Chapter 2
Chapter Two
The decaying remnants of Deadwood’s once thriving antebellum town center flicker by the window as we fly through town. The ornate columns and gabled roofs of the ancient mansions quickly give way to manufactured homes with sagging porches and junk-filled yards, eventually leading to grassy fields and rusted monuments of failed family farms. The stark contrast between crumbling wealth and germinating poverty is only made less startling by the one thing everything in Deadwood has in common— rot .
I rub my temples, a monstrous headache already forming from just the mention of Ryker’s name. “How long is he in town for?”
“Dunno,” my brother says, blowing past a stop sign with a shrug.
I keep prodding. “Not long, though, right ?”
Noah glances at me from the corner of his eye, his lips curling downward. “I already told you, I have no idea. What’s your deal?”
My chest deflates, sour trepidation curdling my stomach. Ryker might be my brother’s best friend, but growing up, he made my life a living hell.
If I was feeling down, Ryker would add to my misery by hiding crickets in my bed. Any time I had a crush, he and Noah would pick a fight with the guy, further isolating me from my peers who already had a hard time accepting me. After said crush was good and scared away, Ryker would mock me with fake-flirty jabs until my cheeks were flushed with embarrassment and Noah was threatening to beat him up.
The torture was relentless and inescapable. No matter the time of day, Ryker was always at our house, popping out from behind random objects to scare me and tugging on the white strands of hair in my bangs, temples, and near the base of my skull.
Unfortunately, his antics only intensified as we got older.
Ryker is the reason my brother almost got a DUI when they were fourteen. He’s why we have security cameras in the Old Town Square, and he was solely responsible for my neighbor’s insurance premiums continuously going up on their ranch every time he tried to break in a new horse only to break his arm instead. Hell, when Noah went to visit Ryker at college a few months ago, he came home with a broken wrist, alcohol poisoning, and a black eye that took forever to heal.
Ryker Bennett is impulsive and arrogant, and the cocky prick has never shied away from using his pretty face as a get-out-of-jail-free card while my brother gets stuck paying the consequences for both of them.
“Willa,” Noah clips, interrupting me from my thoughts. “What’s the problem?”
“It’s just…” I pause, trying to decide how to word this delicately. “You know what Ryker’s like. And you’ve got a good thing going for you on the rig. I’d hate it if?—”
Noah shifts in his seat, angling his body ever so slightly away from me. Dammit . He does this every time he thinks someone’s insinuating he’s a fuckup. I need to backtrack, and I need to do it quickly before he shuts down completely and doesn’t talk to me for a week.
“Your schedule already means you won’t be home for most of the summer. I was hoping we’d get to hang out a little more before I start school. ”
Noah’s expression eases, and I release a relieved breath.
“Wills, the Tyler campus is like forty minutes away and you’ll be home every night. We’ll literally see each other just as much as we do now.” He winks, jabbing a too-rough elbow into my shoulder from across the center console—which hurts far less than the guilt constricting my throat.
I want to tell my brother that I got into UT Austin—or UT, as most of us Texans refer to it—but after everything he and Dad have done to make life tolerable for me in Deadwood, would Noah be excited? Or would he view me leaving as an insult, the same way Dad did when Noah took the job in the Gulf?
Fingernails digging into my seat, I clear my throat. “Do you know how long this is going to take? There’s something I kind of wanted to talk to you about.”
Noah’s expression grows serious once again. “I’m not sure. When I answered Dad’s call, the first thing I heard was one of the other officers threatening to bring everyone to jail if they didn’t calm the fuck down.”
Perfect . That sounds exactly like the sort of situation Ryker would find himself tangled up in sixty seconds after coming home. My brows knit. “Why’s he back in the first place?”
Noah accelerates, the Blazer shuddering under the strain of our speed. “Sounds like now that Beau’s out of prison, he wants custody of Charlotte again. I guess Ryker found out, and Dad said they were already trying to kill each other by the time he got there.”
Beau Blackthorne… Another idiot member of the Blackthorne clan and Ryker’s piece-of-shit stepdad. A thick, slimy feeling rolls through my insides.
“Sounds like a mess.”
The corner of Noah’s mouth twitches. “You can say that again.”
We take a rapid turn onto the dirt road leading away from town, the tires squealing as I throw my hands out to brace myself.
