by Elle Thorpe
Summer called out to Mrs. Murphy as we strode past the kitchen, thanking her for her help, and then we were back in the truck, staring at each other.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
I grinned at her. “I don’t know about you, but I wanna go get your bulls back.”
She leaned in and kissed me on the mouth. “I knew I liked you for a reason. Let’s go.”
27
SUMMER
It was weird to drive all the way to Masonville with two completely different feelings battering away inside me, bouncing around my body, and competing for my attention. One ball of feeling was all wrapped up in a shiny glowing package made of happiness and positivity and excitement for the future. A future where I was Dominic’s and he was mine. But then there was the other ball of feeling, that was more like a storm cloud, chasing around my little ball of happiness and trying to dump a typhoon of rain on it. That cloud of unhappiness swirled with stress and anger, and the awareness that if we didn’t sort this bull situation out, the life I’d always known could cease to exist. What the hell would I even do without the ranch? Without training, and the rookies, and now that I had riding back in my life, I didn’t want to lose that again either. It sent me spiraling back to when I’d been with Austin, about to move to the city and ruin my life.
It had been one thing to do that for someone I thought I loved.
It was an entirely different thing to have it stolen by some scumbags who thought they could just waltz in and take what my father and I had spent so many years building. This didn’t just affect me. It affected my family. Dom. Preston. Hallie. All the people I cared about most.
“Do you think we should call your dad? Maybe Preston? We need a game plan.”
But I shook my head. “I sent Dad a text and gave him the license plate number. But if we call them all out here, and there’s nobody at this property, then we’ll be even further behind. For all we know they drove that truck straight out of town, so Dad checking the cameras on other properties, and Preston asking around town is a better use of time for now. Once we’ve checked this place out, we can reassess.”
Dom’s fingers gripped the wheel a little tighter. “Shouldn’t be much farther now anyway, and we’ll know more.”
Butterflies rioted around my belly in a nervous swarm. This was insane. These guys were probably armed. Most people around here were. There were at least three of them, so Dom and I already knew we were outnumbered.
But I wasn’t the sort of person to just sit at home and wring my hands either. “We aren’t storming this place,” I assured myself, as much as I was saying it to him. “We’re just checking it out from a distance.”
He shot a glance at me, a wry grin lifting the corner of his mouth. “You aren’t going in guns blazing, kicking the door down like you’re in a Bad Boys movie?”
I sniggered. “I like to think I’m a little smarter than that.”
He reached across the seat and put his hand on my thigh, his thumb smoothing over my bare leg absently while he kept his eyes on the road. “Good. Because I don’t want this to be the shortest relationship in the history of Milper River. Imagine the gossips? Oh, Dominic asked Summer to be his girlfriend, then hours later the two of them were taken out by cattle rustlers.”
I cracked up laughing and added to his story in a high-pitched voice. I did a half decent imitation of Mrs. Bundin, one of the older ladies who liked to sit on the main street with her gray-haired friends and commentate on the entire town’s comings and goings. “Oh, such a tragedy. As sad as Romeo and Juliet.”
My phone rang, cutting through my laughter. I picked it up, expecting it to be my dad or Preston checking in with an update, but the number flashing on the screen wasn’t familiar to me at all.
I answered it anyway.
“Summer?” the deep male voice on the other end asked. “Brad Pruitt, from the WBRA.”
I blinked. “Uh, hi, Brad.”
Dom’s head whipped in my direction, and he murmured “Pruitt,” a question in his tone.
I nodded.
Dom squinted but turned back to the road.
Brad kept talking in my ear. “I heard you’re riding again. One-armed and all.”
I frowned at the way he’d worded it. “Well, not exactly one-armed. I still have two.”
Brad laughed. “You know what I mean. Rumor is, you’ve been riding with your bad arm strapped to your chest.”
Apparently, the rumor mill in the rodeo was just as bad as the one in Milper River.
“Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that you’ll meet no resistance from me or anyone else here, if you want to get yourself into the qualifying rounds for next year’s WBRA tour. In fact, that’s why I’m calling. To encourage you to do just that. The first round is next weekend. Are you registered?”
I swallowed. “No, sir. I’m still not sure if I’m really ready. I’ve had a long time off, and the way I’m riding now is like starting all over again. I’m having to retrain my entire body to—”
Brad made a ‘pfft’ noise, completely cutting me off and dismissing my concerns. “Summer, you were one of the best up-and-coming riders I’ve ever seen. You would have qualified last year if your injury hadn’t taken you down.”
I cringed at the unwanted reminder. I didn’t need anyone to tell me how close I’d been. I knew. I’d been a handful of good rides away, and now I was right back to the beginning.
“Register for the qualifiers, Summer. I’m coming out there myself for the first round. You ride well, people will know your name by the next day. I’ll see to that.”
That shouldn’t have spurred me on as much as it did. Except I knew, deep within myself, I did want people to remember my name. I wanted to be the first woman to qualify for the WBRA. And now, I wanted to show people what I was truly made of. I’d been down and out for too long. I wanted to show them that I had it in me to come back from a permanent injury. I wanted to show them I wasn’t the girl who gave up and left everything she loved to lick her wounds in private.
