by T. S. Joyce
She squatted down in front of Annabelle and pushed up the sleeves of Wreck’s oversize jacket. She only hesitated a moment, her palms hovering just above Annabelle’s belly, before Annabelle grabbed her wrists and pulled her in.
A few seconds was all it took, and then Tuff Enough kicked her hand hard from inside his momma’s tummy.
“Oh, my gosh,” Amber whispered in awe. “Little prince.” She leaned closer to the kicking baby. “You’re going to be born into the most special herd, and you will be protected and supported. You’re going to be someone important someday. Your momma and daddy will make sure you grow up strong. You are so lucky to have parents like them. They already love you so much, and so do your aunties and uncles. You will be cherished, little Tuff. And when you get older, you will live up to your name, Tuff Enough, because that is your legacy. You’re gonna do something special in this world. Just like your daddy. Just like your momma.”
She was just chatting with the little babe, but when she looked up, Annabelle had tears rimming her eyes. She didn’t say anything at first, just squeezed Amber’s hands and smiled emotionally. And then she swallowed audibly, and her voice cracked as she told Amber, “You belong here.”
And something about those three words broke Amber’s heart wide open.
She’d been searching so hard all her life for a niche. For a place to belong. It hadn’t happened with her parents, and she’d tried to connect to her roots through Uncle Sloane and Aunt Helena, but this was a big lesson.
Belonging didn’t always mean with family. Sometimes that sense of belonging came out of nowhere.
She stayed squatted there, her hands on this little unborn life. She looked behind her to where Wreck was leaning on the open gate as Dead of Winter bucked his heart out. Wreck’s eyes were intense and unreadable, up until the point she allowed a little curve of her lips.
And that ol’ cowboy, looking tall and dark and handsome against the mountain sunset, his cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes, his white T-shirt clinging to his body—he didn’t just look like a man anymore.
He looked like he belonged, too.
Chapter Sixteen
“Forgive me for what I’m about to do,” Train Wreck murmured as he pulled in front of her cabin on Two Thorns Ranch. He didn’t want to do this, but he had to. He had to keep her safe.
“What do you mean?” Amber looked so confused. “Everything will be okay. I already told you I’m going to put in my notice first thing in the morning. I even emailed my old apartment complex back in Boise, and my same apartment is still for rent. I’ll just move my stuff from storage back in there.” She pressed her hand to her stomach and frowned out the front window.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Amber swallowed hard and cradled Frog a little closer to her chest. “Talking about moving all the way back to Boise just made me feel hollow inside.”
His heart thumped a little harder against his sternum. There was his opening, but he shook his head, his stomach in knots, and shoved open his door. “You barely know me, Amber. Boise will be good for you.” A quick glance up to see if the camera was still on the eaves of her cabin and, yep, there it was. And there was a new swiveling camera on the low-hanging branch of a tree in the side yard. He couldn’t see it, but he could hear the whirring sound of it moving clear as day.
Show time.
But when he opened Amber’s door for her, the hurt in her eyes almost, almost made it impossible to do what he must.
It would keep her safe.
“What did you mean by that? By I barely know you?”
He shrugged up one shoulder and sauntered to the back of his truck, grabbed her bag out of the back, and dropped it to the ground. A little cloud of dust engulfed it.
“I know you,” she insisted, sliding from the passenger seat, Frog still cradled in her arms.
“No one knows me.”
She stomped her foot, and steel filled her voice when she said, “That’s not true! I do. We spent the whole weekend together. It was perfect, and—”
“If you know me so well, how did you not see my intentions?” Fuck, fuck, fuck, could he do this? Could he say it?
“What intentions?”
He gritted his teeth. Just say it. You can message her later and explain.
“I was using you for information on Sloane. You gave me nothing, so what use are you to me now?”
He could tell she didn’t want to believe it. He could tell she didn’t want to, but it made sense to her. That part ripped his guts out—how easy it was to convince her she wasn’t everything.
