Chapter 3
STRYKER
My gaze dropped to her white-knuckled grip before returning to her face. “Give me the shotgun, baby.”
Her pupils widened, the dark centers eating into the blue while the blush spread down her throat beneath the neckline of her shirt, making me want to follow it with my mouth until I discovered exactly how far that pretty color traveled.
She adjusted the gun without arguing, keeping her finger straight, and I took the weight from her hands before turning the muzzle down and clearing the chamber, then slid the worn leather over my shoulder.
“Open your hands,” I urged, reaching for them before she could remember she was trying to look steadier than she felt.
She glanced down like she’d forgotten they existed.
Her fingers were still curled into stiff claws from gripping the shotgun, crescent-shaped marks pressed into both palms where her nails had bitten deep.
I took her hands, flattened them over mine, and rubbed my thumbs firmly across the cramped muscles until the tension started to ease, watching the way her attention fixed on the contrast between my scarred knuckles and her smaller hands.
They were delicate but not fragile, callused in places.
I turned one hand over to check the skin near the base of her thumb. “You did everything right.”
Her expression shifted, the last of the stubborn determination wavering beneath something raw enough to make my grip tighten. “I was scared.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, closing one hand around both of hers while the other slid to her nape. “You did it anyway. That’s courage.”
Moisture brightened her eyes before she blinked it back, and the need to pull her against my chest nearly overran the rest of my control.
I wanted her to learn fast that my hands on her meant safety, that she didn’t have to carry everything alone.
Judging by the way she softened beneath my grip and the faint tremor that moved through her when my thumb stroked the skin below her ear, teaching her wasn’t going to be a hardship for either of us.
“Jack?” I asked, though I already knew the answer from the moment the blond bastard said Jacqueline.
Grief moved over her face quickly, but I was watching too closely to miss it.
“Jacqueline,” she sniffed softly. “Grandpa was the only person who called me Jack.”
The full name suited her better anyway, elegant and soft on the surface with strength beneath it for anyone paying attention. Jack belonged to Otis, one final private thing between grandfather and granddaughter that no one else had the right to take.
“Jacqueline.”
Her lashes lifted, and the way her eyes softened when I spoke her name sent a dark pulse of satisfaction through me.
I slid my hand from her nape to her waist and drew her against my side, putting her in the protected space between my body and the barn with Otis’s shotgun still resting against my back.
Her palm landed lightly against the front of my cut, and the trust in that small movement fed every possessive instinct I had.
Judge stood several yards away with his tablet tucked beneath one arm, and he looked entirely too pleased with himself for a man standing near three criminals and a woman I’d just had my hands all over.
I looked at him long enough for Hawkeye to clear his throat like he was covering a laugh. Ghost, still keeping his prisoner face down on the concrete, didn’t bother hiding the grin in his voice when he muttered, “This should be good.”
Judge shrugged. “You never asked.”
My brow furrowed, and I muttered, “You let me call her Otis’s grandson for a fucking week.”
“I told you Jack inherited the ranch,” he replied, straight-faced enough that most men would’ve missed the amusement. “You supplied the dick.”
Jacqueline made a tiny choking sound beside me, and Hawkeye’s mouth twitched enough that he had to glance toward the ridge.
I gave Judge a flat look, but the truth was, I wasn’t pissed enough to ruin the pleasure he’d taken in finally catching me off guard.
He’d earned a few shots over the years, and this one was clean.
“I didn’t ask whether the heir had a pulse either,” I grunted, shifting the shotgun strap higher on my shoulder. “Some details are presumed relevant.”
“You seemed committed to the theory.”
“You even had a whole speech ready,” Hawkeye added, his voice rough with humor as he adjusted his hold on the blond man. “Fair offer, clean closing, help the poor city boy load his shit back into the car. Very moving. I almost wish we’d gotten to hear it.”
“You want to draft the sympathy card when Judge bleeds from paperwork-related injuries?” I asked.
Hawkeye’s grin spread. “I’m the fucking VP. I delegate shit.”
Ghost snorted. “Give it to Ledger. He’ll make a spreadsheet.”
Judge sighed. “I fucking hate all of you.”
“No, you don’t,” Hawkeye quipped. “You’d be bored as fuck without us.”
The exchange cut through the tension without breaking it, familiar and rough in the way brothers could be when they trusted each other enough not to mistake humor for disrespect.
Jacqueline’s fingers clenched a little tighter in my cut as her gaze moved between them, confusion easing into curiosity before the distant rise and fall of sirens carried over the ridge.
Relief loosened some of the tension in her shoulders. “I called 911 when I saw the loader. Dispatch said Sheriff Raines was coming himself.”
“Good,” I replied.
When the man with the broken wrist shifted behind me, trying to roll far enough to see what was happening, I wrapped both hands around Jacqueline’s waist and set her half behind me and tight enough against my body that anyone trying to reach her would have to get through my chest first.
