He stared at me, and the silence stretched.
He swung then, and the blow connected to my temple, and I stumbled back, a tearing pain in my hip, falling back into Miguel, who caught me to steady me. I yanked out my phone. “I’m calling 911.”
The bigoted asshole muttered a string of slurs, then he spat into the snow, muttered some more, and shoved past me, frowning as if he’d already forgotten why he was angry, then disappeared around the corner I’d come from.
Miguel stayed where he was, breathing hard.
“You okay?” I asked.
He nodded, but his hands were shaking. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he murmured, then looked up at me, his eyes wide. “Why would you do that?”
“I don’t like bullies, Miguel,” I said.
He pointed at my face. “Jesse won’t like that. I should have taken what he said. He should have hit me. I can handle it.”
“What? No freaking way. And this is none of Jesse’s concern. Are you okay? Do you need anything?”
“No, sir, Mr. Barrett.”
“I need to call the cops?—”
“No!” Miguel said. “Talk to Jesse first, okay? I’m gonna go back to work,” he said, voice steady in a way his hands weren’t. He tipped his hat, polite and automatic, then hurried off in the opposite direction, boots crunching too fast over the snow.
I stood there watching him go, wanting to call after him, to tell him I was on his side. That I’d seen what that man was doing. That there was nothing wrong with the way he moved, the way he spoke, the softness he didn’t try to hide. That I wasn’t going to let that kind of hate take root here.
How can you stop it when you’re not even staying here?
“It won’t matter if it’s all sold,” I muttered. Talking to myself was becoming a thing.
Miguel didn’t look back, and I let him go.
Chapter 18
Jesse
Jake and I worked the fence without talking, which meant I had way too long to think about Lucas and his intrusion in my life. He could be a thorn in my side, or I could learn to ignore him until his six months were up.
We were halfway down the line when I heard the ATV. Jake and I both looked up. The sound came fast, and the engine pushed harder than usual. Miguel, by the look of it. He cut the engine well back from the horses and jumped off before it had fully settled, boots crunching as he jogged over.
“Boss,” he said, breathless. “Mr. Knox hit Mr. Barrett.”
The words didn’t land right away, and it took me a while to comprehend that Mr. Knox was my dad, and Mr. Barrett was Lucas. My hand was still wrapped around the fence post, staple gun hanging uselessly at my side. My chest went tight, as if I’d forgotten how to breathe. I pulled my phone out of my pocket on instinct. No signal. No missed calls. Nomessages from the full-time nurse who was with him now, and nothing had come in on the radio.
“I’m sorry! He’d cornered me!”
“Lucascornered you?”
Miguel shook his head hard. “No. Mr. Knox cornered me. I was dealing with it, I swear. Trying to keep him calm, like Jake and Gunner say I should. Then, Lucas stepped in. Got between us. And your da—Mr. Knox, hit him.”
“And you’re okay?” I asked immediately.
“I’m fine, but Mr. Barrett…”
“I’ll deal with it.” I swung up onto Boone, fingers clumsy on the reins, and Jake mounted his horse beside me without a word. We headed back toward the ranch as fast as we dared, Boone stepping out willingly, as I scanned ahead, to the sides, anywhere my dad might be. The distance wasn’t far. A mile, maybe. It felt longer.
Halfway back, as soon as we had a signal, my phone chimed. Then chimed again.
The first message from Olivia was impassioned, exclaiming that Dad had taken her car. The second was from Brian, the nurse who was with him today, saying he’d vanished, and another from Brian came seconds later. ‘Your dad just came back. Sorry to worry you.’
