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Libby nods slowly, faintly.
“Yeah,” she murmurs.
The quietness of her voice tells me there’s something severely wrong.
I was right to barge in when I did.
“You want Eckhard here?” I continue, while Declan glares goddamn murder at me.
“No.” She shakes her head.
“There you have it.” I gesture with my six-pack toward the door like I’m conducting a grand symphony, never dropping my smile. “Declan, you can go. I’ll leave, too. Sierra, this is your home, Libby needs to speak with you, so you’re obviously welcome to stay.”
“Now you see here—” Declan draws himself up, puffing his chest.
“No!” Libby says, quiet but picking up strength.
She shakes her head, blue eyes snapping, blonde curls bouncing.
“No—you, all of you. Everyone. Everyone but Holt just…get out.” Her voice is raspy like she’s trying not to cry, but it still rises to a furious snarl. “Get the hell out before I make you!”
Declan goes still.
Doesn’t leave me feeling any better.
It’s his creepy-ass stillness that’s made me question, time and time again, just what the fuck is up with this dude when there’s violence brewing under his suit-and-tie exterior.
After a second, he offers Sierra his arm.
“Come, Sierra,” he commands, lofty and aloof. “We’ve wasted our time. After negotiations broke down last time, this was pointless.”
Sierra pouts but slips her arm in his, tossing her hair and turning a vicious look over her shoulder at Libby. “You’ll regret this big time.”
Libby just looks on solemnly.
“I regret a lot of things, sis,” she says. “But not protecting our home. Get gone and don’t bring that bastard here again. I’m willing to talk things out with you, Sierra Potter, but not with him trying to talk us both down.”
“You’re psycho,” Sierra whispers, clinging to his arm, “Declan only has my best interests at heart. Unlike some people.”
For a second, just looking at her, I see someone else.
Calypso and Barry Hensworth.
That same way of clinging to a man she thinks is invincible—powerful enough that she doesn’t need to have any strength of her own.
I have an ugly feeling Declan’s going to be a rude awakening for her.
Still, I keep my mouth shut as they turn and strut out like they own the place.
I’m pretty fucking worried that one day soon, they will.
Libby’s a tense statue, standing in the middle of the kitchen, nearly vibrating.
She doesn’t move until the door slams, slumping and hanging her head with a groan.
“Sorry,” I say. “I know you hate it when I jump in and white knight—”
“Don’t.” She holds up a hand. “I…this time, you actually helped. I froze up. It was stupid of me, but you came at just the right second. I don’t know what I’d have done.”
“I overheard.” I half-smile, taking a step closer. “I was trying to stop a murder.”
Wrong thing to say, given the whole dead body thing.
She gives me a haunted, tired look, then turns away, drifting to the window and looking out over the broad expanses of fields fading away into scrub-covered, dusty land. Her voice drifts quietly over her shoulder.
“You paid them a deposit for the land?”
I shrug uncomfortably. “Didn’t want someone else swooping in and grabbing that contract before me.”
The look she turns over her shoulder is strange, watching me in this way I can’t quite read, the blue fire of her eyes crackling. “You really needed that deal to keep your business going, didn’t you?”
I’m silent, reaching up to scratch my jaw.
“And now you won’t get it?”
“I wasn’t getting it anyway, Libby,” I admit. “It hinges on your land, and I told you, I’m hands off now and trying to help you save it.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t understand. You just…because I can’t let my ranch go, you’re gonna lose an awful lot, and you’re actually helping it happen. And now you just gave up more money, too?” Her brows knit together. “Why?”
I don’t have an answer because it’s just like she says.
That’s a hell of a lot to do simply because I want a chick to trust me. Even a drag-down sexy chick who electrifies my blood.
Truth be told, I don’t have a good answer.
Not one I can put into words.
I just remember how hard I clenched Barry’s hand, how I swore to that asshole and the demon harpy on his arm that I’d live with more integrity than either of them had in their pinkies.
“It’s the honest thing to do,” I tell her, the only thing that’s true. “I’m betting on the right horse for once, win or lose.”
Her lips quirk faintly, sadly. “Oh, my. The devil himself running his mouth about right and wrong…”
Those words should cut, but her tone’s too soft.
Too confused.
Shit, too trusting.
I can’t help chuckling. “I’m not Satan, honey. Old Scratch never repented.”
“So you’re mending all your wicked ways?” She lifts an eyebrow.
I take a step closer. Even when she’s pensive like this, haunted, tired, she’s magnetic.
