Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 141556 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 708(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141556 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 708(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
“Don’t do that,” I warn. “Don’t try to make this into some fucked-up love story. I took you to keep you alive, period.”
“And the rest of it? The way you look at me? The things you did to me in the cabin?”
Heat floods my face. “That’s different.”
“How?”
“Because it is.” I stand and pack up the tools. “We’re done here. Let’s go.”
Saint doesn’t move, though. She sits there on the rock like a saint in a medieval painting, haloed by mountain light, utterly unmoved by my anger.
“You’re a coward, Calder Bishop.”
The words hit like a fist to the gut. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You talk about survival, about doing what’s necessary. But you won’t even admit the truth to yourself.” She stands, faces me square. “You didn’t just take me to save me. You took me because you wanted to. And now you don’t know what to do with me.”
“Watch yourself,” I say quietly. “You’re forgetting who you’re talking to.”
“No. You’re wrong. I’m finally remembering.” She moves closer, close enough I can smell the soap on her skin. “You’re not Roman. You’re not your brothers. You’re just a man who’s been playing a part for so long he forgot who he really is underneath.”
“And who’s that?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’m going to find out.”
Before I can respond, before I can process the challenge in her voice, she turns and starts walking back along the fence line. Not toward the cabin.
Just walking, like she needs the distance.
I let her go. Watch her move through the snow-dotted grass, the borrowed jacket catching in the wind. Above us, a hawk circles, lazy spirals riding thermals.
She stops about fifty yards away, crouches down near another cluster of weeds. From this distance, she could be anyone. A hiker. A ranch hand. Just a woman enjoying a winter day in the high country.
Not a prisoner. Not my wife. Not the woman I was supposed to kill to protect my family.
I give her the space she needs and move to the next damaged section of the fence. All I can hear are her words echoing in my ears. Coward.
Maybe she’s right. Perhaps I am afraid. Not of Roman, not of consequences, but of what happens if I stop lying to myself about why I really kept her alive.
I’m hammering in the last staple when I hear her cry out.
My head snaps up, and I’m moving before conscious thought, crossing the distance in seconds. “What happened?”
“I was just…” Her voice shakes. “I-I saw a wolf.”
I tug her back over to sit on my toolbox. “Just stay here. Don’t worry, they won’t come over here.”
“Thank you,” she whispers. “I wasn’t scared, just startled.”
I look up and find her watching me with an expression I can’t read. Not gratitude exactly. Something more complicated. Something that makes my chest feel too tight.
“What?”
“Thank you for bringing me out here. For not leaving me in that cabin to go crazy.” She glances around at the mountains, the valley, the endless sky. “I needed this. Needed to remember there’s more than just four walls.”
The honesty disarms me. “The land helps,” I say finally. “When everything else is shit, the land is still here. Still real.”
“Is that why you come here? To remember what’s real?”
“Something like that. We should head back. We’ve done enough work today.”
She nods and climbs to her feet. We gather the tools in silence and start the walk back to the cabin. But something’s shifted between us. Some small crack in the foundation of captor and captive, Bishop and James, monster and victim.
I tell myself it doesn’t matter. Come the rodeo, everything changes anyway. We’ll go to town, face Roman, and whatever this is, this strange understanding growing between us, will either strengthen or shatter completely.
We’re halfway back to the cabin when I hear the engine. Distant at first, then growing louder, unmistakable on the narrow access road that only members of my family know about.
My hand goes to the gun at my hip, body shifting into a defensive stance. “Get behind me,” I tell Saint.
“What? Why… ?”
“Just do it.”
She obeys without argument, and I position myself between her and the road, watching as Kade’s black truck appears through the pines, kicking up dust, moving too fast for the conditions.
He parks next to the road, kills the engine, and climbs out with that loose-limbed grace that makes him lethal in close quarters. His eyes find me first, then slide past to where Saint is half hidden behind my shoulder.
“Didn’t know you were coming,” I say, keeping my tone neutral.
“Didn’t know I needed permission to visit my own family’s property.” He leans against his truck and pulls out a cigarette, then lights it. “Thought I’d check on you. Make sure you’re still thinking straight.”
“The plan hasn’t changed. We go public at the rodeo. Roman finds out with everyone else.”