Chapter 4
Will: Just because I handed you the keys to a Porsche doesn’t mean you get to drive it.
Tate: Why would you hand me the keys, then?
Will: For safekeeping. Don’t touch my sister.
Tate: It’s going to be hard to have a girlfriend I don’t touch.
Will: Keep it light and easy. She’s pretty messed up.
Tate: Tell her to get in line.
Will: I know the shooting was hard on you. Are you sure you can handle this?
Tate: Time will tell.
Will: I’m turning around.
Tate: Are you driving right now?
Will: I’m at a stoplight. Do I need to turn around?
Tate: I’m good. She’s safe with me.
Jaxon and Luke were still sitting at the kitchen table, playing an intense game of Speed when I walked downstairs.
The discard game was essentially a big race to get rid of all your cards first. Will and I used to play all the time, and I’d been pretty good at it.
Their breakfast plates had been licked clean and pushed to the side, and both of their hats were on backward as they flung insults back and forth in an intense showdown.
“I need the bigger loader,” Jaxon was saying as he played a card. “Landrie’s riding with me today.”
Luke grinned. “I think you’ll both be very comfortable riding together in the small one.” He threw down a couple of cards to accompany Jaxon’s groan. “You’ll be thanking me later.”
It was quiet for a moment as both men concentrated. Then, in a final twist of fate, Jaxon got a card he needed and slammed the rest of his cards down, one right after the other, before Luke could stop it.
“I win, sucker!” Jaxon said as he stood. “Hope your legs don’t get cramped in that loader.”
Jaxon turned and saw me standing there. “Hey, Liv. Wanna play? You and Luke could battle it out for the small loader.”
Luke’s defeated ears perked up as his hands stilled, putting the cards away. “Ohh, yeah, Liv. I think you and Tate could be very happy in the small loader.”
I looked between the two, smelling a rat. “What are Tate and I driving?”
“The swather,” Jaxon said, striding to the sink to lift the movable faucet for a drink. “Unless you play him and lose.”
“What do you say?” Luke asked, a gleam in his eyes as he waved the cards toward me.
“I should probably warn you,” I crowed, hands on my hips, “that I’m the undefeated speed champ in the Rawlins household.”
Luke looked delighted at this statement, pushing the seat across from him out from the table and motioning for me to sit. “Now, just to be clear, you are the reigning champ against your old, decrepit brother?”
The smile on my face grew wider. “That’s right.”
“Sounds perfect. Have a seat.”
Before I could make it one step, a pair of hands settled on my shoulders from behind. “Don’t even think about it,” Tate’s voice broke into the kitchen and caused me to yelp and twirl around at the combination of his voice and touch.
Tate’s hands dropped from my shoulders like he’d been burned. “Sorry. I thought you heard me.”
“She was just about to lose to me in cards,” Luke said, giving me a second to catch my breath.
“No, she wasn’t.” Tate looked at me, his eyes on my face. “NEVER play these two in cards for anything. And especially don’t bet on tractors I’m going to be driving.”
“I’m just not sure that big swather will be comfortable with your injury,” Jaxon said, a gleam in his eyes as Tate looked over at him.
“What injury?” I asked, giving Tate a quick once-over.
Luke looked like it was Christmas morning. “He hasn’t told you yet?”
When I shook my head, Luke only grinned. “Well, I can see why. It’s a pretty…delicate situation.”
From his place at the sink, Jaxon nodded, beaming, “Very delicate. I’d even call it intimate. So intimate you’d probably need Tate to tell you exactly where.”
“Upper hamstring,” Tate said, a hand on my back guiding me toward the back door, but not before I turned to see him flipping a finger at his two unrepentant brothers. “You ready?”
“The upper, UPPER hamstring,” Luke called out cheerfully just before the door slammed shut.
The morning air was crisp as we walked toward the field behind the Walker home.
I’d forgotten how stunning Autumn Ridge was this time of year.
Mid-September was the opening act of the fall season in Vermont.
The trees skirting the outsides of the field were still mostly green, but there were signs that better things were coming, i.e.
, light greens, yellows, and a few premature leaves on the ground.
The hot summer air had begun to cool in the mornings and evenings.
The earthy smell of dirt and apples filled the air.
The ground padded softly beneath our feet as Tate moved us past corrals and a large shed housing farm equipment.
As was my habit whenever I was outdoors, my eyes darted in every direction, obsessively checking behind me as we walked.
