Page 9 of River Strong

“I don’t think we should underestimate the danger,” Pickett said, quickly agreeing with him.

“So what are you saying? That we let my mother put in another well without a fight?” she demanded.

“Maybe we should lay low, at least until the head of CH4 is gone,” Pickett suggested.

“And if there isn’t time to lay low?” she asked, leaning around Duffy to look at the ranch hand. She sounded disappointed that he would even suggest such a thing.

“Sounds like we need to do what we have to do, but maybe you stay out of it, Oakley,” Duffy said.

“I hope at least one of you knows that isn’t going to happen.” Oakley shot a look past him again at the ranch hand as she drove. Pickett was shaking his head as if afraid that whatever he said right now would get him into hot water.

Definitely a strange vibe, Duffy told himself. “Then we make sure nothing happens to you,” he said, studying Oakley. Her long blond hair hung in a single braid, her green eyes were narrowed and her face was flushed. From anger or something else? She gripped the wheel, her fingers tight around it as if she was strangling someone. Or was there something else she was fighting? He leaned forward a little to look at her face in the faint light from the dashboard. There were tears in her green eyes.

What the hell? he thought and glanced at Pickett, who had leaned back, drawing his Stetson down over his eyes as if planning to sleep the whole way back to Powder Crossing.

Duffy wasn’t sure what had happened out in that hallway between Oakley and Pickett, but it had him worried—and not just about their friendship.

PICKETTHANSONMENTALLYkicked himself. Standing out in the hallway earlier, he’d had his chance. He’d looked into those amazing green eyes of Oakley’s, convinced that she was feeling something, too. They’d been friends for so long, he never wanted to lose that, and yet he wanted so much more.

It had been hell making small talk when all he could think about was taking her in his arms and kissing her. Just the thought was terrifying. He had no idea how she would react, let alone if she would respond in kind.

For a few minutes, before the meeting broke up, he’d felt as if there was a connection. He’d started to... What had he started to say, to do? Wouldn’t the place to start have been to ask her out?

He prided himself for not being afraid of most anything. He loved trick riding and had been thrown into the dirt many times, but he’d always gotten back up. Asking a girl out had never been one of his problems.

But this was Oakley and he wanted this more than he’d ever wanted anything. There was so much he needed to tell her and that was the problem. He feared that once she knew the truth... He could lose everything.

He rode the rest of the way to Powder Crossing worrying about her. He hadn’t gotten her involved with Dirty Business. But he also hadn’t stopped her once she had. If anything, she’d been surprised he was one of the early members.

“I never expected to see you here,” Oakley had said that first meeting. “You’re so easygoing, so fun and funny. I didn’t think you took anything seriously.”

“It’s my cover,” he’d joked. “You know mild-mannered ranch hand by day, crime fighter at night.” But he’d seen the way she’d looked at him differently after that. He’d laughed to himself since he’d had a crush on her since he’d come to work at the McKenna Ranch. Back then, the three years’ difference in their ages had seemed like a lot. It no longer did.

Oakley had been just as surprised that Duffy McKenna had joined the subversive group. The three of them had been inseparable from the time Pickett had come to the ranch. But they’d grown apart until Dirty Business had thrown them together again. Before that they hadn’t even shared how they’d felt about the drilling. Neither man wanted to put Oakley into danger.

Since joining Dirty Business, the three had spent more time together, going for beers after the secret meetings, talking about what they could do to change the world and sharing stories and laughs. They’d played off each other’s senses of humor and become even closer friends. The old trio back together.

Pickett wasn’t fool enough not to see that aside from joking around, his good friend Duffy was interested in Oakley as well. If push came to shove, of course she would choose Duffy over a McKenna ranch hand, Pickett told himself. Also, he hated the thought that if he even asked Oakley out, it could cause a rift between him and his best friend.

He didn’t want that, but the more time he spent with Oakley, the more he found himself wanting something way beyond just friendship. But that would mean being forced to tell her things he’d kept secret for years—all the years he’d been at the McKenna Ranch. So much time had gone by with him hiding the truth, he feared how she would take it.

When she’d been shot, he’d been terrified that he would lose her without ever telling her how he felt, let alone the truth about himself. Still, he’d held his tongue, praying she would pull through and blaming himself, fearing her shooting had something to do with Dirty Business. He’d had to go to the small local hospital at night when her mother wasn’t there. He would sit by her bedside. The town and the hospital were small enough that visiting hours were never observed in Powder Crossing anyway. But he also knew whoever was working and they would let him in. All he could do was hold her hand and pray that she would survive, and she had.

That her own brother had shot her had come as a shock. He was still confused as to why CJ had taken the shot at her in the first place. CJ, his mother’s favorite, had always been a cocky hothead who got the run of the ranch. But this time, he’d gone too far. Some were saying that he got what he had coming to him. Pickett wasn’t that charitable. He had little regard for the cowboy. CJ could have killed Oakley.

Pickett had run across him a few times over the years and found him to be a bully and blowhard. After CJ had shot Oakley, Pickett hoped they didn’t cross paths. He would be tempted to take things into his own hands, even if CJ was her brother. While he had no desire to go to prison, he and Duffy had kicked around ideas about what to do with CJ’s body.

He smiled at the memory and thoughts of his good friend. Because of that, Duffy was another problem. How serious he was about Oakley was anyone’s guess. Duffy was a McKenna, not that Oakley would let that stop her if she fell for the rancher, while Pickett was a ranch hand, a ranch hand with a secret.

All total, he knew he should rein in his heart. He chuckled at the thought. His foolish heart had gone rogue and was now running free having taken off with abandon. No amount of reason was going to change that. He couldn’t stay away from Oakley. Just as he couldn’t let anything happen to her.

The problem was how to save her from herself—let alone keep her safe from what he knew was coming. Not only was she determined to stop her mother and CJ from drilling another coalbed methane well on the Stafford Ranch, but she was just as determined to find out why CJ had shot her and see that he paid for it.

Either way, Pickett feared it could get her killed, since like her, he also thought CJ was lying about why he’d shot her. CJ and his mother would have had to have been living under a rock not to know about Oakley’s friendship with both him and Duffy as kids.

What had made CJ take that shot? Maybe it was the fact that the three of them had resumed that friendship more often lately, but Pickett doubted that. It seemed more reasonable that what Oakley had seen that day was the meth lab running at the old homestead over the mountain where she’d ridden her horse.

But had she also seen CJ and known he was involved? Was that what had him worried she would remember?

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