Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
ARLO
“My neighbor. The problem, Martin Blackwell, owns the feed store,” Leonora says, shifting into third gear as we merge onto Four Eighty-Eight.
“Not the feed store in Hollister.”
“We’re not headed to Hollister.”
“Jackson, then?”
“Thought you already knew that. Thought that’s why you invited yourself along.”
“Could be,” I answer flatly.
“You really don’t say much, do you?” She side-eyes me, cheeks going pink, though I try to blame it on the cold.
“I’m a ranch hand, not a poet.”
“Good thing.” The corners of her mouth turn down. “The last guy never stopped talking. Talked himself right out of a job.”
I run a hand over my beard, already knowing the story well. The last ranch hand went to work for Blackwell. But I wait for her to tell me.
Her lips tighten into a thin line. “Didn’t need him, anyway.”
I remove my hat, raking fingers through my hair. “Tough to run a ranch alone.”
“You keep saying that.” Her eyes narrow at me. “Only if you’re not used to the work.”
My throat thickens, not sure where she’s headed with this. “Figure if ranches were easy to run alone, wouldn’t be any ranch hands.”
“Or cowboy poets,” she quips.
“Just stubborn cowgirls,” I grumble under my breath.
“Stubborn?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
She pulls the emergency brake up tight and hard as we park in front of the feed store, making the truck lurch. Her jaw tightens, cut with determination, and I’m not sure there’s anything I can do to stop what’s coming.
The store is dark, dusty, and smells of feed and hay.
Ag calendars line one wall where the cash register is set up.
Rows and rows of shelves hold animal food and supplies of every kind.
Chicken scratch. Chick starter. Hen layer.
Dog food of every stripe and color. Horse feed.
Pig feed. Rabbit pellets and Timothy straw.
“We’ll take one of those,” she says, nodding toward a green bale. “Rabbits love it. And—”
“Speak of the devil,” a sharp male voice says behind us. We turn, facing a man in flashy Western wear with a blingy rodeo belt.
“Clyde,” Leonora spits.
“What can I do you for?”
She stops, placing her hands on her hips. “Here for colostrum, selenium, now Timothy grass, and batteries. Lots of batteries for my trail cams.”
He shakes his head, chuckling. “Now, why would you need trail cams, Ms. Winchester? Mountain lion thefts on the rise?”
“What do you know about that?” she asks.
His eyes dart past her, sizing me up. Then, more coldly, he says, “I know unbranded calves are fair bait.”
“Are they now? Unbranded because of you,” she hisses, crossing the distance toward him before I can blink.
What the fuck is she doing?
Her hands ball at her sides as she squares up to him, leaning against the register counter. “If I were a man, we’d finish this properly.”
My stomach drops. For God’s sake.
Clyde’s eyes dart to me. “Well, the least you could do next time is bring a man with you.”
My jaw tightens, bale of Timothy straw tensing in my hands.
But no. He’s not worth it. And the last thing I can risk is breaking cover. Not now.
She steps an inch closer, voice thick with vitriol. “You’re a traitor and a thief. The worst kind. The kind they would’ve hung a couple of generations back.”
“That a threat?” he asks, with a thin smirk.
That’s when she shoves her finger into his chest, and my pulse quickens. “Tell your boss to stop trespassing and stop stealing my cattle. I know what he’s after. Ain’t gonna happen.”
“If you think you can come in here and treat me like I’m still your employee, you’ve got another thing coming. A woman ranching alone. Stupid as hell.”
He grabs her upper arm, and she tries to pull away.
That’s when my vision goes red. Before I can stop myself, he’s crumpled on the floor next to the dropped bale of grass, cowering with one hand over his face. And I’ve got the imprint of his front teeth on my knuckles.
“Arlo,” Leonora gasps.
But I’m ready to kill the motherfucker. “You ever lay another hand on her, and—” My voice sounds like it’s coming from somewhere distant, pulse raging through my temples.
Now I’ve done it. And I don’t give a damn about the consequences.