I’d been her for too long, but I wasn’t her anymore.
“I’ll register,” I told Brad. “And I’ll see you next weekend.”
The address Dominic’s friend, Julian, had given us wasn’t all that far from the fairgrounds that had housed the rodeo where I was injured. The properties weren’t quite as big out here as they were at home, but the houses were still a few miles apart. We slowed, checking the numbers on fences, until we were sure the next property along would be the one registered to the truck owners.
Dom pointed it out as it came into view. An older-style farmhouse, with rusted machinery and car shells littered around the place. A dog wandered down the dirt road track, but we didn’t turn in. Instead I craned my neck, trying to look for any signs of our animals.
“I need some frigging binoculars,” I complained. “I can’t see from this far away.”
“Me neither, but I’m not about to drive any closer.” Dom drove straight past the entrance to the property without slowing.
“Okay, so what are we going to do?”
He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, thinking it over. “Park a mile or two away and walk back in on foot.”
“In the middle of the day when anyone can see us?” I bit my bottom lip. “Not sure that’s a good idea.”
“We could wait until it gets dark, like they did.”
I cast a sidelong glance at him. “You’re not that patient.”
He sniggered. “I think you mean you’re not.”
He had a point. There was no way I could sit there all day just waiting for darkness to fall. It was July. It would be hours before it got even remotely dark.
Dom stopped at the far end of the property, turned the truck around, and parked it beneath some trees that cast shade onto the side of the road. From here, we could see the ranch’s driveway at the top of a hill, but it was a way off in the distance. We’d notice a car or truck leave, but we sure as hell weren’t go
ing to know what they were up to on the property.
My impatience multiplied, doubling, then tripling until I opened my door. “Come on. We can cut through their pastures. I haven’t seen any cameras, have you?”
“No, but you can’t see them at the Murphys’ house either.”
He had a point. Fence line cameras weren’t always great hulking things that advertised their presence, but more often than not they were. I was willing to take my chances.
Dom looked doubtful, but he followed me through the fence, and the two of us took off in the direction of the main house and outbuildings we’d seen as we’d driven past.
“Your father is going to have my head if you get shot, you know,” Dom grumbled. “I won’t even get the chance to tell him you’re going to try to qualify for the pros again.”
I detoured around a small dam, sticking to the cover of the trees as much as possible. The detour through the field had us approaching the buildings on the property from the rear. “I don’t know if I want to tell him. I don’t want to get his hopes up. Maybe I should just—”
Dom suddenly yanked my arm, pulling me to the ground, and clapped a hand over my mouth.
I widened my eyes at him, and he slowly peeled his fingers from my lips. He pointed into the next field, and I finally noticed what he had.
There was movement in the pens between the main house and a huge barn behind it. A few men walked around, moving cattle between them.
The two of us shut right up, crouching low. I hoped the knee-length grass that had been itching my legs for the entire walk would now come in handy and help hide us from view.
We waited for a moment, until the men walked out of view again without noticing us. I breathed out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Let’s go up there, to where that copse of trees is. We’ll have a better view.”
Dom squinted in the direction I’d pointed. “Yeah, and they’ll have a better shot. Summer, seriously, are you trying to get us killed?”
I wasn’t, but I was also determined to see if our bulls were there. I grabbed his hand, and the two of us sprinted to the cover of the trees. We both gunned for the thickest trunk, sliding down its rough bark when we reached it. We slumped in the dirt, trying to keep our breathing quiet. I was half expecting the crack of a rifle and a bullet whizzing by, but the reality was much less interesting.
Nothing happened.
Then even less happened for hours and hours. Dom dozed off at one point, which really proved how low the threat level felt. There was literally no one around that we could see. I hadn’t seen a car or truck leave the property, though, so I assumed the men were all inside the house, but had they taken a siesta or what? There was a cool breeze, and if I’d had a blanket and a nice selection of cheese and crackers, it wouldn’t have been the worst place in the world for a picnic.
Thirst was beginning to get to me, though, and I was just contemplating sending Dom into town for stakeout supplies when a truck rolled down the main road and made a swinging in turn into the property.
I dug my fingernails into Dom’s arm. “Look familiar?”
I dug out the piece of paper I’d scrawled the license plate on and smoothed it out to check they matched, even though I was already ninety-nine percent sure they would.
I wasn’t disappointed. “Same truck.”
The men were all calling to each other, and one dropped the ramp, the other banging a metal pole along the sides of the truck to get the animals inside to move.
A few came out willingly, none that I recognized, but one animal kicked and carried on, his hooves cracking off the sides of the trailer. From our closer vantage point, we could hear the men swearing and complaining about the beast inside, one daring the other to get in there and get him out. The first guy told him he was crazy.
He was right to be wary. The entire back end of the truck rocked side to side with the force of the animal’s kicks, and eventually, they shoved an electric cattle prod through the bars.
