Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
Wyatt
Holt and I were supposed to be fixing the bearings on the stock trailer. The morning air was crisp, tasting of mountain runoff and dry grass, but the sun was already starting to bake the grease into my skin.
Instead of working, I was staring at the same rusted bolt for five minutes, the wrench heavy and useless in my hand. Something had been crawling under my skin since yesterday, a prickly, restless feeling that usually preceded a summer storm or a predator in the brush.
“Tighten it or kiss it,” Holt muttered from where he was hunkered down by the axle, his face streaked with oil. “Pick one, Wyatt. I’m losing circulation in my legs.”
Before I could answer, he straightened, squinting past my shoulder toward the long, gravel drive. “Uh oh.”
I turned, the wrench falling to the dirt with a dull thud.
A tiny, mud-splattered hatchback was rattling up the drive, its engine whining in protest. Dust boiled behind it like a smoke screen. It didn't slow down for the cattle guard, hitting the metal bars with a bone-jarring clatter.
Dani.
The car hadn't even fully stopped before the door swung open.
She stepped out, her pink hair a shock of neon against the muted browns of the ranch.
Her sunglasses were too big for her face, hiding her eyes, but the way she marched toward us, shoulders squared, chin tilted, radiated a kind of frantic determination.
“Did you invite her?” Holt asked, wiping his hands on a rag, his eyes fixed on Dani.
“Yeah, no,” I said, my gut tightening. “And I don’t like the look on her face.”
“Looks like she’s gonna set fire to something.”
“Probably me.”
She slammed the car door, a sound like a gunshot in the quiet valley, and marched over, pointing a finger at me like I’d committed a felony.
“We need to talk,” she snapped. “Now.”
Holt whistled low under his breath, leaning back against the trailer. “Someone woke up spicy.”
Dani shot him a look sharp enough to cut tempered steel. Holt, a man who’d been stomped by rodeo bulls and broken wild colts without flinching, actually straightened his posture and took a half-step back.
Interesting. But I didn't have time to process it. I jerked my chin toward the heavy timber doors of the barn. “Inside.”
I didn't wait to see if she followed. I led the way into the shadows of the barn, where the air was cooler and smelled of sweet alfalfa and leather.
Dani stomped in behind me, her heels clicking on the hard-packed dirt.
Holt trailed after us, his curiosity clearly overriding his concept of self-preservation.
Dani spun around, her shaky hands diving into the pockets of her denim jacket—another bad sign. She wasn’t confident today. She was vibrating with a fear she was trying to mask with aggression.
“I don’t know how to say this without breaking some kind of girl code,” she said, her voice cracking on the last word. “But Tessa is not okay, Wyatt.”
My whole body went still. Every muscle, every nerve ending, went on high alert. “What happened?”
She swallowed hard, her throat working. With trembling fingers, she pulled a thick manila envelope from her purse and held it like it was radioactive.
I saw the name written on the front. Tessa. Underlined twice in a jagged, angry hand.
My chest tightened, a cold weight settling behind my ribs. “Dani.”
“Don’t freak out.”
“I’m not prone to freaking out, Dani. Give me the envelope.”
“No yeah you’re totally mellow. Somehow I think that you might freak out now.”
“Dani,” I huffed, reaching out. She pressed the envelope into my hand.
I opened it carefully, my fingers clumsy. I pulled out the contents, and for a second, the breath left my lungs.
It wasn't one photo. It was a dozen. All glossy, high-resolution, and taken from a distance.
The first one hit me like a physical blow.
Tessa was walking from the barn in the blue hour of early morning, her hair messy, a bucket in her hand.
The next: Tessa unloading groceries with Dani, laughing at something.
Then Tessa crouched by the broken fence line on the north ridge.
Tessa was asleep in the porch chair, her head tipped back, vulnerable and completely unaware.
Every shot was telephoto. Every shot had been taken from the tree line or the roadside.
But the last one, the last one, made the blood in my veins turn to ice. It was Tessa with her hands on my chest, looking up at me in the yard two days ago. Looking at me like I was the only person in the world she could trust.
“He’s been here,” I said, my voice coming out low and dangerous. “He’s been watching her on my land.”
Holt stepped closer, looking over my shoulder. He swore, a vicious string of words. “Holy shit, Wyatt.”
Dani’s voice shook as she stepped into my line of sight. “Wyatt, these were all taken this week. Some of them are from yesterday.”
