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“What did you have in mind?” I asked. I tossed manure into the wheelbarrow and then mimicked her posture, leaning on my pitchfork.

“Sundown is really the only place to go. It’s a dive, but it’s got this Old West charm to it. They say the bullet holes in the walls go back to the eighteen hundreds, but no one has dug out the bullets to verify that.”

“That sounds awesome, but I don’t know.” I brushed a wayward curl off my forehead with my forearm. “Bad things tend to happen to me when I’m in public.”

I was joking, but there was an anxious churning in my gut that I really didn’t like. Seb said fear was a good thing, and maybe he had a point. But I hadn’t left the ranch in three weeks, and it wasn’t because I had nowhere to go. I was scared, plain and simple. And I hated it.

Lennon frowned. “I know how you feel. Trust me, I know. It’s terrifying when you know the danger is someone”—she waved her hand in a wide arc—“but you don’t know who. It makes you feel helpless. You’re sitting around waiting for some dickwad psycho to finally make her move. She has all the power, and you have none of it.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s a he,” I said.

“You never know. My point, though, is that feeling powerless sucks. But you’re not powerless. You have friends. We won’t let anything happen to you. Emma, Tamilee, and I will be on you like glue.”

“No,” came a deep voice outside the stall.

It startled us both into screaming like goats. Lennon whirled, hurling an empty plastic water bucket at him. Seb caught it one-handed and set it aside with an exasperated look.

“Is that how you plan to defend Lila? Because I’m not impressed.”

Lennon tossed her hair back. “It was a reflex.”

He gave her a flat look. “You’re telling me your first instinct was to throw a bucket at me when you’ve got a perfectly good pitchfork in your hand?” Seb shook his head, his gaze cutting to mine. “This is a terrible plan. You know that, right?”

“I know.” I chewed the inside of my cheek.

The relief on his face was palpable. “Good. Thank you.”

“But I still want to go.”

His chin dropped to his chest. “Lila⁠—”

“I can’t stay locked up forever. Eventually, I have to be part of the world. I’m feeling stir crazy.”

“A seventeen-hundred-acre ranch is hardly a prison cell.” He crossed his arms and stared me down. “And it sure beats the hell out of a seven-foot box.”

“Which is why I plan on being cremated.”

He didn’t laugh.

I sighed. “What if you came, too?”

“Are you seriously implying that wasn’t already part of the plan? Lila. Tell me you weren’t really going to leave this ranch without me.”

“Um…” I had the feeling I was moments away from being throttled. I shifted my weight and glanced at Lennon.

She shrugged. “I was planning to invite Holly. That’s pretty much the same thing.”

Seb covered his eyes with one hand and rubbed his temples. “For fuck’s sake.”

“The Utah job was different. Word would have gotten out that I was there, and anyone who follows my career would have expected to see me there. But here in Mercy River, no one knows me. It’s a bunch of cowboys. None of them are going to get on photography forums or social media and blast about seeing me. I realize there’s no such thing as zero risk when we don’t know who my attacker is, but a cowboy bar in a Podunk town is as close as we can get.”

“I liked it better when you were scared,” he muttered.

I let out a sharp laugh. “I’m terrified.”

He regarded me silently for a beat, then nodded. “All right. But if we’re doing this, we need a few ground rules.”

“Yay,” Lennon said drily. “I love rules.”