When her face fell to the cat in her arms, he wanted to cup her cheek and tell her how sorry he was for being such a goddamn liar.
Feeling like he wanted to retch, he hammered the nail in the coffin. “Spending time with you this weekend was a waste of my time.” He jerked his chin toward her cabin. “Go back to Boise or stay here and work yourself into the Brander family until you’re one of them. I don’t give a fuck either way. I’m not your people.”
God, he couldn’t look at her. Her eyes were rimmed with tears. He wanted to kiss her until they went away. He wanted to make her safe again.
Just give me a few minutes, and I’ll text you an explanation.
He turned and left her bag in the dirt. Left her to pick it up. He’d never hated himself more than in this moment, but it was for a reason. Her pain was to keep her safe.
“I-I’m sorry,” she murmured thickly.
Train Wreck climbed up into his truck and leaned on the roof. “I asked you about Sloane, and you clammed up. You belong here.” He made sure his eyes looked nice and dead, but inside, his bull was bucking to get out of him. The animal didn’t understand he had to hurt her to help her.
It was the only way he could leave her here to put in her notice and pack her things. He just needed Sloane to leave her alone. And when she was clear of this place, he would go back to hunting him.
He got in his truck but turned coward. He couldn’t look at those pretty, tear-filled eyes of hers knowing he’d caused her to hurt. He turned on the truck and pulled a wide circle in the yard, then left her there.
He’d meant to keep his hands on ten-and-two, keep his eyes trained on the road, but again and again, he looked at her in the rearview mirror. He was going to pull over at the first gas station and text her. Tell her he’d had to do that, and he couldn’t warn her of this part of his plan. He’d needed her reaction to be real, and she…had been…flawless. He needed Sloane to think she was nothing to him.
Amber was standing just where he’d left her, hands out, palms up, tears streaming down her face, shaking her head like she didn’t understand anything.
Train Wreck doubled over the steering wheel at the pain in his chest.
Ten minutes. Give me ten minutes, woman, and I’ll fix it, and then I’ll never hurt you again. Just give me ten minutes.
The second she disappeared from view, he hit the gas. The road was overgrown, and if this had been her home, he would’ve fixed it for her. Come out here and spend a couple days working on it to give her an easy drive to and from this cabin.
Nine minutes.
There was a Chevron at the edge of town, and he could get there in nine minutes. Nine minutes, and the cameras would capture whatever reaction she was having. Sloane was dangerous, but he wouldn’t hurt his own niece if she hadn’t betrayed him.
His phone rang, and his heart skipped a beat as he looked down at the caller ID.
Hunter.
He accepted the call, and it came through the speakers. “Hey, man, can I call you right back?”
“I found something. Something big,” Hunter Kaid rushed out.
“Okay.” Eight minutes. He turned onto the main road. “What is it?”
“She’s going to inherit it all.”
Train Wreck frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Lewis Brander, Amber’s grandfather? Uuuuh, shit. Let me say this straight. My brain is going crazy.�
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“Okay, settle down. Take a breath.”
Hunter inhaled deep and blew out the breath. “Amber was raised by her grandma because her mom was sick. Brain sick.”
“Yeah.”
“Sloane and Helena Brander did that to her. They’re still doing it to her.”
“What?” he demanded.
“I found the will. Train Wreck, I found the will. They hid the record. Hid it deep, but I found it.”
“Tell him what they did,” Wesley Kaid murmured in the background.
“When Lewis died, he left a will. Everyone thinks it was lost, but it ain’t. It ain’t lost at all. Amber’s mom was supposed to get it all. She was supposed to get every acre, every barn, every bull. Lewis wanted her to have Two Thorns Ranch, but she was in Boise. You asked me to figure out why Sloane was so interested in Amber. Amber is her only living heir. She’s set to inherit the ranch. All of it.”
“What the fuck?” he murmured, staring out the front window as the woods blurred by. “Amber doesn’t know anything about this.”
