CHAPTER THREE
ELIJAH
Cadance Webster appeared in Forest Grove a little less than a week ago with exactly zero history to her created name.
Ask me how I recognized that little non-existent trail.
I had one that matched for the first few years of my return to the country after my deployments overseas with the military.
Once I came home, I couldn’t keep my feet still.
Sold up everything I had, packed what I actually needed into the back of my truck, and hit the road.
For three years, I didn’t stop running. Not until I hit Montana a while back, and worked a few seasons up north at a place called Red Hart Ranch.
The quiet spread of the land and towering mountain backdrop there reminded me of how small I was, and returned something to me that I’d lost a long time back in another country:
Perspective.
And so when my seasons there were up, I said goodbye to the ranch owners, Eve and Travis, a pair of twins who ran their land on loyalty and damn good food. When I hit the road again, it was with a fresh set of eyes, and the sort of pace I could maintain for a whole lot longer.
And when I met Declan in town, then started working at the Off Duty ranch, I knew my feet would be able to stay still for a while longer. That it might be time to risk putting down roots again.
All that to say, when I stared at the knife embedded in Cadance’s tire, the glitter truck she’d designed around her pell-mell style life that never seemed to stop and the risks she took without any consideration of consequences, I wondered just how long the woman who waited at my back had been running, and from who.
Hell, it was after midnight, and she never twigged that it seemed strange to ask me for help, standing outside my shop.
Or that I hadn’t said no to her. Her sense of normality was as skewed as mine had been, once.
It was all too easy to fall back into that stance with her, staring at the problem, finding the solution.
Finding a reason not to send her away .
Because hadn’t that been the reason I’d found out so much about her in the first place, that she’d stuck in my mind ever since I saw her at the ranch?
Daisy Duke was a mighty fine horse, but even her chestnut hide couldn’t take my mind off the curves the woman who waited behind me had.
Curves that left me breathless just standing near her.
And I’d fucking well hurt her, because instinct, honed and all too well practiced, had taken over before my mind caught up with the present.
I’d reacted to the threat outside my shop forgetting that there was no threat here.
But my body responded the way it’d been trained; not to think, only to survive.
And so I drew the blade I still couldn’t bear not to wear, and nearly sliced her flawless skin open.
My thumb brushed across the top of the handle of the blade in her tire. I pulled my hand back fast, and shook my head to dispel the memory of touching her after. That she’d let me , when she should have been screaming or passed out in terror.
“This isn’t just vandalism, is it?” she asked in the kind of quiet voice that told me her natural buoyancy had been muted before.
Probably by the person she suspected had done the deed, and now she wondered if they’d found her.
Who are you running from, glitter bomb?
But she wouldn’t tell me if I asked her outright.
I knew that, because for years I’d held my own trauma too close, worn it as a mark of guilt, and pride, but hadn’t been ready to discard either.
And every time someone got close, closer than a one night stand or offered friendship, I did what anyone high on the fast lane of life did.
I ran.
As far and as wide as this country allowed.
I’d worked ranches and towns from one end to the other, rarely crossing my own path in the same calendar year and never crossing over with the same crowd once.
That’s how I knew that if I pushed Cadance Webster on who she was hiding from right now, in the morning, she’d be gone and I’d be responsible for a naked bear covering its privates on a very public street front.
Instead, I nodded, giving her what she wanted, but probably didn’t want to believe.
“Yeah, it’s not random vandalism. And from what I know of this town, random acts don’t happen like this.
Not unless there’s a grudge match worthy of it.
” I shut my damn mouth hard enough to leave my jaw aching, but if there was more information in the works on this side of midnight, then she’d have to give a little to get a little.
“That happens."
I felt her shrug, more than saw it. My thighs screamed from crouching low in the street for too long as I pushed up to standing. “You got a spare? Tools?” I had my own, but looking at the make and model of her van, it’d likely require manufacturer’s tools that matched her vehicle to fit.
“Yes. They’re here.” She opened the back of her van, and I was assaulted by a dangling disco ball that flung scattered white light into my eyes. “Oh. Sorry. It’s a bit…”
“Overwhelming is the word you’re looking for,” I said dryly as she scrambled to peel back the matching pink glitter linoleum that lined the base of the van.
The sides were covered in fold away compartments, each color coded to match that held an assortment of beauty treatments and products from their neat labels. The woman was a single person army.
“I know, I match," she sighed as she stepped aside and waved a hand tiredly at her skinny, partially delaminating spare tire. “Taa-daa.”
I blinked at the unusable spare, my throat tightening.
“Actually, I’d call you formidable. And that’s…
not gonna work, glitter bomb. You got time for a coffee?
Cause we’re gonna need to make a plan for tomorrow.
And I don’t think you can stay here tonight.
Not if you think this wasn’t a random act of violence. "
She didn’t answer me.
I glanced up, certain, for a moment, that she’d done as I predicted already and I’d be staring at a blank spot on the pavement beside her van.
But she wasn’t. I held her wide, cinnamon eyes that met mine over the knuckles stuffed in her mouth. There’d be bite divots in those knuckles, and it set my shoulders in a tight line that she felt she couldn’t let out the scream she so obviously stifled.
I peeled her flooring back, keeping my face averted, giving her time to breath, if she could. If she couldn’t… Well, we’d deal with that in a second.
Finally, I locked up the back of her van after checking she had a key.
The faintest nod was my only response. Cadance had checked out, and it wasn’t because of me or that damn knife, but it was a close thing.
Worse, I didn't have a puncture kit, which meant the offending article would have to stay right where it was for the time being. At least until I organized a tow for her in the morning and someone to fix it. If she’d let me.
I faced her, my mouth set in a line that matched my shoulders. Because I knew sure as shit she wouldn’t like this next part one bit.
“Alright, glitter bomb. Time to show me which door is yours, and talk me through what’s happening in your life that leads to your van being ruined in a town that you weren’t in last week.”
With respect, I knew most of that, including which door was hers, but she didn’t need to know that right now. And I still expected her to run at any moment.
As before, Cadance surprised me, holding out her hand. “Come on,” she said softly. “I’ll show you.”
I raised both eyebrows. Cadance Webster was made of the sort of dreams that made a man want to change his own to match hers. Maybe that was what had her running from place to place, changing who she’d been and reinventing herself behind glowing personas that were fake as fuck.
Because the glitter bomb in front of me was both the woman underneath, and not. I promised myself that by the end of the night, I’d know who she was, and who she’d been.
And how the hell she learned my name.
Because all of a sudden, that little piece of info seemed mighty important.