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Trav eyed the dog that gamboled around his feet and licked every hand in sight. A muted laugh rose from the small crowd gathered.
“She can stay, if that’s what you want.” His tone was guarded.
“Keep it straight, boss man,” I said, trying to smile and failed fantastically.
A slightly larger laugh rose this time.
“I’ve tried to say that for a while,” someone yelled from the back. Probably Will, knowing the boy could sass like a queen.
Trav offered me a tight smile. “She’s yours, Kyle. Isn’t it obvious?”
I shook my head. “There’s a niece. He had...family.”
Trav nodded. “He did. You.”
Breath caught in my throat, and I cleared it with a shattered cough. “I don’t stay in one place long enough to look after an animal.”Or a girl.
“Yeah?” Trav wrapped his arm around Rachel. “Might be time you changed that.”
Rachel smiled sadly at me, reaching out to squeeze my hand with her smaller one and suddenly all I wanted was to have Sienna in my arms.
“Appreciate it,” I murmured, my voice thick.
I turned on my heel, conscious of every eye on my back, and drove off Red Hart land, leaving Daisy chasing my truck until the dust cleared, and I was gone.
****
Heavy gray clouds cast the mountain’s sheer face over Longside in a muted light. Pensive, like it expected the fight I knew was coming. I also had no fucking idea how to win that battle. Jaime had manpower on his side, and money, not to mention theasshole was as psychotic as anything north of the forty-seventh parallel Andi named her bar after.
Jude and Gage gave me a nod and a hard look before I left, and I knew they had my back. But it still seemed like my fight was...less.
Andlessin this case was likely to get my girl and her father killed.
The house yard was empty as I pulled up, and I reached out for Daisy to lick my hand as I got out before I remembered I left her at Red Hart. I missed her, not realising what she meant to me. But she wasn’t mine to keep.
He had family. You.
I swallowed back the urge to bawl like a baby, manning up for the next hardest thing in my life–I had to sell the need to get off the land to Brendan, preferably before Jamie arrived to hurt Sienna again, or worse. The asshole seemed to have no conscience whatsoever, and that made him as dangerous as fuck.
As it turned out, I should have taken her away the night before.
Because when I rapped my knuckles on the door hard enough to bruise and called along the hall, and my voice the only thing that echoed back at me, I knew we were all sorts of fucked up.
The silence resonated. The house wasn’t as empty as it appeared, like in a cheap, shitty horror movie. The walk through the house took an age, and lasted only seconds.
“Sienna,” I called softly, hoping to any god listening that she was up in the mountains and the hell away from the house.
My footsteps bounced back at me, and for the second time I realised I hadn’t taken off my boots. But this time I didn’t care.
I turned into the living area and halted. Two men sat on the sofa. Only one was tied up like a Christmas fuckingham. Brendan stared straight ahead, though I knew he heard everything going on even if he couldn’t see it.
Jamie watched me with cold eyes and a smile on his lips that looked like it was on the wrong face. “I thought you might turn up. Actually, I thought you would be here all night, with your dick in my girl.”
I winced, along with Brendan. “Language, mother fucker,” I murmured softly.
My thumb skated over the knife in my belt, though I didn’t move otherwise, feeling like this was the showdown at the O.K. fucking Corral.
The house seemed dustier than usual, like it had been shut up for an age, though I’d only been here recently. A sharper scent hit me, an undertone that rose from the floor as I shifted on my feet.
