I didn’t know and thought about it the entire drive back to Wild Creek.
I hadn’t made any kind of headway by the time I rolled down the familiar Main Street. My foot slammed on my brake pad when I drove past the Bull Pen, sending my truck to a jolting stop. Rhett was in the back alley, shaking hands with Preston Hollis. My grip tightened on the wheel. Preston handed Rhett what looked like an envelope of cash. I got pictures of it all and hauled ass back to the ranch.
I nearly ripped the door to the bunkhouse off its hinges. Men jumped to their feet, glancing warily at one another. “Oh, hey there, boss,” Marcus, one of the older ranch hands, said.
“Where’s Rhett’s bunk?” The words came out like bullets, clipped and dangerous.
Marcus pointed to a bed in the corner. “Back there.” I stormed over there, tossing the mattress off the frame and gathering all his shit. “Somethin’ goin’ on, Emmett?”
“Rhett doesn’t work here anymore,” I seethed, ripping his drawers open and shoving everything into a trash bag. “Prick was feeding information to the Hollises.”
A flurry of commotion broke out through the bunkhouse.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Rhett yelled across the room.
The fucking nerve of this guy. My vision tunneled. My mind was nothing but static and the pounding of my pulse. Rage sent me across the bunkhouse. I grabbed him by the shirt and threw him up against the wall. “I just saw you!” I screamed in his face.
He went limp like a rag doll. Eyes wide. Jaw bobbing. “I…I can explain.”
I shoved him against the wall again. “I don’t want to hear a single fucking thing you have to say. Do you know the kind of damage you’ve caused? What you’ve done to Delilah?”
Hands wrapped around my arms, hauling me away. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what’s goin’ on here?” Beau demanded, scowling between Rhett and me.
I ripped my arm out of Beau’s grasp, breathing hard. “Go on. Tell him,” I spat at Rhett, my hands trembling with adrenaline.
Rhett looked like he was about to piss himself. “I was…they…Preston?—”
I turned to Beau. “I just caught him outside the Bull Pen taking money from Preston Hollis.”
Beau’s nostrils flared, the muscles in his jaw tensing. “Is that true?” His voice was that eerie kind of calm. The one that came before the storm.
Rhett nodded. “Yes.”
Beau’s hands curled at his sides, knuckles white. “And whatexactlywas he paying you for?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“In-Intel mainly.” Rhett glanced between us. His voice trembled. “Fuck with the ranch. With Delilah. I let the therapy horses loose. And for the tack room.”
“That was you?” Beau growled. “Do you know how much it cost to replace all the shit you ruined?” His voice was so loud that it felt like the building's foundation rattled.
I instantly pulled my phone out and dialed Colt. I didn’t even give him the chance to speak before I said, “You gotta come arrest someone. I’ll explain when you get here.” And hung up.
“I’m sorry! I needed the money. I was desperate. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
“But you did.” And that’s the worst part of it all. Because of this piece of shit, Delilah suffered. She doubted herself now, and he played a role in that. And if my urge to wring his neck until he’d be eating out of a tube for the rest of his life for being part of her pain wasn’t proof enough that I was completely in love with her, I didn’t know what was.
The realization hit like cold water, leaving me breathless. I staggered back, my chest tightening around this feeling, warm and overwhelming. All-consuming. It wasn’t a thought so much as a weight that settled in my ribs: Delilah was mine. Mine to protect. To take care of. Not the ranch. Not the program. Not anyone else. Her. She was all that mattered. Everything else came second now.
And it was the most terrifying realization I’d ever had. Because loving someone meant giving them the power to wreck you—and I’d already handed her the pieces. Hell, even thinking it made my lungs constrict. I’d spent years building walls no one could climb, and now she’d gone and kicked a hole clean through the middle of them. I didn’t know whether to thank her or run away screaming.
Naturally, she walked through the door that second. She was breathless, as if she had run here, her hair tangled from the wind. “What the hell is going on in here? I heard yelling.”
“Rhett has been working for the Hollises,” Beau explained through barely constrained anger, while I just stood here like an idiot, tongue-tied over the sight of her. “He trashed the tack room, let the horses out, giving?—”
“What?” She spun on her heel, her glare murderous. “You let the horses out?”
In a flash, Rhett’s head smacked back against the wall. Blood gushed from his nose. He slid to the ground, clutching his face,cursing. “That’s the last time you fuck with my horses, you piece of shit,” she spat, shaking her hand out.
Yeah. She was my heart outside of my body.