I ground my teeth. “It’s Grave Digger. It’s gotta be.” I didn’t know any other bull who hated trucks the way Digger did. He ran from the truck with his head down, horns ready to take out anyone who was stupid enough to get in his way. He slammed his big body against the fence, bellowing out his frustrations.
I knew how he felt. I wanted to kill these guys myself. How fucking dare they touch my animal with an electric prod?
With the job done, the men closed the gates and leaned on the fence, watching the cranky bulls pace in their pens. A couple of the guys high-fived each other, but one stood off to the side, his hat pulled low, just staring out at the animals.
“Who’s gonna have a ride before we move them on?” one guy called out.
The small group all laughed, shoving and taunting, daring each other to have a ride.
There was a chorus of “Fuck off,” and “In your dreams.”
“Come on, that’s a fifty-thousand-dollar bull right there! When are you going to get the chance to ride one as fine as him again?”
“I hope they do,” Dom muttered, pure venom in his voice. “I’d love to see Grave Digger take one of them down.”
I was in full agreement with him, my fists clenched at my sides, and everything tense in an attempt not to run straight out there and confront these guys head-on.
That would not be smart. One of them still wielded that electric prod like a weapon. I had no idea what they’d do if confronted, and I didn’t want to find out.
“What about you, Lucky?”
The single guy that had moved aside from the others shook his head. “No.”
The main ringleader of the group, a shorter, burly-looking man, thickened with age, didn’t let up. He strode across to where Lucky stood and nudged him with the handle of the prod. “Go on. Isn’t there a reason they call you Lucky?”
“It’s the meaning of my name, dumbass. I’m not stupid enough to try to ride that bull.”
The shorter man didn’t seem to appreciate the taunt. “Fucking smart-ass kids.” With the back of his hand, he knocked Lucky’s hat off his head, sending it into the dirt and chuckling as he walked away.
“Well, that was mature,” Dom whispered to me.
Lucky turned to pick his hat up off the ground, but when he straightened, my reply died on my lips.
Without his hat pulled low on his head, shadowing his face, Lucky’s features stood out in the mid-afternoon sunlight. “Is that…?”
I knew who it was. I just didn’t want to say it.
A muscle ticked in Dom’s jaw. “It’s Felix.”
28
DOMINIC
“Maybe we don’t have to call the police.” Summer pulled at the sleeve of her T-shirt. “Maybe he isn’t involved, and this is just a coincidence. We can do this another way…”
I loved her for saying that.
But there was no denying what my brother had done. Not when the evidence was right there in front of us. “No, he’s involved.” I slumped back against the tree trunk and scrubbed a hand over my face. “This is all my fault.”
Summer turned her back on my brother and his thieving friends to sit beside me. She tucked her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “You like putting blame on yourself when there is none, don’t you?”
But she didn’t know the full story. Maybe my dad’s condition wasn’t my fault, but this one was. “I told him about the offer you had on Grave Digger. He knows what he’s worth. Fuck, I should have kept my big mouth shut. I didn’t even think for a minute…”
I squeezed my eyes shut. The disappointment was overwhelming. It slammed through my body like a freight train, destroying everything in its path until it was all I could feel.
I’d so badly wanted my birth family to accept me. I’d wanted to know my biological brother. I’d blindly trusted that he was a good person, because I was, and because we shared DNA.
Summer smoothed a hand down my arm, but I pulled away.
I didn’t des
erve her comfort. I was supposed to be the one comforting her, not the other way around. “We should go back to the car. There’s no point us being this close anymore. We know Digger is here, and the others probably are, too. Or at the very least, these guys know where they are. We need to call the local sheriff.”
Summer didn’t argue. Just gazed up at me with sad eyes that I couldn’t bear to face. We waited until the men moved out of sight, then stole back to the car, the same way we’d come. Summer’s stomach growled so loud I could hear it over our footsteps. I was starving, too, and even more thirsty. But the sheriff’s department needed to be called first. We got inside the car, and Summer took that job. I blanked out, missing most of the conversation while I stared at the driveway of Felix’s ranch and berated myself over and over.
Summer put the phone down on the dashboard, the noise of the plastic against plastic startling in the sudden quiet of the truck. “They aren’t coming.”
I whipped my head around to face her. “Seriously? You told them we saw Digger?”
She nodded. “The earliest they can get here is first thing in the morning.”
“Unfuckingbelievable!”
She reached over and squeezed my hand. “Let’s just go to a hotel for the night. We can come back in the morning when the sheriff will be here.”
I realized we’d somehow switched places. Earlier today, she’d been the one flying off the handle and punching things in frustration. But ever since we’d recognized Felix, the fire had gone out of her. Replaced by a concern for me that I didn’t deserve.
I needed to fix this.
I tossed her the keys. “I’m not leaving. There’s no way I’ll be able to sleep tonight, knowing they might be moving those bulls again while I’m tucked up in a hotel bed.”
Summer frowned. “So, what? You’re just going to stay here all night, watching?”
I nodded. “I don’t know what else to do, do you?”
She shook her head. “Well, I’m staying with you.”
