8. Full House #2
Colt didn’t say much. He leaned a hand against the wall beside my head, close enough to be present with me, and waited. His patience had a way of outlasting every wall I built. Maybe that’s why I had the strong desire to open up to him. Right now.
“I wasn’t always just Seth’s girlfriend.” The words pulled out by the quiet and the dark and the steady presence in front of me. “He used me.”
Colt listened, shifting his weight closer.
“He’d take me places. Bars, shops, events.
He’d tell me to cause a scene. Soon, that became our thing.
Start an argument with a bartender. Knock something over.
Make a commotion at the front of a store while he slipped out the back with whatever he was there to take.
” I pressed my palms harder against the brick, shaking my head.
“I was so desperate to be wanted by him I did anything he asked.”
The silence stretched. Then Colt sighed. “You were young.”
“I was old enough to know better.”
“You were old enough to get out. And you’re lucky you did. That’s the part that matters.” Colt pushed off the wall, pacing away a few feet with his hands in fists. “He used you, took advantage of a young woman. If he were standing here right now… good thing he isn’t.”
My throat ached, and tears burned my eyes. “If anyone found out I helped him, even in small ways, I could be considered an accessory. The things he stole, the people he intimidated—I was part of that. I know too much.”
“You should talk to the sheriff. He could cut you a deal.”
“And tell him what? If I come forward and the Brewsters find out, they won’t just come after me. You don’t know the Brewsters like I do. They’ll come after Daisy, Sage, Poppy. My sisters are all I have, Colt. I can’t put them in that position.”
Before he could respond, the back door of the Sapphire banged open, and two figures stumbled into the alley.
“Get the fuck out here and explain to me why my father doesn’t have a signed deal with yours yet.” That was Seth’s voice.
Colt moved fast. His hand closed around my wrist, and he pulled me behind the dumpster in one fluid motion, pressing me against the brick with his body between me and the alley.
His hand was over my mouth before I could make a sound, and for one wild second the only thing I registered was the heat of his palm and the controlled urgency in his eyes telling me to be still.
I didn’t move a muscle, hardly even to breathe.
Through the gap between the dumpster and the wall, I could see Seth had a young man by the front of his shirt, shoving him against the brick with enough force to make the guy’s boots scrape the pavement.
I recognized him. Tanner Hollis. Early twenties, from a good family that had a small ranch outside of town. He would always pull off his hat when I walked by and called me ma’am.
“Hollis Ranch isn’t for sale,” Tanner seethed.
Colt went rigid. Not the controlled stillness he used when he was being careful—something sharper. His whole body locked up, and I heard him inhale through his nose, a tight, involuntary breath. In the light cast from the corner of the building, I almost thought Colt’s skin had paled.
Seth had Tanner pinned by the throat with one hand and was yelling right into his face.
“You tell your father he made a deal with the Congressman, and we expect him to follow through. Those papers better be in his hand tomorrow, or there’ll be hell to pay.
Because if I can get to you, I can get to anyone in your family.
You wouldn’t want to see your folks get hurt, would you? ” Seth sneered and shoved him sideways.
Tanner stumbled, catching himself on a railing. Seth didn’t look back. He walked to the far end of the alley where a motorcycle was parked in the shadows, swung a leg over, and the engine roared to life. Then he was gone, the sound fading down Main Street.
Colt’s hand left my mouth. I ducked under his arm and stepped into the alley.
“Wylde—” Colt hissed behind me, but I was already moving toward Tanner.
“Are you okay?” I shouted, coming to his side.
He straightened his shirt with the practiced composure of a young man trying to look like he hadn’t just been manhandled by a convicted criminal. He startled when he saw us.
“Tanner, what was that about?”
He looked at the ground, picked his hat up and brushed the dust off it in his hands. “It’s nothing, Ivy. Family business.”
“No, Seth was threatening you. I need to know why.”
He regarded us for a beat. “Dad got a loan from the Congressman. Things have been rough since, well, since my brother died. I only recently found out that Dad let their debt spiral, and now the loan’s come due. We either pay or the Congressman takes our property. Our home.”
“Tanner, you cannot let your father sign those papers.”
“With respect, Ivy, leave it alone.” His voice was thin but firm. “Wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
Colt stepped forward. The way he moved had an urgency that went beyond one cowboy crew looking out for another. “If you and your dad need help fighting these guys, the Off-Duty men will back you up. You hear me? Whatever you need.”
Tanner looked at Colt for a long moment.
Something passed between them I couldn’t read.
He shook his head. “Thanks. But I need to catch up with my dad and figure things out.” He put his hat back on and ran out of the alley, boots echoing until he rounded the corner of the building. I turned to Colt.
“Not sure I like that look in your eye. Are you okay?” I asked. His jaw was clenched tight, and his gaze was still fixed where Tanner had disappeared, and whatever the Hollis name had done to him, he was carrying it below the surface.
I filed it away. I would ask him about it. Later. When I’d handled what I needed to handle first.
“I had a feeling Seth wasn’t here just for family support during the sheriff election.
” I paced several steps away and back again.
“Sage had told me she overheard someone at the Copper Cup say that Seth’s been staying out at the Gruff Bear Motel outside of town.
His motorcycle’s there every night. Which means…
when he rides into town, his room sits empty. ”
“Wylde? What are you thinking?”
“I could get into his room and see if there’s anything that might suggest what he’s really here to do.
Documents, a map, anything that ties him to the Congressman’s schemes.
If I could go to the sheriff armed with evidence, and then I told him what Seth used to make me do, he might lock him up and my family would be safe. ”
“No way are you going into his hotel room,” he ordered through clenched teeth.
“I can handle it.”
“Not alone, you can’t.”
“I’ll be fine,” I clipped.
“Oh, really?” He crossed his arms, stepping closer. The alley felt very small. “Like how you don’t want to face Seth alone and need me to hang onto and kiss? Seems to me you do want someone watching over you. You just don’t want to admit it.”
The words hit exactly where he’d aimed them. He wasn’t wrong. I straightened my spine.
“Seth has left. No one’s watching. Your job as protective boyfriend is done for the night.”
I stomped away down the alley to re-enter the saloon by the front.
“That’s not how this works, Wylde. You don’t get to turn this on or off with a switch when it’s convenient for you,” he called after me, following. “Don’t you dare go near that motel, and if you do, you’d better do it when I’m by your side.”
The music hit me like a wall, the crowd and the lights and the noise swallowing me whole, and I moved through it all with my shoulders back and my chin up, my hands shaking inside my pockets.
My mind raced, mapping the route to the Gruff Bear Motel in my head—and thinking about the way Colt’s body had gone rigid when Seth said the name Hollis.
Whatever that was, it ran deep. And Colt was carrying it alone. I knew plenty about carrying things alone.