I didn't know if he was doing it on purpose. I didn't care. It was the best thing anyone had done for me in three years.
Nickel came charging back through the underbrush, ears flat with the thrill of what she was chasing, and nearly took out my ankles. I caught her by the scruff before she could disappear again, her tongue lolling as her tail wagged like mad.
"Easy, girl,” I murmured. “You find something?”
Stetson held up a hand, and I went quiet. The forest was still around us, Buck barely visible in the fog up ahead, one paw lifted, tail stiff.
Then—
He growled.
I frowned, looking from Buck to Stetson. “What’s going on?” I whispered.
“Somethin’ out here,” Stetson said. “Or…more likely, someone.”
I would’ve snarked him about it, but Stetson wasn’t the type to fuck with me.
“Are we in danger?”
“Nah, probably just a drifter or somethin’,” Stetson murmured. Didn’t make me feel better that he swung his riflearound. “We get those folks out here sometimes, just lookin’ for a nice place to sleep.”
“So you need your gun?”
He rolled his eyes toward me. “Gotta keep my little cousin and the dogs safe,” he chided.
I huffed a laugh. “Lead the way.”
We moved toward Buck slow, Nickel pressed close to my leg for once in her life as the blind came into view through the fog. Old one, tucked back against the big live oak on the east edge of the property. We didn't use it much anymore — the deer had shifted their patterns since we'd thinned the cedar two summers back.
There was a small gap in the door.
I looked at Stetson. He looked at me.
“That was latched last night,” he murmured. “Just…gimme a second. I’ll?—”
Before he could finish, a face appeared through the crack in the door…and then it widened, and we saw a whole person.
A woman.
A girl.
She was wearing a long, muddy blue dress that covered her from her neck to her wrists to her ankles. Handmade. Her hair was a dark, rich brown and plaited all the way to her waist. And her eyes…cornflower blue.
She looked like a princess.
She couldn't have been older than twenty, but there was nothing girlish about the way she looked at us. Steady. Measuring. Like she was running calculations we couldn't see.
That was not a child's eyes.
“Shit,” Stetson cursed. “That's one of the damn Daley girls.”
I frowned at him, just looking out of the corner of my eye, not enough to lose track of her. “You mean the cult next door?”
We’d heard things over the years, but had never been able to confirm: girls pulled out of school too young, women who never left the property. Uncle Adam and Aunt Peg had tried to have the county sheriff go out for years, but they weren’t technically doing anything illegal. We suspected, of course…but that was rural Texas for ya.
Stetson gave a short nod.
I looked back at her. She hadn’t moved from the doorway of the blind, one hand on the frame, watching us with those steady blue eyes.
