Chapter 8
Willow
I’m up early, restless. Briar left before dawn. She wants to push the scent trail further south, past where the terrain opens up. She’ll be gone all day. That leaves me to do the ground-level work in town, and today, that means making the cover real.
I pull out the phone numbers I photographed off the hardware store notice board. Two flyers for seasonal ranch hands. One’s at a property called the Caldwell spread, south of town. The other’s at a place listed as Hollis Ranch, west along the county road.
Caldwell’s closer. I call the number. A woman answers. Sixties, by the sound of it, no-nonsense.
“I saw your posting at the hardware store in Cedar Falls. Looking for seasonal hands?”
“Might be. You have experience?”
“Stock work, fencing, general ranch labor. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.”
A pause. “Where are you from?”
“Arkansas. Hill country. My family ran cattle—Herefords, mostly.” All true. Every word.
“We don’t usually hire people we don’t know.” She says it without apology. Fact, not rudeness. “Try the Forrester operation. They take on seasonal hands sometimes.”
“I’ll do that. Thank you.”
I hang up. They don’t hire from out of town. Which means it’s unlikely any of our people might have come here.
I try the Hollis number. It rings out.
The Caldwell woman directed me to the Forresters.
Which means the Forresters are the default answer for anyone looking for work in this area.
The first place any stranger would be pointed toward.
Which means the missing family—the woman with the boy that Margaux described—would have been pointed there too.
Every road in this territory leads to the Forresters.
I drive out to the Hollis place anyway. It’s worth a look, even if nobody answers the phone.
The ranch is forty minutes west along the county road—rough, pretty country, the bluffs rising on both sides of the road.
The gate is open, but the house looks quiet.
I park and walk up. Nobody home. But the property is maintained; fences in good repair, cattle in the near pasture, a tractor parked under a lean-to.
On the drive back, I take a detour south along one of the ranch roads, following the general direction of Briar’s scent trail. The terrain matches what she described, good for moving people unseen, if you knew the route.
I pull over at a junction where a ranch road meets the county highway. A wide pullout, gravel, room for two vehicles. The location fits—close enough to the corridor, far enough from town.
I photograph the junction. Mark the location on my map.
By mid-morning, I need gas. The gauge has been dropping since the Hollis drive, and I pull into the station on the main street. Jake’s behind the counter, the same man from Saturday who gave me three identical non-answers. I pump first, pay later. That’s the routine here.
The card reader is broken. I jab at the buttons twice before accepting the obvious and heading inside to pay cash.
I’m coming back out when I see his truck at the opposite pump.
The awareness hits me before the visual registers: the warmth along my spine, the wolf lifting in my chest. Then I see him. Leaning against the side of his truck, arms folded. He’s not pumping gas. He’s waiting.
For me.
My wolf practically pants. I hold her down.
“Card reader’s busted,” he says. Easy. Conversational. “Has been for months. Jake keeps saying he’ll fix it.”
“I figured it out.” I hold up the change from the counter. “The old-fashioned way.”
“Works every time.”
We stand there. Five feet apart, separated by the width of a pump island and the memory of a bar restroom that neither of us is going to mention. His eyes are on mine. Steady, direct, not pushing. Waiting to see which way I’ll go.
I should leave. Get in the truck. Drive away. This is the man whose pack runs the territory where my people disappeared. Every minute I spend with him is a minute I’m not looking for them.
But Briar said: Let him come to you. You’ll learn more from one conversation where he’s not on guard.
He came to me. He’s standing in a gas station lot because he saw my truck and didn’t drive past. I’m sure of it.
“Found any work yet?” he asks. Not aggressive. Genuinely curious.
“Made some calls this morning. Tried the Caldwell place and a ranch out west. Nobody’s hiring outsiders.” I shrug. “Got told to try the Forresters.”
Something shifts in his expression; not surprise, just a wry acknowledgment. “Everybody gets told to try the Forresters.”
“Popular operation.”
“Big operation. Take on seasonal hands sometimes, depending on what needs doing.” He pushes off the truck. “You know cattle?”
“Herefords. Grew up with them.”
“Herefords are stubborn.”
“So am I.”
He smiles, and it does something warm in my chest that has no business being there.