I tried to tell myself that it was unlikely Leroy even knew I was gone, but there were too many variables.
Too many what-ifs. What if he had seen me and Will leave this morning?
He could have followed us right to the Walker farm.
I had no reason to doubt he’d find me eventually.
He always found me.
But he wasn’t here yet. Once I determined Leroy was not hiding somewhere nearby, my eyes drifted briefly down the back of Tate’s body while I didn’t think he was looking. For medical reasons.
There was indeed a limp, but it was only slight when he walked this fast. I wondered if he was gritting his teeth through the pain.
“Does it hurt?”
Tate glanced over to me, and my face immediately flushed as I realized he’d just caught me checking him out.
“My eyes are up here, Rawlins.”
I pushed through, hoping he’d let it slide. “Does it hurt?”
“It’s getting better.”
“How can you sit?”
“It’s mostly on the side. It’s fine.”
The swather was a tall and imposing machine used for cutting hay.
The field it was sitting in had already been partially cut, with long rows of hay lying neatly in rows stretching out across the field.
The other half of the hay was still tall, ready and waiting for the swather to mow it down into rows.
Though I’d been around agriculture as much as any other small-town girl, I didn’t know much about farming.
My mom had been an accountant, and my dad a real estate agent.
But looking at the size of the field and how much was left to cut, we’d probably be out here all day.
I followed Tate up the ladder as we climbed inside.
He cleared off a spattering of tools and candy bar wrappers on the small extra seat to his left so I could sit.
His long legs and broad shoulders seemed to fill every inch of the cab.
I hesitated at the threshold, wondering if I could actually do this.
“Close the door, would ya?” he mumbled as he fumbled with some levers on a control board at his side.
One low groan and the swather rumbled to life. I closed the door and settled into the open seat, trying my best not to brush up against his arm, though that was nearly impossible with the tightness of our quarters and the bumpiness of the field.
As he maneuvered us toward the part of the field that hadn’t yet been cut, I couldn’t help but appreciate the view before me through the floor-to-ceiling windows, highlighting the mountains and the hills that seemed to roll on forever.
Silence settled between us.
Not uncomfortable, exactly. Just... different. The easy, get-in-and-get-out style of teasing we'd always shared suddenly felt out of place in a space this small.
“So, what exactly do you do?” I asked, breaking into the quiet.
“I’m an undercover narcotics officer in Burlington,” he said, adjusting the hat on his head. “The addicts in town don’t keep me as busy as you used to, but it pays better.”
“Very funny. How did you get your injury?” I prodded.
He looked out the side window, adjusting the tractor’s position on the field. “I was involved in a shooting a few weeks ago, so I’m off the clock for a while.”
“Why?”
He sighed. “When an officer gets shot or takes a shot, there’s always an investigation for a few months afterward, which means I can’t work. So, I’m here helping with the hay and straw maze until the investigation is over and I’m cleared to start working again.”
“How long does that usually take?”
He shrugged. “Usually a couple months. Sometimes more.”
“How’d you get shot?” I pressed, dying to hear more.
“In the line of duty.” To my surprise, he flashed me an irritating smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Classified.”
“Should I be worried about your ability to protect me?”
“Maybe,” he said lightly, though his jaw clenched slightly.
“I’m just wondering if I should bring my own gun if you’re not going to be,” I said, attempting to lighten our mood but also hoping to get to the bottom of the potential gun issue.
“Do you have a gun?” he asked.
“Yeah. Will taught me how to shoot.”
“Where is it?”
My lips started to form the word classified, but I didn’t think that back and forth would get us anywhere. “It’s in my purse back at the house.”
“Typically you carry your weapons on your person.”
“You’re not carrying either.”
He looked at me curiously. “Who says I’m not?”
“Where is it?”
This time, the smile did reach his eyes. “Should I be worried about you patting me down, Rawlins? We’re not on stage yet.”
Tate was actually pretty annoying for a man of the law.
We reached the end of the row in the field, and he lifted the mower in front before whipping us around to start mowing in the other direction.
A figure in a black hoodie stood in the middle of the row we’d just cut. I swore loudly, my left hand clutching my heart while my right snaked itself around Tate’s arm.
The swather lurched to a stop immediately at the same time I realized that the man was Ben, Tate’s oldest brother. My breathing came in gulps, even as I willed it to slow. I felt Tate’s eyes on me, but I was too busy counting backward from twenty.
“It’s just Ben,” he mumbled.