“But Beau’s a felon now,” I say once I’m sure we’re not going to crash into the ditch. “He can’t actually get custody, can he? ”
Charlotte, Ryker’s half sister and Beau’s only biological child, was five when her dad went to prison for killing his wife in a drunk driving accident. She and Ryker went into foster care while their older half brother skipped town. However difficult being separated was after the devastating loss of their mother, getting out of that house and away from Beau was probably the best thing to happen to her and her brothers.
“Hell if I know. I’m running on the same information you are.” Noah’s knuckles blanch as he tightens his grip on the wheel. “All Dad said was I have to get Ryker away from that house, and I still haven’t figured out how to do that.”
Ryker might’ve been a pain in my ass growing up, but no one deserves to go to jail for looking out for their sister... Sighing, I close my eyes before glancing back at my brother.
“I could try to lure Beau away with a six-pack of Lonestar while you grab Ryker?” I tap my lip thoughtfully. “Or we could grab some rope from the Crowes’ Ranch and hog-tie him?”
Noah side-eyes me, like he can’t tell if I’m messing with him or not.
“What?” I ask indignantly. “You thought I wouldn’t help just because I don’t like the guy? Don’t be ridiculous. I had nothing to do this afternoon anyway.”
My brother laughs. “While I’m touched by your enthusiasm…and slightly terrified by your creativity, Dad would kill me if I?—”
We come to a screeching halt, the SUV fishtailing forcefully enough that the momentum throws me against the door. For a moment, the dirt billowing up around us is so thick that it blocks out the sun. The darkness is suffocating, and my breaths heave in and out so quickly I feel dizzy as I struggle to make heads or tails of what’s happening. But then the dust settles, allowing little streams of dirty orange light to seep in through the windshield until I can breathe again.
Once I regain my bearings and verify that we’re still in one piece, I scowl, wrinkling my nose at the sharp tinge of dust and burnt brake pads filtering in through the vents.
“Dammit, Noah. For once in your life, can you not drive like a complete psychopath?”
Tongue poised to spew venom when he doesn’t immediately start apologizing, I whirl on him, the scolding I’d prepared dying mid-breath when I catch sight of what he’s staring at. In the distance, I can just make out the flashing red-and-blue lights of two cop cars parked below a wispy plume of black smoke rising steadily into the air.
“Get out,” Noah says, leaning over to open my door. “You can walk the rest of the way home from here.”
I blink. He can’t be serious…
“Get out,” he repeats. “You don’t need to see whatever’s going on over there.”
Holy shit, he is serious.
I grab the door handle and slam it shut without bothering to respond.
Noah’s mouth is tight as he throttles the air between us. “For once in your life, can you just listen to me? Dad will have my head if I bring you down there.”
I lift a brow, unsure why he’s bothering with this charade when we both already know the answer. “Not a chance.”
“Dammit. I don’t have time for this,” he huffs, but he’s already straightening out the car and speeding toward Beau’s house. “You’re impossible sometimes. Can you at least promise me you’ll wait in the Blazer?”
“Nope.” Settling back into the seat, I tuck away my satisfied smirk as Noah curses and slams on the gas.
On the left, we pass Crowe Ranch and then our little brown house, my garden barely visible between the two as we fly by. I’ve barely had time to think about what we’re about to walk into when Noah mutters something under his breath and leans over the steering wheel to peer down the road.
“ Shit ,” we say at the same time, but shit is an understatement .
Despite living a half mile away, I’ve never actually been inside the house Ryker grew up in. I must’ve passed by here a thousand times, though, and it never seems to surprise me how derelict the place is.
At some point, the house must’ve been white, but it’s long since faded to a yellowing mixture of peeling paint and rotted wood paneling. A tattered American flag hangs behind the broken screen door in the junk filled entryway—the moth-eaten holes in the fabric visible from here. And while a few metal posts remain, the chain-link fence surrounding the property has been lost somewhere between the overgrown weeds and rusted scrap metal scattered throughout the dead grass.
Ryker’s familiar rusty-brown 1970s pickup truck with an ombre red-to-yellow stripe down the side is parked in the middle of the yard. There’s a smashed planter box and a crushed trash can lying in the truck’s path of destruction, as well as a steady stream of black smoke rising from beneath the dented hood.
