Chapter Twenty-Six
She shifted in his arms, lifted her head. The tears had cooled on her cheeks, but her throat still ached from screaming.
“Who did this?” she whispered.
Ethan’s jaw clenched against her temple. “I don’t know yet.”
“But you will,” she said.
He looked at her. His eyes weren’t wild like before. Now they were glassy, furious—and terrifyingly clear.
“I will.”
Amara pulled away enough to look at the wreckage.
Her house.
Her goddamn house.
Nothing but a skeleton now. The frame of the dream. Charcoal and smoke and regret. She could smell the insulation, the burnt wiring. Could almost see the outlines of where the kitchen would’ve been. The bedroom. The porch she was going to stain next spring.
Gone.
Ethan stood behind her. She could feel his body heat. His presence. His loyalty.
“You’re not going back to the farm,” he said. “Not until I get to the bottom of this.”
“I’m not hiding.”
“I’m not asking.”
She turned to him then.
“Then let me help.”
She watched him consider it, and she took a breath.
Let the wind lift her hair, the smoke sting her throat, the anger settle deep in her chest.
And for the first time in a long time—maybe ever—Amara James was ready to fight.
But just as she clenched down, determined, tires on wet pavement distracted her. Ethan turned and they saw it.
Amara clenched Ethan’s hand—tight enough that if she’d had claws, they’d be drawing blood.
“Don’t,” Ethan said.
The car door opened. Out stepped Juniper Hollis, Calhoun’s crown princess of press releases and whiskey charity balls. Raven hair in a glossy twist, pearl studs, heels not made for scorched gravel. She looked too polished for this ruin, too smooth to belong at the edge of Amara’s nightmare.
The blood in Amara’s ears roared.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered. “What the fuck is she doing here?”
She pulled to advance. Ethan caught her waist. “Amara. Wait.”
“She works for them, Ethan. What, you think she’s come to offer condolences? Or a goddamn bottle of twelve-year-aged sympathy?”
But Ethan didn’t move. His hand at her hip was steel. His jaw, too. He stood between her and Juniper like a barricade—not shielding, not defending—just calculating. His grip wasn’t cruel, but it was absolute.
Juniper stopped a few steps from the car. Her eyes were red. Wet. She looked from Amara to Ethan, then back again.
“I just heard.”
Amara bristled. “From who? Your father?”
Juniper flinched. “I’m not here for him,” she said. “I’m here because of him.”
Ethan still hadn’t said a word.
“I don’t want this,” Juniper rushed on, stepping forward now. “I didn’t know what they were doing, not really. But now I do. And I’m not standing by for it.”
Amara’s mouth opened—to say what, she didn’t know—but Ethan’s hand stayed firm.
Juniper’s eyes locked on hers. They were a clear, startling blue. Nothing soft in them now. “I’m not your enemy. And I didn’t come to fight.” She took a breath. “I came to help burn the whole rotten house down.”
Amara didn’t let go of Ethan’s hand, but she didn’t let her guard down either.
Juniper Hollis stood in the smoke-stung air, all shiny tears and polished grief, saying things that didn’t match the heels on her feet or the empire in her last name.
“I’m not your enemy,” she’d said. Maybe. But Amara had spent her whole damn life learning how to read a lie—and Juniper’s grief, if it was real, was wearing too much mascara and too little consequence.
Before she could respond, another engine growled over the ridge. Gravel crackled as a familiar beat-up Silverado crested the hill and parked on the shoulder. Brock.
Amara pulled from Ethan’s grip—gentle, instinctual—and crossed the pavement just as Brock cut the engine and climbed out, face drawn, eyes flicking from the wreckage of the house to her.
“Hey,” she breathed, rushing him.
He caught her in a solid hug, all workman’s arms and cedar scent. “Christ, Mar.”
“I’m okay,” she said, even though she wasn’t. Her voice cracked anyway. “Mama?”
“She’s okay. Shaken up, but I gave her a Valium and put on Judge Judy. She thinks the stallion’s spooked from coyotes. I didn’t tell her anything different.” He pulled back just enough to look at her. “I’m so sorry, Mar.”
She nodded. Swallowed. Didn’t let herself fall apart again. But she did glance back—and caught the tight line of Ethan’s jaw. His hands in his pockets. The muscle ticking under his beard like a man holding the line.
Not that she’d hugged Brock for him to see. Brock was her friend. That’s it. Always had been.
But Ethan?
Ethan looked like he’d rather have taken a bullet than watch her in another man’s arms.
He looked like he might’ve felt something close to possessive—and that alone made her spine stiffen.
Juniper was still hovering like a witness with nowhere to stand.
“So,” Amara said, turning slightly toward her. “What exactly did you hear?”
Juniper looked between the three of them, her hands clasped, voice calmer now. “That a message was sent. That someone tried to burn you out of Calhoun County. That the James girl didn’t get the message last time, so they made it louder.”
The words hit like a slap. Amara stepped back. “Last time?”
Juniper nodded, solemn. “I think your father’s death was just the warm up.”
