Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68058 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68058 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Rhys can take care of himself.
Could he? Not all the time. Why did I like the idea of taking care of him so much?
I reexamined the ground I’d already covered. There had to be something out there. Finally, I found it, a scrap of navy-blue fabric. I picked it up and examined it. There was no way to be sure without analysis in a lab, but if I had to guess, I’d say it was government issued, most likely FBI. If these men were feds, we were all in serious trouble.
I pulled out my phone and placed a call to X. I trusted Grant as much as I trusted anyone, but I was also sure he’d be stubborn as hell about wanting to handle everything himself. We needed X’s connections and his expertise, especially if the feds were after us.
Just as I hung up, I heard a vehicle approaching. I took cover until I verified it was Grant. Rhys was with him. Great. They could tag team me. I grinned despite myself. I’d be more than happy to be caught between the two of them if only they weren’t so fucking angry.
Grant didn’t bother with a greeting, he just yelled, “Get back to the fucking house. Now.”
When I started to protest, he interrupted. “You’re lucky I didn’t find your body out here.”
Had my father told them I was fucking incompetent. Surely they had to know my reputation. Grant seemed like a man who did his research. “I can take care of myself. I already told my father that. I don’t need any of you.”
“Take it up with your father, then,” Grant snarled. “I’m being paid to protect you, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
I’d had it with this—being sent away, being talked down to, being expected to be no more active than the furniture. “If you’re supposed to be protecting me, you’d better up your surveillance. No one even noticed I’d walked away.”
Grant let out a long exhale, and I could tell he knew I was right. “If you had any sense, you wouldn’t want to walk away. You’d recognize that—”
“Someone is out here trying to drag one of us back to the fate we’re hiding from. I have no intention of letting that happen.” If they’d let me help, we’d all be better off.
Rhys had remained quiet the whole time, looking back and forth between me and his brother like he was trying to detect all the things we weren’t saying. Suddenly, he laid his hand on Grant’s shoulder. “We all need to get out of here. Fast.”
Grant turned to him. “What are you sensing?”
“I’m not sure, but something is off.”
Rhys jumped onto the ATV I’d ridden, leaving me to take the passenger seat in Grant’s truck. I kept my gun in my hand, staying ready and alert until we’d made it more than halfway back with no sign of our mysterious friend. At that point, I let my gun rest on my lap.
Before Grant had a chance to start in on me, I told him I wanted to be part of his investigation. “I can’t just sit around. I’m losing my mind.”
Grant huffed. “We tried to put you to work.”
They’d given me some miserable tasks around the ranch like repairing barbed-wire fencing and filling water troughs. I was never assigned to any chores that would put me near Rhys, the bastard.
“Your skill set isn’t exactly what we need to work a ranch.”
I didn’t want ranch work. I wanted to do what I did best, stalking and killing. “It is if you’ve got someone planning to make a move on you.”
“You’re here so you can stay safe, not so you can—”
“If you think I’m going to sit here waiting for someone to shoot me, you’re fucking crazy.”
“I’m not asking you to do that. I’m just asking you not to start a fight. Let us handle this our way.”
I shook my head. “Your way is slow. I like to get right to the point.”
“That doesn’t fly here. Once you’re back home, you can do things your way.”
“I wish that was true.” There was no my way back home. There was my father’s way and, increasingly, my cousin’s way. I was treated like a robotic death machine. Hell, my family would like me more if I was one.
When Grant had the nerve to suggest I could find something to do if I tried, I’d had enough. It was time to piss him off. “If your damn brother didn’t have a stick up his ass, I might have more to do.”
“Leave Rhys alone.”
“How did you know he was the one I meant?”
“Everyone knows. You’ve not been subtle in your interest.”
I’d never flirted with Rhys when anyone else was around, and there was rarely anyone by the barn when I watched him work. “Fuck.”