It almost looks like someone took a crowbar to the thing… I grimace when I spot blood in the driveway amid shards of what I think used to be a wooden baseball bat strewn across the grass near the two patrol cars parked at odd angles in the culvert. The truck blocks most of whatever is happening inside the house, but I can just make out the top of my father’s Stetson bobbing side to side in a window.
My stomach twists. On second thought, maybe I should wait in the car…
“Fuck,” Noah says, shutting off the Blazer and bounding away without bothering to close the door, which means I can hear more of what’s going on inside.
Most of it is garbled, except for Dad’s sharp commands in rapid succession.
“That’s enough, Beau. Come on out of the room so we can discuss this like men? —
“Beau, we’re going to take down this door. If you still have a weapon?—”
“Goddammit, Noah. I told you to find Ryker and get out of here, what are you doing?”
Great . Now I have to drag my brother back inside the car before he does something stupid to make this worse… Reluctantly, I reach for the door handle and ease myself out.
I’ve barely taken ten steps when Beau Blackthorne crashes out of a window, shredding the hole-marked screen to bits as he flops onto the rotted porch in a heap of ruddy flesh. Recovering quickly, he stumbles to his feet and barricades the front door using fragments of a broken lawn chair—trapping my father, brother, and the other officers inside the house.
His stained white tank top rides up over his hairy belly when he stoops down to grab something off the deck before staggering onto the grass and heading in my direction.
I freeze, unable to move as the sharp, pungent tang of musky body odor makes my stomach roll and my vision swim—which is why I almost overlook the jagged handle of a broken baseball bat clutched in his left hand.
“You!” Beau slurs, tripping over his dirt-caked bare feet as he angles his body in my direction. There’s so much blood dripping from a gash on his eyebrow that he looks like a zombie straight out of a horror film.
“ Me ?” I ask, heart so high in my throat my voice sounds like a squeak.
“Yes, you ,” he sneers. “You’re that harlot from Child Protective Services, aren’t you? Did my asshole stepson call you?”
Backing up, I glance over my shoulder to see who he’s talking to, but there’s no one else around.
“ Goddammit . Beau must’ve blocked the door,” my father’s stern voice rings out from inside the house. “Did anyone see where he went? I lost visual. ”
From this position in the yard, I can’t see my dad or the officers over Ryker’s truck, which means they can’t see me either.
“Noah, find me something I can pry this open with,” Dad grunts after a loud banging sound that must be his shoulder against the wood. “Everyone else, go see if that back door is still boarded up. Beau’s car is blocked in, so it’s not like he can get very far, but I don’t feel like chasing him down the road.”
Shit. Guess I’m on my own out here…
Trying to show Beau that I’m not a threat, I put my hands out to the side and slowly back away, like I do with the spooked cattle at the ranch.
“I’m not from CPS,” I say as soothingly as I can, but the second I say those three initials, he charges, raising the bat like he intends to impale me with it.
On reflex, I spin away and drop to my knees, missing the swing he takes at my face by a millisecond and absorbing most of the blow with my upper shoulder. Pain rips through my arm as I hit the ground, but I ignore it, covering my head with my hands and curling forward to make myself as small as humanly possible. I suck in a sharp breath and tense, preparing myself for the next blow…
Thwack. Crack. Thunk.
The sound of knuckles pounding into flesh and bone hits my ears a second before Beau slams onto the dead grass next to me, the dirt around me shaking with the impact of his massive body.
A coppery odor slinks inside the safety of my tiny cocoon. And when I peek to my left, Beau is being pummeled by a flash of furious fists connected to a mass of muscle and a head of raven hair.
A sharp crack rings out through the yard, and Beau’s body goes slack, his obnoxious snores shaking the ground beneath me a second later.
Heart racing, I watch my savior stand and toss his head back to get the hair out of his face, but with the bright sun directly behind him, I can’t make out any of his features.
I glance lower, vaguely recognizing an old jean jacket with band patches sewn into the front and back, but not the way the fabric is pulled taut over the man’s biceps and chest. A flash of silver catches my eye, and I drag my gaze south, my stomach sinking when I spot the all-too-familiar death’s-head hawk moth belt buckle adorning the man’s form-fitting jeans—the same belt buckle Ryker always used to wear.
Oh God, no… It can’t be.
I swallow audibly when he peers down at me, blocking out the sun as he wipes away the blood dripping from his split lip with the sleeve of his jacket.