“I know who you are,” I say. And immediately wish I hadn’t, because the words came out before the operative in me could catch them. I sound too eager.
He goes still. “That right?”
“Conner Forrester. Your family runs the ranch. The one everyone keeps telling me about.” I try to make it sound casual, information anyone could pick up.
“You’ve been asking about me.” Not a question. Not hostile either. Just the observation of a man who’s used to being the one asking.
“I asked who runs the area. Your name came up.” I hold his eyes. “Not a lot of Conners in a town this size.”
He watches me for a beat. Reading. The enforcer is in there somewhere—I can feel the assessment behind the attraction. But whatever he sees doesn’t trip the wire. Maybe because I’m telling the truth. I did ask around. His name did come up.
“So, Willow.” He lets my name sit in the air. “You going to tell me your last name, or do I have to ask around too?”
“Ask around.” I turn toward my truck, passing him as I do so. His fuel gauge is visible through the open driver’s window, the needle sitting just below full. He didn’t need gas.
“Dedicated customer,” I say, nodding toward the gauge.
“I like to keep it topped off.”
“That’s what you’re going with?”
“That’s what I’m going with.”
The laugh almost gets out. I feel it rise, warm and real, and I choke it back. But not fast enough. He catches it, and the way his expression shifts in response is dangerous. Not predatory. Pleased. Warm. The face of a man who’s just learned something about a woman, and likes what he’s learned.
“I gotta get going,” I say.
“Maybe I’ll see you around?”
“Depends,” I say.
“On what?”
“On whether you got work for me?” I stick with my story.
He grins. “It’s like that, huh?”
I shrug, unapologetic.
“I’ll check with the foreman.”
“Thanks.” I nod, then get in my truck and start the engine. Then I sit for a moment, facing forward, aware that he’s still standing at the pump, watching me. Aware that every second I stay is a second I’m not driving away.
Briar said let him come to me. She didn’t say anything about what to do once he did.
“I don’t know anyone here,” I say without turning. “And I don’t trust easy.” The words come from somewhere I didn’t plan. “But Dutch’s coffee is growing on me.”
I pull away.
Don’t look in the mirror. Don’t look in the mirror. Don’t—
I look in the mirror.
He’s standing in the lot, hands at his sides, watching my truck turn the corner.
The expression on his face is the one I saw at the Railhead, right before everything went sideways.
Not lust. Not calculation. Something open and undefended that a purist enforcer has no business showing a woman he doesn’t know.
I drive back toward the motel with the windows down and my wolf vibrating in my chest and the taste of something reckless on my tongue.
I just invited Conner Forrester to coffee.
Not because the mission required it. I invited him because I wanted to, and the wanting scares me more than any pack of purist wolves.
Briar’s truck isn’t at the motel. Still in the hills. I call her from the parking lot instead of waiting.
“How’s the trail?”
“Still heading south. Found another section past the flats. Faint but readable. I’m going to push another mile before I lose the light.” A pause. “You?”
“Made calls to two ranches. No one’s hiring, but both pointed me toward the Forresters. That’s where anyone looking for work in this area would end up.” I pause. “And I ran into Conner at the gas station.”
Silence. The Briar kind, which means she’s processing.
“He came to me,” I say. “Like you said. With any luck, he’ll come looking for me at Dutch’s.”
More silence. Then: “Good. If he shows up, that’s his choice. You didn’t push. He came to you.” The sound of brush scraping against clothing. She’s still walking. “Just remember what you’re there for.”
“I know what I’m there for.”
“I know you do.” She ends the call.
I lean back in my seat. The afternoon sun is warm on the windshield. The bond-thread pulls south, faint and steady. Somewhere past the hills, my people are waiting.
And somewhere behind me, in a gas station lot on the main street of a town I shouldn’t trust, a man is standing with a full tank of gas, and I can’t stop thinking about him.
Remember what you’re there for.
I do. That’s the problem.
I’m there for the families. For the mission. For the wolves who vanished into the south and didn’t come back.
But I’m also thinking about the way his voice sounds when he says my name, and the way my wolf responds to him, and the way his face changes when I almost laugh at something he says.
And that’s going to land me in a whole heap of trouble.