Page 71 of His Last Nerve

“No shit,” Lawson said from beside me. “That guy is fucking snake.”

“Butsheisn’t,” I finished, turning to face them. I put my hands on my hips and looked to the ceiling. Fuck, a week ago, I thought she was snake…but she turned out to be something much more fearsome.

A sweet woman.

“She’s gotten under your skin,” Mags noted.

“She was nearly raped last night,” I spat, looking at my friend, my jaw tight.

Every one of us remained silent for a moment, our anger back in spades.

“You burn it?” I asked the group.

“Yes.”

“That’s the second fucking one,” Landon growled.

“These city boys coming into our town to rape the women…barbaric,” Jigs growled.

The man from the other night had done the same, to one of the cheerleaders at the high school. The kids were out at the diner celebrating the end of the school year, something Mason and I used to do when we were kids, and that asshole focused on a sixteen-year-old girl.

She reported the assault to her mother, her mother called the sheriff, and then he showed up at Hallow Ranch seeking the only justice there was for raping a woman—a painful death.

“Tracked down the info. You were right, him and the last one worked in the same company in Denver. They were in town on business.”

“What business?” Beau asked, folding his arms over his chest.

“Development,” I answered, my upper lip curling into a sneer.

“Son of a bitch,” Mags muttered.

“Talked to Danny down at the feed store, said there are rumors Bart is selling the hotel to a bigger company. They’re going to tear down the old one and build new,” Lance informed us.

Another one bites the dust. I wasn’t a man who enjoyed change, but I could bite my tongue and deal with it. There was just something about growing up in a small town and seeing everything you knew change before your eyes that stung.

The one thing that hadn’t changed was Hallow Ranch.

Pop left it to me, Mason left it all together…over my dead fucking body would I let someone take this from me. That included TimfuckingMoonie.

“Someone go drag Bart to the bar,” I muttered, pulling my hat off and running my hand through my hair. “Get him drunk and see if it’s true. Danny lies out his ass sometimes.”

They grunted in agreement.

“Caleb in the bunkhouse?” I asked, lifting my chin to Jigs.

The old man chuckled. “He found his birthday present.”

I shook my head. “That boy. What was it?”

“The Hobbit,” he answered, his eyes crinkling a bit.

That was Pop’s favorite which just so happened to be my favorite. I ignored the slight twist in my stomach. “Alright boys, the work’s done. Thank you. Tell that boy if he wants supper, it’ll be ready in an hour,” I said, turning back to Ranger and rubbing his nose. “See ya in the morning, bud.”

I was halfway out of the barn when Beau stopped me. “That woman has pain, Den. I saw it the first day I met her.”

I gritted my teeth.

I hated the way he spoke about her, like she had been in his bed, healing, instead of mine.

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