“Did he hit you?” Ryker asks, chest heaving and body all muscle and hard lines as rage radiates off him in heated waves.
Slowly, I rise onto my knees, staring at him in stunned silence.
Jesus. He really grew up, didn’t he…
“Willa, I asked if Beau fucking hit you?” Ryker’s brow furrows above his piercing-green eyes. The shade is different from what I remember, like moss after a heavy rain.
My throat bobs.
The Ryker I knew was a boy. But with that sharp nose, chiseled cheeks, and shoulder muscles so big they dwarf my head, the stranger standing in front of me is very clearly a man.
“Barely,” I manage to say through the assault of adrenaline in my veins. Jesus , my heart is beating so fast I’d almost swear I was drunk…
“Where?” he demands.
“Where what ?” I blink, trying to focus on anything except the horrifying realization that Ryker might be the hottest guy I’ve ever seen. Gross . Just thinking that traitorous thought makes me want to gag.
Ryker rolls his eyes, his expression softening into exasperated irritation as the corner of his lips quirk to the side. “Where did he hit you?”
“ Oh .” Still on the ground, I raise my right hand to my opposite shoulder, wincing at the light contact.
After a quick glance behind him toward the house, Ryker steps over Beau, flooding my senses with the smell of tobacco and a light scent that reminds me of summer storms and rain dripping through the pine trees in my backyard.
“Show me,” he says firmly, the command in his voice snapping me back to the moment.
I shake my head. If I take off my jacket, he’ll see my scars, and that’s not happening.
Ryker leans forward, blocking out the sun as he towers over me. “Listen, Princess, I’ll admit you look pretty damn good on your knees, but why don’t you stand up so I can see if you’re hurt?”
My cheeks flush with a mixture of anger and embarrassment.
I’d forgotten about that damn nickname…
“Don’t call me that,” I snap, face pinching into a scowl as I rise unsteadily to my feet.
I’ve never understood why Ryker uses that stupid nickname in the first place. Princesses don’t cook and clean as much as I do. Well, apart from Cinderella, but she at least had a fairy godmother who could magically transform her appearance…
Eyes narrowing, he looks me up and down. “Why not?”
I fold my arms across my chest. “Because I’m not a?—”
Pounding sounds from behind the front door, the whole thing separating away from the frame with each blow as Dad bellows, “Goddammit, Noah. Is that Willa out there? I explicitly told you not to bring her.”
“She wouldn’t let me leave her behind!” Noah shouts, but Dad just keeps yelling at him.
Ryker smirks and lifts a pointed brow. “Not a princess? And yet here you are, still doing whatever the hell you want, just like when we were kids. That’s some spoiled princess shit, if you ask me.”
Hot anger swirls inside my gut, quelled only by a spray of splintered wood from the front door bursting open. Dad’s blond-gray hair is a mess, his Stetson clutched in his hand and uniform all cattywampus as he pours out onto the porch. Then he whirls on us, eyes widening in horror the moment he spots Beau on the ground .
“Ryker Bennett and Willa Dunn, what the hell happened?” he roars, closing in fast with two officers hot on his heels.
Ryker visibly pales, and judging from how icy my blood suddenly feels as it sludges through my body, so do I. It takes a lot for Joel Dunn to lose his temper, but when he does…
I shudder.
“Mr. Dunn—” Ryker takes a step toward my dad, but I grab his arm.
Even though my touch is light, he flinches the second my fingers connect with his sleeve, like he’s expecting me to dole out a major blow.
Shit. I’d forgotten about that too…
Dropping my hand, I bite back the urge to apologize because Dad will be within earshot any second and we’re running out of time.
“Don’t you dare tell my dad that Beau hit me,” I say under my breath.
Ryker quirks a brow as he peers down at me. “What’s my silence worth to you?”
God, I hate him so much.
“I’m not asking for me, I’m asking for Noah,” I whisper-hiss. “ He’s the one who’ll get reamed out for bringing me here, and he’s already walking on thin ice with Dad.” I breeze past him with a huff, only stopping to toss a final threat over my throbbing shoulder. “Keep your mouth shut.”
Dad stops to check Beau’s pulse and then directs the other officers to load him into one of the cruisers. I fidget with the hem of my jacket while I wait for him, scowling when Ryker brushes against my side.
