees.
“Jenn’s already giving us the runaround, but Lofton is gonna be a wild one when she gets older.
She got all of Clara’s beauty and my stubbornness.
That one’s gonna put me in an early grave. I can already feel it.”
I sat back on my ass, staring out at the woman in the round pen. God, did I understand that sentiment.
He sucked in a deep breath so packed with love and devotion, it seeped into my chest as well.
“All my friends wanted boys. Not me though. A son carries your name, but a daughter carries your heart. And between Jenn and Lofton, it’s a wonder I even have enough left in my chest to keep beating. You got a family, Roger?”
I didn’t. I was a single man with not so much as a goldfish waiting for me at home. And yet my mouth still answered, “I got a woman. It’s new though.”
“She a good one?”
“She’s incredible.”