Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 133878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 669(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 669(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
“Are you sure?” Andy’s voice could be heard.
“Yeah. I don’t think the idiot knows.” Dennis’s voice came and went, with Shane catching maybe half of it. “…witness. You know…about witnesses.”
Witness? First, who was the idiot? It could be either of them. It wasn’t like Dennis thought much of anyone. They were all dumbasses. The only smart one was Meli. She’d been the only woman in the bunkhouse, and she’d packed up and left one day, saying she decided to go home. He had no idea why she’d left, but he was kind of jealous of her.
What would he have witnessed?
He thought briefly about the glint of metal in the boxes he moved from the back of Dennis’s truck. He’d been helping out, lifting the heavy box so Dennis wouldn’t have to. He hadn’t meant for the cover to slip slightly so he saw that hint of gray, smelled the scent of gun oil.
Was that what he meant by witnessed?
Those guns could be for anything. It was a ranch. Of course they had guns.
He’d gotten the impression they weren’t rifles.
“We need to make a run,” Dennis said with some finality.
Andy sighed. “Seriously? You honestly think that dumbass…”
Shame washed through him. How many times had he been told how dumb he was?
Well, he wasn’t so dumb he didn’t realize what making a run meant. He’d heard the rumors. His damn ears worked, and the other hands talked. Oh, he’d thought it was all gossip meant to bring some drama to an otherwise dull existence, but he was putting it all together now.
One of the things that Kale Kingman liked when hiring his hands was no real strong family ties. At least in the men who lived on property. He’d heard one of the hands who commuted ask why he couldn’t move out here and Dennis had told him maybe when his momma passed on he could live here.
It seemed like nothing more than a cruel taunt at the time.
What if it was something more?
“I ain’t taking them out tonight. I suppose we have to do both of them,” Andy said with a long-suffering sigh. “It’s too fucking cold. You want to… Maybe you should think about waiting ’til spring.”
Dennis snorted. “Tomorrow’s soon enough.” The sound of boots moving across the wooden floors above crackled through the barn. He was walking to the stairs. “Tell ’em you’re taking them into town. Don’t make a mess.”
“Damn it, they’re good,” Andy said.
“One of them is, but unfortunately, I don’t think he’s going to stay on after his brother disappears. It’s precisely why I advised Kale to not hire fucking brothers,” Dennis shot back. “Tomorrow.”
Shane slipped out of the barn, his gut in knots.
He’d fucked it up again, and this time it could cost Bay his life.
He moved through the snow, circling around the barn so it would look like he was coming in from the north field where he’d been repairing a fence. He prayed his face didn’t give away the panic he felt.
* * * *
Bailey Kent stared at his brother. “What do you mean they’re…”
Shane slapped a hand over his mouth, his eyes going wide. “Shhh. I don’t care if it seems like everyone is sleeping. You know this place has ears on at all times.”
It was two in the morning, and his brother had been acting completely weird since he’d come back in from the north field. He’d been weird through dinner and hadn’t wanted to play cards with the others. He’d barely touched his beer, and Shane was coming to love his beer more and more. It kind of worried him how much beer his brother could go through lately, but Shane not even finishing one was concerning.
He was pretty sure his brother wasn’t going on a health kick. He had his “it’s all about to fall apart” face on. He’d had that expression on his face way too often the last couple of years.
Not that anyone else seemed to notice, but then that might be because Shane didn’t have a ton of facial expressions. He was a stoic dude. Still, Bay couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t close to his brother, so he could tell. He could sometimes feel when Shane was in turmoil.
They were only half brothers, but they almost never mentioned that to people. When some folks they met thought they were twins, they never corrected them. Just because they hadn’t shared a womb didn’t mean they didn’t share everything else.
“We need to get out of here,” Shane said in a whisper. He was kneeling beside Bay’s bed. Bay always took the lower bunk and Shane took the top. Like when they were kids and he made Shane sleep on the top bunk so it was harder for his mom to come in drunk off her ass and start beating on him. She was short, and Shane had learned to sleep close to the wall.