“Arlo,” I hear again, but it takes a moment for me to break the stare-down with Clyde. “Arlo, we should go.”
“No,” I grunt. “You need colostrum, selenium… some other—” I cut myself off before cussing. “Batteries.”
“We can get them in Hollister.”
My eyes slide to her face, anger still raging. But more controlled now. And sharpened like the tip of an arrow, not a sledgehammer.
“I don’t want to give them my money. Just wanted to pass that message.” She looks at Clyde.
He opens his mouth to speak, then thinks better of it, wiping blood from the side of his mouth. “Gonna call the sheriff. Press charges. Sue your ass for this.”
I chuckle. “Oh, yeah?” I’m a hair’s breadth away from telling him I can take his report.
But no, not yet.
Not until this job is done clean.
Back at the ranch, after a side trip to Hollister, more stall mucking than I’ve ever done in my life, and a thousand other chores, Leonora plops down next to me on the porch stairs, handing me a bottle of beer.
In the gloaming, the sky streaks with shades of pink, raspberry, lavender, and blue. The prettiest sunset I’ve ever seen.
But it doesn’t hold a candle to the woman next to me.
She hugs herself, wrapped in her black, fleece-lined Carhartt jacket as I open first one, then the other bottle.
“You cold?”
“A little,” she says, pressing her shoulder into mine. “But the house is too warm.”
I nod. Somehow I get it.
“What you did back there at the feed store—”
I frown.
Her eyes flick to my mouth, and heat pools in my chest.
“What you did at the feed store was dumb and reckless.”
I laugh in disbelief, taking a swig of beer. Then another. “No, what you did was.”
“Me?” she challenges, lifting an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“Picking a fight with your old ranch hand. Then, counting on me to do the punching,” I grit out through clenched teeth.
“I didn’t make you do anything.”
“You did. The moment he laid a hand on you. It was done. Over.”
“Because you’re a macho asshole? Or because it was me?”
I sit back as she turns toward me. Her chin trembles slightly, still coming off the adrenaline. But her tongue darts out, wetting her bottom lip, and all that heat in my chest curls lower. Much lower.
“Yeah, because I’m a macho asshole.”
She shoves her beer bottle into my chest, chin raising defiantly. “I don’t think so.”
“Doesn’t matter what you think. Matter’s what’s true.” The moment the words leave my mouth, I regret them.
She jumps to her feet, and I follow. Her breath hitches in her throat as I realize we’re way too close for employees and employers. Her mouth works like she’s trying to find the right words. But I’m too lost in her sandalwood and rosebud fragrance to process words.
“Asshole,” she repeats, like a defense.
“Yeah. Yours. And I’d do it again.”
Her mouth forms a little O.
Shivers of desire dance down my spine. “Though I don’t appreciate being drug into your fights.”
“You’ll leave, then,” she says. “Like they all do.”
“Like who does?”
“Every man who’s worked this ranch with me. They all ran from the fight.”
I draw closer, anger humming in my chest. “I have never run from a fight. But I refuse to be pulled into an ambush.”
“Are you accusing me of manipulating what happened at the feed store?” She stands on her tiptoes, our lips inches apart.
“Of course, I am. Because that’s what you did.” My eyes can’t stay off her mouth.
“I went there to relay a message, not start a ranch hand brawl.”
“No, because I did it for you,” I say, drawing closer until I feel the heat from her breath on my lips.
Two fuck-ups in the same day, Kincaid. What the hell are you doing?
Suddenly, her eyes go sharp as daggers, even as she strains to close the distance between us. “You don’t think I can handle this fight, do you?”
“Not alone,” I murmur.
“Then don’t make me fight it alone.”
I don’t know when protecting her stopped being the job and started being something else.
I should pull back.
I don’t.
That’s when my lips touch hers. Fire and longing. Too much need to safely contain.
But maybe I don’t want to.
I taste beer and defiance and something sweeter.
My gut knots, and I pull back. “Leonora, I need to tell you something…”
She’s flushed. Breathless.
I swallow. “Before this goes any further—”
And then I smell smoke.
Not from the house.