I gripped the envelope so hard the paper crumpled. Every instinct in me—the man who’d promised Ray he’d watch over her, and the man who still hadn't figured out why his heart skipped when she walked into a room, went razor-sharp.
“Where did she find them?” I asked.
“On her truck,” Dani whispered. “Tucked under the wiper. Yesterday, while she was at the co-op.”
A hot, slow, deadly anger simmered through me. I hadn’t felt this particular brand of rage in years, not since someone tried to cut my water rights. It was a cold, focused fire.
I forced myself to breathe, to keep my hands from shaking. “She didn’t call me.”
Dani laughed, a bitter, jagged sound. She wiped at her eyes, her sunglasses sliding down her nose.
“Wyatt, she won’t even tell me she’s scared.
She came home white as a ghost and made dinner like she was a Stepford wife.
That’s how I knew something was really, really wrong.
She’s acting like if she ignores it, it’ll go away. ”
My jaw locked so tight it ached. “Why?”
“Because that’s Tessa,” Dani said, her eyes wet and furious. “She thinks being strong means being silent. She thinks if she asks for help, she’s proving you right, that she can’t handle this place.”
Holt looked at me, his face grim. “We need to do something, Boss.”
“We are,” I said.
Dani pushed her pink hair back, her hands still trembling. “She didn’t want me to tell you. She’d kill me if she knew I was here.”
“She won’t know.”
“She’ll know,” Holt muttered, though he didn't disagree.
“She won’t,” I repeated, my gaze fixed on the photo of her sleeping. The sight of it made my stomach turn.
Dani’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Wyatt, he’s escalating. He followed her all the way from Calgary. She doesn’t know what he wants.”
I did. I’d seen men like this fucker before. It wasn't about love. It was about control. Possession. Fear. He didn't want her back; he wanted to own the fact that she was afraid of him.
I set the photos down on a hay bale with slow, lethal precision, as if I couldn't risk damaging the evidence. I went cold. Still. Focused.
Holt watched me, his own posture shifting. He knew this version of me. It was the version that didn't stop until the job was done.
“Boss?” he asked quietly.
“We’re done playing nice,” I said. I looked Dani dead in the eye. “You were right to come here.”
She exhaled a shaky breath, her shoulders finally dropping a fraction. “Thank God. I thought you’d yell at me for interfering.”
“I’m not mad at you, Dani,” I said truthfully. “I’m pissed at him.”
“Good,” she said, wiping a stray tear. “Because I can’t protect her from a man like this. I’m just a city girl with a loudmouth.”
My stomach twisted at the raw honesty in her voice. “You shouldn’t have to.”
I turned back to Holt. “We watch the roads. We watch the fence lines. Nobody—and I mean nobody—gets near that ranch without us knowing.”
Holt nodded, his face hardening. “Done. I’ll pull the night shift on the ridge.”
“And Dani,” I added, my voice softening but remaining firm. “She can’t know about this. Not yet. If she finds out you broke her confidence, she’ll shut us both out. Right now, she needs to feel like she has some ground under her feet.”
Dani nodded reluctantly. “Okay. But Wyatt, she likes you. Even if she’s too stubborn to admit it. Please don't let this scare you off.”
I blinked, the comment catching me off guard. “This isn't about me.”
Dani’s lips twitched with a ghost of a smile. “That’s exactly why I said it.”
I ignored that, pushing the thought aside. “Go home. Stay inside. Don’t travel alone for a few days.”
She nodded and turned to leave, but stopped when Holt called out to her.
“Hey, Dani?”
She paused, looking back.
Holt rubbed the back of his neck, a rare flush creeping up his tan skin. “If you, uh, need someone to walk you to your car in town. Or whatever. My number’s on the visor.”
Dani raised an eyebrow, a bit of her usual spark returning. “Oh? Cowboy’s got a soft spot?”
Holt scowled, looking at his boots. “Just bein’ polite.”
Dani smiled, a small, real one. “Thanks, Holt. I might take you up on it.”
She walked back to her car, and we watched until the dust trail faded into the horizon. The silence in the barn was heavy, charged with the shift in the stakes.
I picked up the photos again, my thumb brushing over the one of Tessa on the porch. My hands curled into fists.
“What now?” Holt asked.
“Now,” I said, folding the photo and tucking it into my pocket, “I find Colin Winters.”
“And then?”
I met his eyes.
“Then I make sure he never looks at her again.”