A soft gasp slipped from her when her boots touched down, and both hands closed around the edges of my cut. Her eyes widened as she looked up at me, filled with the same startled awareness that had appeared each time I put my hands on her.
“Stay beside me.”
“I wasn’t planning to go near them,” she pointed out, her voice soft but steadier now.
“Good.” I spread one hand across her waist, my fingers curving around the beginning of her hip while my thumb rested against the warm strip of skin above her jeans. “But that isn’t the same as staying beside me.”
More color swept over her cheeks and down her throat. Her gaze dropped to my hand, then lifted back to mine, and the small nod she gave me sent satisfaction moving through my blood with a dangerous kind of ease.
“Good girl.”
Her breath caught, and my cock responded with a hard pulse that made me glad Jacqueline was tucked close enough to hide most of the evidence from everyone except the woman responsible for it. I knew she felt it because her fingers tightened in my cut and the pink in her face deepened even more.
I kept her there while the sirens grew louder, surveying the yard with the immediate threat contained.
A white work truck stood beyond the far corner of the barn, KESSLER HAULING printed across both doors in cracked black lettering, and the name struck something in my memory from one of the regional crime summaries that crossed my desk each week.
I had a feeling the sheriff would be able to shed more light on it.
But the compact loader inside the barn confirmed this was more organized than three opportunistic assholes trespassing on an empty ranch.
Its decals had been stripped, the manufacturer’s plate pried away, and someone had partially ground through the stamped serial number before our arrival interrupted the work.
“This wasn’t just trespassing,” I concluded.
Judge followed my line of sight, his earlier humor fading beneath the colder focus that made him dangerous. “No. They were using the barn as a stash site.”
“Stripping them here,” Hawkeye added, increasing the pressure on the blond man’s arm. “How many machines have you run through this property?”
“Fuck you,” the man ground out.
“Now that was uncalled for.” Hawkeye glanced at me. “He seems reluctant to participate.”
Hawkeye wouldn’t make a move without my permission. Unfortunately, we needed the asshole lucid. “Keep him breathing and able to answer Raines.”
“Plenty of room between those requirements,” Hawkeye replied, but he eased the pressure just enough for the guy to be useful without being merciful.
Jacqueline stared at the altered loader, and anger slowly replaced the relief in her expression.
Her lips pressed into a thin line as she absorbed what had been done inside her grandfather’s barn in the weeks after his stroke and subsequent death.
She took one step toward the open doors, and I went with her, sliding my hand from her waist to the base of her spine to guide her around the man with the broken wrist without allowing more than an inch of space between us.
She looked up at me, and something in her eyes told me she needed a minute to herself.
So I reluctantly released her, watching as she walked to the barn and stopped several feet from the loader to study the fresh gouge carved through the old concrete floor.
Her fingertips rose to the weathered doorframe, brushing wood Otis had likely cut and hung himself, and grief softened her face before determination hardened it again.
She was looking at a violation committed against something she considered already hers.
Judge saw it too. He adjusted the tablet beneath his arm, more out of habit than intent, but I stopped him before a single word of the sales discussion that brought us there could escape.
“Put it away,” I told him quietly.
His gaze moved to me. “The offer?”
“The ranch isn’t for sale.”
Judge glanced toward Jacqueline, then back at me, and this time there was no lawyer’s game in his expression. Just a brother measuring the decision and already understanding. “She hasn’t said that.”
“She doesn’t need to.”
I watched Jacqueline inspect the damage, her shoulders squared despite the grief still lingering around her mouth. “She drove eight hours with half her life packed into that SUV, walked onto this property alone, and stood in front of those three fuckers with Otis’s shotgun. She’s not here to sell.”
That ended it. Judge locked the tablet and slid it beneath his arm, the planned offer dead because the plan no longer fit the woman standing in front of us.
Hawkeye looked at my hand resting against Jacqueline’s lower back, then met my eyes with dry understanding already settling into place. “Not gonna buy the land?”
I shook my head. “I want the ranch side of the ridge secured tonight.”
“Done.”
Ghost looked toward the tree line, already reassessing approaches, blind spots, and whatever ugly shit might still be hiding in the folds of the property.
His gaze touched Jacqueline before settling on me, and this time he didn’t make the joke I knew was sitting on his tongue.
He simply inclined his head, brother to brother, accepting what had changed because the club would move with me when it mattered.
“We’ll lock it down,” he replied.
The first sheriff’s cruiser appeared on the distant rise, red and blue lights flashing between the valley oaks as it followed the narrow road toward the barn.
Jacqueline turned toward the sound, then moved over to stand beside me.
Her body brushed mine before settling closer, the unconscious trust in that small movement hitting almost as hard as the first sight of her had.
I had ridden onto the property intending to buy Otis’s land and close the final weakness in the club’s perimeter, but by the time Sheriff Raines started down the ridge, the ranch was no longer a gap to acquire.
It was Jacqueline’s home, and every acre of it had become protected ground.
Anyone who came for this ranch—or the woman standing beneath my hand—would have to survive me first.