“Can you not stand so close to me?” I snap, quickly jerking my arm away.
“If you want your dad to see the hole in your sleeve,” he takes a step left, “then sure.”
My eyes drop to the three-inch gash in the suede. Dammit . I lean closer to Ryker, doing my best not to touch him while praying that his large arm covers the torn fabric.
When I look up, Dad is already standing in front of me, chest heaving while the other officers handcuff and drag an unconscious Beau to the patrol car.
“Are you okay, kiddo?”
A zing of guilt zips up my spine from the worry in his tone. Taking a deep breath, I inhale the peppery scent of his aftershave and the tinge of the outdoors that always lingers on his skin after a long day of work.
“Yes, Dad. I’m fine.”
With a low hum of disapproval, he inspects my face and then sighs, the fine lines near his eyes so much more pronounced than they were this morning.
“What are you doing here, Willa?” There’s an irritated sharpness in his tone that I’m not used to hearing directed at me. “Did Noah ask you to come with him? I swear, sometimes I wonder if your brother has a single brain cell in that head of his. You’re supposed to be helping me keep him in line.”
I’m so thrown off-kilter by Dad’s angry tirade, all I can do is blink until Ryker nudges me with his elbow. At first, I think he’s trying to say the rip in my jacket is visible, but when he does it again after I’ve confirmed the tear is covered, I realize it must be something else.
Against my better judgment, I risk glancing up, finding Ryker’s chin inclined toward the porch where my brother is sitting on the bottom step with his head hung low.
“This isn’t Noah’s fault,” I blurt, finally catching on to Ryker’s train of thought. “He told me to stay in the car, I just didn’t listen.”
Dad shakes his head. “Which is exactly why I asked him to leave you behind in the first place. He should have anticipated your stubbornness.”
A tight, unpleasant feeling surges through my stomach. I’m eighteen now, more than capable of shouldering the consequences of my own decisions. So why is he blaming Noah when I’m clearly the one who messed up here?
Dad pats my cheek once before turning his attention to my left. “And you .” Ryker stiffens as Dad wipes away the sweat beading on his brow with the back of his uniform sleeve. “ You should be in cuffs right alongside that idiot stepfather of yours. What was your plan here?”
Ryker drops his chin, kicking a rock in the grass with his worn leather boots. “Beau is blocking Charlotte’s adoption and trying to have his parental rights reinstated. I came to see if I could convince him otherwise,” he says, reaching into his back pocket and shoving a stack of photos into Dad’s hand. “I wanted to show Beau how good Charlie’s life is with her foster parents, but he wouldn’t hear it.”
“Dammit, son,” Dad says, flipping through the pictures with a sigh. “You know better than to try to reason with a Blackthorne. If I hadn’t arrived here when I did—” Dad pinches the bridge of his nose. “When’s the court hearing?”
Ryker shoves his hand into his pocket, removing something small and silver that he spins between his fingers like a nervous tick. “Sometime in the next few weeks.”
“I’ll make a few calls.” Dad rubs his hand up the stubble on his cheeks, the sandpaper noise resonating in my teeth until I can’t help but cringe. “Are you headed back to Denton?”
My entire body goes rigid.
Please don’t say what I think you’re about to say…
“I’m not going anywhere until I get my truck fixed.” Ryker shrugs. “Figure I’ll stick around for a few days. If Beau doesn’t want to listen to me, maybe I can get his mom or Kane to try. Can’t stay too long, though. The semester’s over, but I’ll lose my spot in the work-study program if I miss too many days.”
Dad lets loose a slow breath. “I’m assuming you don’t have a place to stay?”
Ryker shakes his head. “I haven’t really thought it through yet. ”
Oh, please no , I silently scream while my gaze volleys between them. Please don’t ? —
“Then you’ll come stay with us,” Dad says simply.
“I don’t want to impose.” Ryker takes a step backward, and I exhale a sigh of relief.
Thank God . My life is finally falling into place, the last thing I need is Ryker hanging around and ruining it.
“I insist,” Dad says sternly, and then more quietly, “Besides, if you’re sticking around, having you stay at the house will be the easiest way to keep you and Noah out of trouble.”
Ryker’s answering laugh is devious and sinful, his brilliant smile sparkling with the promise of mischief as his eyes flash to mine. “We’ll see about that, sir.”