“She wouldn’t. They’ve been hiding it. From Amber, from her mom, from her grandma. They’ve made it look like it’s Sloane’s ranch this whole time, but it ain’t. He’s squatting on Amber’s mom’s property.”
“Tell him what you found with the hospital,” Wes said.
“They’ve been paying a nurse there, Train Wreck. Every month, a nurse gets two thousand dollars from Sloane. He mails her cash on the fourth of every month. I hacked both their bank accounts. She deposits two thousand on the fifth of every month by an ATM a block away from Amber’s mom’s hospital. I checked Sloane’s account, too, and he withdraws two thousand the week before. He has every month for years.”
“What does that mean? What’s he paying for?”
There was static on the line, and Wes Kaid took the phone. “For her to keep Amber’s mom coked up on whatever meds they’re giving her. She ain’t crazy, Train Wreck. She’s being manipulated and kept alive until they can control Amber.”
“Holy shit. How much is the ranch worth?” he asked.
“If she figures out she owns it and decides to sell it? Millions. And Sloane and Helena will have nothing. They aren’t even named in the will.”
“Oh, my God.” He slammed on the brakes and pulled a U-Turn. Fuck the plan. He had to get Amber out of there. Now. “I’ll call you back when I have her.”
“When you have her? Where is she?” Hunter asked.
“Packing her things. Putting in her notice.”
“No, no, no,” Wes murmured. “Take her out of the line of fire. We know what you’re doing. We know what you put into motion.”
“I’ll fix it,” Train Wreck growled and disconnected the call.
He looked down at his phone long enough to hit the call button on Amber’s number. Her voice came onto the line before the first ring. “Hi, this is Amber. Leave a message after the beep!”
“Fuck,” he gritted out, hitting the call button again. When he looked up, there was a bull standing in the middle of the road. A black one with long horns and gray human eyes.
He slammed on the brakes, and the truck skidded sideways. The bull took off to the left, and Wreck missed him by inches. The truck spun out and aimed for the tree line. Wreck gripped the steering wheel as tight as he could and prepared for impact.
Crash!
The sound of shattering glass was deafening. The airbag deployed and slammed against his face as glass rained over him.
When the truck rocked to a stop, he could smell smoke and hear the hiss of the busted engine. Through the billowing smoke, he could see the truck had wrapped around a tree. Warmth trickled down his face and into his eyes, and he blinked hard and shook his head to clear the fogginess.
Outside, the bellowing of the bulls sounded all around him. Wreck shoved his door open and fell out onto the ground. Blood was streaming from his face to the asphalt road. A shrill whistling noise was hurting his ears, and between that and the mooing bulls that were filtering onto the road from the woods, he couldn’t think clearly.
“Wait,” he murmured, covering his ears. He’d been doing something. On his way somewhere.
Something sharp blasted into his neck, and he arched back with a roar that rattled the woods.
Instant pain started from the syringe in his neck and set every nerve ending on fire down his throat to his chest and arms. It spread like poison in his body and, inside, his bull bellowed his fury.
The Change consumed him. It burned him alive. Maybe it only took seconds, but the agony of the forced shift felt like it took minutes. He screamed and doubled in on himself, trying to desperately hold onto his thoughts.
Amber.
Just think about Amber. Keep her. I need to help her. Save her.
Another wave of pain made his body seize, and he went down hard. His hooves slipped on the concrete, and his chest hit it hard. So much blood. Was he hurt? Had he been hurt in the accident?
What accident?
He reached for a flyaway spider web strand of a thought, but couldn’t quite grasp it.
Amber.
Amber?
The bulls were surrounding him. They smelled like him. Shifter. Gray eyes and green ones. Men were jogging toward him from the woods. Guns. Dillon behind him, holding an empty syringe. Dillon. Dill. Man.
He bellowed his rage and struggled to his feet, dragged a hoof along the concrete in a death warning to the men surrounding him.
