Chapter 3
Willow
The woman at the general store has a wide smile and nothing behind it. I’ve spent the entire morning scouring the town, and everyone has been like this.
“Visiting family?” She slides my change across the counter—bottled water, trail mix, a local map that’s probably ten years out of date.
“Just passing through. Heading to Austin, thought I’d take the scenic route.”
“Oh, you picked a good one. Hill Country’s beautiful this time of year. You should stop at Enchanted Rock if you get the chance. About an hour west.”
“Thanks. Hey, a friend of mine came through this area a while back looking for ranch work. Woman with a kid, a young boy? Said the pay was decent out here.”
The smile stays exactly where it is. Not a flicker. “Can’t say that rings a bell, but we get a lot of folks passing through looking for day work. You might try the bulletin board at the post office. People pin up job notices there sometimes.”
“When’s the post office open?”
“Monday.”
Today is Saturday. Convenient… not.
“Thanks,” I say again, and head out into the sun.
The man at the gas station is even less useful. Sixties, leathered skin, cap pulled low, a name tag that reads “Jake.” He fills the truck without being asked, takes my cash, and responds to every question with the same three words.
“Quiet area, huh? Not many new people moving in?”
“Couldn’t say, ma’am.”
“We drove through some ranchland on the way in. Big spread on the northeast side. Who runs that?”
“Couldn’t say.”
“Must be a big operation. Lot of cattle.”
“Couldn’t say.” He hands me my receipt. “You have a good one.”
I sit in the truck for a minute after he walks away.
The frustration is a tight band across my shoulders.
It’s not that they’re hostile. Hostile I could work with, push against, use.
This is something smoother. A town that’s learned to give you exactly what you expect to hear and nothing that matters.
They’ve been handling outsiders for years. Maybe decades.
The diner yields one useful thing, though it takes me an hour of sitting with coffee to get it.
Two men in a back booth are talking about feed deliveries; mundane, boring, except that one of them mentions a schedule change.
“Truck won’t come through Tuesday anymore.
Garrett moved it to Thursday on account of the east road being used. ”
The other man nods. “Makes sense. Less traffic the better.”
Garrett. East road. Being used for something that requires less traffic.
I note it. Pay for my coffee. Leave a good tip because the waitress kept my cup full without hovering, and that kind of competence deserves acknowledgment.
By early evening, I’ve walked the main street twice and mapped the town and surrounding suburbs in my head.
I know where the side roads go, which buildings are occupied, where the wolf scent concentrates, and where it thins.
The whole town is saturated. There’s no part of Cedar Falls that isn’t pack territory.
Briar is sitting on the motel bed when I get back, boots off, marking a folded map with a pencil. She’s been in the hills since dawn, and she smells like dust and juniper.
I flop down on the second bed and stretch out with a groan. It’s been days of driving and tension. The knots between my shoulder blades could form a nice macrame basket.
“Picked up some scent trails,” she says without looking up. “Old. Months, not weeks. Ravenclaw signatures.”
My chest tightens. “Show me.”
She turns the map. Clean pencil lines trace a route running southeast through the hills. “They enter from the north, move through a corridor, and disappear south past a creek crossing about four miles out. They didn’t stop.”
“Through the heart of the territory?”
“Within half a mile of what I think is the main compound. That’s not a mistake. You don’t route wolves through someone’s core land without cooperation.”
She’s right. And it confirms what I already suspected. Whoever runs this town didn’t just let the families pass through. They managed the transit.
“Can you track past the creek?”
“Tomorrow. The trail’s exposed down there: wind, open ground, older scent. I’ll need light.” She looks at me for the first time. “You get anything from town?”
“A name. Garrett. Sounds like he’s the one making decisions about road access. And a delivery schedule that got shifted to keep one of the roads clear.”
Briar nods.
“I need to get somebody talking,” I say. “Nobody in this town will give me anything sober and sane in broad daylight. But there’s a bar.”
“So go.”
“I was thinking you could—”
“No.” No hesitation. “I’m not a bar person.