The silence was immediate. Suffocating. Even Brock tensed.
Amara’s stomach dropped. She felt Ethan step in behind her—close but not touching. His shadow at her back. His silence louder than words.
“You better start talking,” he said to Juniper, his voice steel. “And this time, don’t leave anything out.”
“Can you come with me for a drive?” Juniper asked. “There’s a lot of cops here. And what I have to show you…it could get me killed.”
Amara’s spine locked.
Ethan gave a single, short nod.
Brock stepped forward. “I can drive Amara—”
“Hell no,” Ethan and Amara snapped in unison.
Amara didn’t even look at Brock. Her eyes were locked on Juniper. “You want to go somewhere private with him?” Amara said, low and biting.
Juniper didn’t flinch. She looked Ethan straight in the eye. “I want to show you what I found. In the forest. Off the south line.”
Amara’s breath left her in a sharp exhale. “That’s where I was shot at last night.”
Ethan’s body turned to stone beside her. She could feel it—she was standing next to a loaded rifle.
“Okay,” he said. “Amara, come with me.”
They walked in silence to his truck, Ethan’s hand at her back like a brand. His shadow moved with hers. When they reached the truck, he opened the driver’s side door and turned her to sit, firm hands on her hips.
“Here are the keys.”
“Excuse me?”
“I need to go look at the area where you were attacked,” he said, crouching just enough to meet her eyes, one hand still pressed to her thigh. “I need to understand what Juniper found.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No.” He gripped both sides of her hips now, holding her down in the driver’s seat. His gold-green eyes burned into her.
She sucked in a breath, and tried to pretend he didn’t have that effect on her. His eyes, that intense mix of meadow and metallic—she’d never seen anything like it.
He placed the keys in the ignition. “I need you safe. Back at camp. Lock the door, put the coffee on, get your strength back. I need to know you’re okay while I do this. You remember the route? East on Eadie, six miles until that old logging road.”
The truck’s cab was still warm from the falling sun and her pulse.
She didn’t respond.
“Amara,” he said. “Can you get yourself back?”
“You said you wouldn’t leave me.” Her voice cracked.
His jaw twitched. “And you said you trusted me.”
“I do,” she whispered, throat tight. “But it’s her. And you—God, Ethan, you don’t see how this looks.”
“I don’t care how it looks,” he snapped, a rare flash of temper breaking through. “I care that you’re not in a fucking body bag.”
He stepped back just enough to open the rear passenger door of the truck. She saw him reach for something wrapped in oilskin. The glint of metal—long gun. Shoulder rig.
He wasn’t just checking it out. He was going in.
He turned toward the Lexus, cocked the passenger door open, and cast Juniper a look. “You’re driving.”
Juniper, composed as ever, nodded once and slipped behind the wheel.
Ethan looked back at Amara in the driver’s seat of his truck, and for a half-second his face cracked. Just around the eyes. That sliver of softness he reserved only for her.
“Drive straight back. Don’t stop. Lock up.”
He waited, watching, until Amara shut the door and turned the engine over.
And then—he was gone.
Amara sat there, heart in her throat, watching as the car kicked gravel and rolled down the road with Juniper behind the wheel and Ethan riding shotgun—armed and storm-eyed, already half gone from her again.
She slammed her hand on the steering wheel, muttering, “Goddamn son of a bitch,” but her voice broke mid-syllable.
Not just from rage.
From the feeling that once again, he’d chosen war over her.
She watched the taillights of the blue Lexus disappear in the haze, a red glow blinking once before the trees swallowed it whole.
Miss Juniper fucking Hollis. Of course.
The second that door had shut and Ethan had slid into that passenger seat like it meant nothing, Amara’s chest had clenched so tight it felt like her ribs cracked inward. And now he was gone. Again. Off chasing ghosts with the kind of woman who’d never had to chase a damn thing in her life.
Everything inside her hurt.
She didn’t move for a long beat. Just sat there in his truck. Her fingers curled around the steering wheel like it was a life preserver. Or a weapon.
Then came the tap on the glass.
She turned, startled. Brock.
She lowered the window.
He didn’t smile. Just tilted his head, eyes gentle in that way that made her throat tighten. “You wanna come see the stallion?”
She blinked.
The stallion. Her horse.
The one that had taken a bullet for her.
The one Ethan had told her not to go back for. That the farm wasn’t safe. That she needed to hide away like some precious thing he could tuck in a corner while he handled the danger.
She laughed, sharp and bitter. “Sure,” she said, twisting the key and feeling the rumble of the engine under her palms. “Let’s go back to the farm.”
Brock found his way around the truck to the passenger side and slid in beside her, his scent all sawdust and sweat, familiar in a way that didn’t sting.
And as she pulled Ethan’s truck into gear and turned toward home—not the camp, not the secret hideout, but the real place where her life was—Amara James set her jaw.
If Ethan Kane thought she was the kind of woman who waited around in the woods while other people solved her problems, he was about to get a very rude awakening.