And then he saw it—the trailer.
Saw the end.
The end?
Amber.
What was Amber?
Men on four-wheelers were herding together the other bulls. One was standing next to him. He should fight him. He was old but reeked of dominance. Pitch-black hide and long black horns, black eyes trained on Wreck. Trained on Wreck. He looked sad. His brand was like Raven’s. The bull looked defeated.
Amber. Amber?
He lowered his head and charged the man with the empty syringe.
Wreck knew an Amber.
But Wreck wasn’t here anymore.
Chapter Seventeen
Wreck’s hooves thudded on the metal floor of the trailer as he sauntered to the open door at the end.
The Hagans he’d been trailered with had all bolted into the blood-stained, mud-stained alleyway and were already being herded toward a holding pen on the other end of a huge facility.
Wreck hung back, though. They were panicked, and panic led to rage in Hagans. They would be killing each other the second they were enclosed in the pen. Hell, they’d been fighting the whole way here, but Wreck had been paying attention to something else. He knew where they were now. He’d read every sign on the way here.
“Hup!” one of the wranglers said, banging on the sides of the trailer.
It stunk in here. Everything smelled like blood and shit and rage and fear and sadness had to be the worst combination to ever hit a shifter’s senses. The roof was in a dome shape, and along the alleyway were single pens full of bulls. Big, monstrous bulls. Not just Hagans either. Some were natural born bulls, and some had the light eyes of a shifter, but no Hagan brands.
There were a pair of swinging doors hanging wide open, straight ahead. The pens on either side of the walkway were shut with locking mechanisms that clicked into place. Damn. He couldn’t nudge them open with his nose. It wouldn’t be that simple to release Hell in here.
The wrangler had called over a buddy to help push Wreck out of the trailer.
“Stubborn asshole,” the first one yelled to his bud. He banged on the trailer again, and Wreck smiled to himself. He backed up slowly, fighting the instinct of his bull to escape to any open space. Instead, he melted back into the trailer until his hind end pressed against the metal wall.
He was stuck. Whatever meds they’d given him had turned him into a bull, and the man in him didn’t exist right now. So okay. If he was an animal? Wreck lowered his head. Then he would be the goddamn animal.
A blond-haired wrangler hopped into the trailer with a long stick sparking electricity at the end. He hung back, ready to bolt for an easy escape if Wreck charged.
Another wrangler was shoving one of the Hot Shots through the holes of the trailer, but he was missing Wreck. “Jaren, I can’t reach him!”
“Go around the other side and try,” Jaren ordered from where he was hesitating at the mouth of the trailer.
Wreck turned, gave Jaren his back and propped his head against the trailer, angled his ears back so he could hear the wrangler’s movements better over the yelling.
“This one’s a scared one,” Jaren murmured. “Look at him all frozen up.” His laugh was cruel. “Isn’t this him? The bucker? The one they said would be gnarly to manage? Look at him shaking in the corner.”
Another private smile.
Wreck wasn’t shaking with fear.
He was shaking with rage.
The other wrangler had made his way to the other side of the trailer, and just as he climbed up the side to stick his Hot Shot through the holes, Wreck lumbered over to the other side.
“Fuck!” the man yelled from where his Hot Shot was about two feet short of Wreck. “Ryan!” he called.
“What?” came an echoing answer from back where they were penning the Hagans.
“Come around that-a way and shock the shit out of this scared motherfu—”
Wreck spun and charged. He was to the human in three strides, and his horn connected right between his shoulder blades before he could even finish his curse. Jaren went flying forward and slammed into one of the storage pens. The bull on the other side of it went crazy, trying to get to Jaren, but Wreck had this. He bolted down the ramp and was on him before he could even sit up. Wreck slammed his head against Jaren to the chorus of yelling and chaos around him. He didn’t even react to the Hot Shot they jammed against his shoulder. Too much adrenaline and fury.