And you need to go alone. You’re the face.
I’m the feet.” She means it practically—I work the people, she works the terrain—but there’s something else in the way she says it.
The faintest edge of amusement. “You’re more…
approachable. But you should wear something different. ”
Approachable? I’m guessing she means I don’t look like I bite.
“I’m wearing jeans and a shirt,” I say.
“Exactly.” Briar stands, crosses to her bag, and pulls out something I don’t recognize at first. Dark fabric, compact. She tosses it to me.
I catch it and hold it up. A dress. Short, fitted, the kind of thing designed to make men lose track of what they were saying mid-sentence. It’s a deep wine color, soft fabric, and it would hit me about mid-thigh.
I stare at it. Then at Briar.
“Why do you own this?”
“It’s useful.” Her face is perfectly impassive. “People talk more when they’re distracted.”
“This is a weapon.”
“So wear it.” She sits back down and picks up her pencil. “Let off some steam. Might do you good. Get lucky if you feel like it. Just don’t compromise the mission.”
“Get lucky?” I choke out. This is the first actual conversation I’ve had with Briar, and this is what she comes up with?
“Yeah. Get rid of that edge you’ve been carrying.”
“What?” I scoff. “You are calling me edgy?”
She shrugs.
I hold the dress up against myself. It’s my size, which is somehow the most alarming part. “You packed this.”
“I pack for contingencies.”
I almost laugh. Almost. There’s something happening on Briar’s face that isn’t quite a smile. A hairline crack in the mask that might be humor or might be calculation or might be both.
“Fine,” I say. “But if this doesn’t work, I’m blaming you.”
“Noted.”
I change in the bathroom. The dress fits well.
Tight enough to follow my shape without restricting movement, short enough to be a statement.
It’s hard to ignore my reflection. I’m used to seeing myself in layers, in practical boots and worn canvas.
This version is different. Softer. My hair is down, falling past my shoulders, and the copper catches in the overhead light.
I look like someone who’s looking for something other than answers.
My boots ruin the effect, but I didn’t pack sexy slingbacks for some reason; go figure.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I mutter.
“Take the second phone,” Briar says as I head for the door. She doesn’t look up. She doesn’t comment on the dress. The silence, from Briar, is as close to approval as I’m likely to get.
The Railhead is the only bar in Cedar Falls.
Low building, corrugated metal roof, string lights along the porch that glow in the dusk.
Trucks in the lot. Music through the open door; live, somebody with a guitar who’s better than a small-town bar deserves.
The air coming out smells of beer, woodsmoke, and warm bodies.
I walk in and take in my surroundings. Two doors: front and a side exit near the restrooms. The bar runs the length of the right wall. Tables and booths on the left. Pool table in the back corner. Maybe thirty people, mostly men, a few women. The bartender is a tattooed woman with steady hands.
The dress works instantly. Heads turn. I feel the attention the way you feel a change in wind, not every pair of eyes, but enough. I take a seat at the bar, order whiskey, and let the room adjust to my presence.
Within ten minutes, two men have offered to buy me a drink. The first is mid-thirties, heavy through the shoulders, confident grin. “Let me get that for you.”
“I’ve got it. But thanks.” I know I’m here to ask questions, but I don’t want to come on too strong.
He takes the rejection well, nods, moves on. The second is younger, trying too hard, standing too close. “You new in town? I could show you around.”
I smile brightly, then reconsider. He doesn’t look like someone with useful information. More likely to try to impress me with how much he can benchpress.
“I appreciate it, but I’m just here for the drink.”
He lingers a beat too long. I hold his eyes without smiling until he gets the message and returns to his friends, who laugh and poke him in the ribs.
The whiskey is good. I nurse it and watch the room in the mirror behind the bar.
Locals relaxing after a day’s work. Conversation and laughter.
The live music keeps things loose. This is the town with its collar unbuttoned, the stiff politeness from the daytime stripped back to something more honest.
The bartender is my best bet. She’s been here long enough to know everyone, and she’s got the easy rhythm of someone who listens more than she talks. Which means she’s heard things.
I wait until she’s wiping down my end of the bar and not busy with anyone else.
“This place always this lively?” I ask.
“Saturday nights, mostly. Rest of the week it’s quieter.” She tosses the cloth over her shoulder. “You passing through?”
“Thinking about sticking around, actually. Where do people get work in this town? Ranch stuff, stock handling.” I take a sip of whiskey. “Anybody around here hiring?”
She considers me. Not suspicious, exactly, but measuring. “Most of the spreads run their own crews. Family operations. They don’t advertise much.”
“Yeah, I got that impression. Tried asking around town today and you’d think I was requesting state secrets.”
That gets a small smile. “People are private. It’s not personal.”
“It feels a little personal.”
She leans a hip against the bar. “Your best bet is to talk to somebody at the Forrester ranch. They run the biggest operation in the area. Sometimes they take on seasonal hands.”
Forrester. There’s that name. It matches what Margaux told me: the family that runs this territory.
“How would I get in touch with them?”
“You don’t, really. They come to you, or they don’t.” She straightens up as someone flags her from the other end. “Ask around. If they’re interested, they’ll find you.”
She moves away. It’s not a dismissal, but it’s a door closing. Politely, firmly, in the same way every door in this town closes. With a smile and absolutely nothing useful behind it.
I add the details to my mental filing cabinet. Forrester ranch. Biggest operation. Closed shop. They come to you.
The man who slides onto the stool two seats down has been watching me since I walked in. Mid-thirties, heavy jaw, the ruddy complexion of someone who drinks here most nights. He’s been working up to this for ten minutes, and the beer has finally given him permission.
“You the girl asking about work?”
Word travels fast in a small bar. I keep my expression open. Friendly. The dress is doing its job.
“I might be. You know somebody hiring?”
“Depends on what kind of work.” He grins like he thinks that’s clever. “I run cattle on a place south of here. Could always use an extra pair of hands.”
“Yeah? Big operation?”
“Big enough. Few hundred head, give or take. My brother and I run it together.”
I doubt that very much. His boots are worn but not ranch-worn. No manure, no salt stains, no scuffing from stirrups. He’s a town wolf playing cowboy for the pretty stranger. But he wants to talk, and men who want to impress you will tell you things men who are being careful won’t.
“Must be hard to find good help out here,” I say. “Seems like everybody in this town’s already spoken for.”
“That’s the truth. Used to be you’d get folks coming through looking for day work. Families, sometimes. That dried up a while back.”
My pulse ticks up, but I keep my voice easy. “How come?”
He shrugs. “People move on, I guess. Lots of little towns out here that used to get more traffic. Cedar Falls keeps to itself these days.”
“I noticed. Friendly, though.”
“We’re plenty friendly.” He leans closer. His knee presses against mine under the bar, deliberate and unwelcome. “I could show you just how friendly, if you want. Buy you dinner. Give you the full tour.”
“I appreciate the offer.” I shift my leg away and meet his eyes. Not hostile. Just clear. “But I’m just here for the drink.”
“That so?” he says, his eyes traveling down my body and then up again.
“Yes. That’s so.” I know I’m supposed to be working the room, but I can’t help myself. My wolf bristles.
He reads it correctly. Pushing would be a mistake. He holds up both hands, grinning to save face. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“I don’t. Have a good night.”
He takes his beer and retreats to a table where two other men immediately start giving him shit. I turn back to my whiskey, thinking on what he said.
That dried up a while back. Families used to come through.
Now they don’t. It could mean nothing; small towns lose traffic all the time.
Or it could mean the pipeline Brenna described: families relocated through this area, moved along, and then gone.
The traffic didn’t dry up on its own. Someone turned off the tap.
I take another sip and watch the room in the mirror. The bartender is serving a group at the far end. The live music has shifted to something slower. The lights are low, and the bar has settled into that mid-evening ease where people stop performing and start just being.
I’m thinking about the Forrester name and what it means, and how to get closer to it when everything changes.
My wolf lifts her head. Not in warning. In want.