“I will,” Cody said. “Thank you for the warning.”
I gave a final wave and headed back out into the heat. Walking down the sidewalk to tick things off my to-do list, I munched my way through the first of the sandwiches. My next stop was the feed store where I needed to put in an order. While Franklin filled out the forms, I told him about the wolf. Knowing I wouldn’t see everybody, I asked him to warn anybody he might come across.
The process continued as I made my way through town, running errands and talking to whoever I ran into. The ranchers and farmers with livestock went away with a warning about the wolf. It was important to warn everybody as much as possible. I didn’t want anyone to not be prepared and be taken by surprise by the vicious creature.
“Thank you for letting me know,” one of the ranchers said. “I’ve been worried about them creeping onto our land for the last few months. There haven’t been any sightings around my place, but I’ve heard some howls in the distance. I’ll have to check the fences and put some precautions in place. You be careful out there.”
“I will,” I said. “Let me know if you are needing any help.”
We went our separate ways and I finished up the last of my errands for the afternoon. It had taken more time than I expected it to, and I was in a rush getting back to my truck. Having to go into town always ate into the work at the ranch and I hated leaving my brothers to handle more when I wasn’t there. As I made my way toward where my truck was parked on the side of the street, I caught a sight that slowed me down. The ranch was going to have to wait for a bit longer.
Ahead of me, Roy Hayes’s cruiser sat on the side of the road, blatantly parked in front of a fire hydrant. That was one of the many habits Hayes had that made my skin crawl and my jaw clench.
A man of the law, he should have been above reproach. He should have been the one the people of Green Valley could look up to and follow his lead when it came to being responsible citizens. Instead, he took joy in cutting the corners and taking full advantage of his position. Little things like parking in no-parking zones, blocking roads, and skipping lines at the coffee shop seemed small on the surface, but they added up to a serious aggravation.
It wasn’t the position of his car that caught my attention. Instead, it was seeing him not far away from the car, hands on his hips as he chatted with the new women I met outside the hotel. It gave me a bad taste in my mouth and made my hands clench by my sides. The sweet little girl was hiding behind her mother again. She clung to her legs and looked uncertain at best, scared at worst. All of them looked like they wanted to get away from him as soon as possible. I understood that feeling. It was a fairly common reaction to the deputy.
As I watched them, I realized they had introduced themselves, but their names had escaped me. That didn’t stop me from wanting to stop him from bothering them anymore. A lot of people around town did their best to not cross paths with Roy Hayes. He could cause a major hassle in the life of anybody who he felt wronged him, and for the most part, it was just easier to steer clear.
I wasn’t one of those people. I wouldn’t go out of my way to spend extra time with him, but I also was not one to stand by and not do anything when someone wanted it to escape his company. Roy, like all the others in his family, was unabashedly my rival. That made it my responsibility to stand guard and protect others from him. Even if that just meant stopping an unwanted conversation.
Glancing both ways quickly, I walked across the street and stopped right next to the pretty dark haired woman.
“So, you decided to hang around a little bit longer?” I asked.
She looked over at me and seemed briefly flustered, then offered me a small smile. “Maybe. You made a pretty good argument, so we decided we were going to look around a little more. That and Gabby here isn’t totally satisfied by the assortment of new books we picked out for her.”
I chuckled and looked down at the little girl. She looked around her mother’s legs at me and the moment she introduced herself to me before came back into my mind. I crouched down to look at her, reaching out to run my fingertip along her hand to comfort her.
“You like to read, Gabby?” I asked.
She nodded enthusiastically.
“She likes to pretend to,” the other woman said.
“Got to start somewhere,” I said. “If it’s books you’re after, there’s a cute little shop two streets over. But if you’re thinking Green Valley might be a place you can spend some time, there’s the library. A lot of books there.”
“I was having a conversation, Montgomery,” Roy said through his teeth.
It was obvious how pissed off he was that I had interrupted them. He was trying something with the women, and I had put myself right in the middle of it, just like I intended. He glared at me, but the women seemed relieved. Their posture relaxed and their faces no longer held that look that came over somebody when they wanted to find a way out of a tight space.
“And I’m just joining in on it,” I told him. “Isn’t that what friendly folk do around here? You wouldn’t want to give these nice ladies the wrong impression about Green Valley, would you? It might make them change their minds about whether they want to stick around for a bit and check out that library.”
Roy’s eyes narrowed even more. There was nothing he could say. If he argued with me, he would seem like a gigantic ass. As much as he wanted them all to himself and carry on with whatever conversation he was trying to have with them, he didn’t really have a choice but to involve me in the conversation as well.
“We were just talking about the restaurants around town,” the dark haired one said.
I searched for her name. She had said it to me—I could even hear her voice in my head—but I was so absorbed in looking into her gorgeous eyes I must not have totally let it sink in.
“That’s nice of him,” I said, knowing what was really happening.
Roy wasn’t telling her about the restaurants so she would be more familiar with her surroundings and could make informed decisions about where to have dinner. That would make him skirt just a bit too close to being a decent human being. The deputy was circling his slimy way up to asking one of the women out. Actually, I wouldn’t put it past him to be trying to find a way to get both of them in his grips.
“Shouldn’t you be getting back to your ranch?” Roy asked. “I’m sure there’s work to be done.”
I gave him a smile that would look friendly to the women, but I knew would make Roy’s skin crawl.
“You’re right. There’s always work to be done on the ranch. Keeping up with that much land and a successful herd can be a challenge. And speaking of the ranch, I’ve been warning everybody, so I should warn you, too. There’s a wolf running around who has a taste for cattle. Make sure your family keeps an eye on their herd. Wouldn’t want anything killing them.”
His eyes burned into mine, knowing I was referencing the ruthless, heartless slaughter of my family’s animals by his father.
“I’ll do that,” he said.
“Good.” I turned my eyes away from him. “Now, ladies, the hottest part of the day is coming. If you are finished looking around, I suggest you take a break somewhere cool. I’d be happy to walk you back to the hotel.”
They eagerly accepted and I gestured for them to walk ahead of me, giving Roy one last look before going after them.
Chapter 10
Gia
I could almost feel the deputy watching as we crossed the street with Clayton. The uniformed man said all the right things and seemed perfectly polite. Still, he gave off creepy vibes that immediately put me on edge. Darcy, Gabby, and I were just walking down the sidewalk when he pulled up at the curb. I noticed he chose to park next to the fire hydrant, which made me worried. A police officer who flagrantly ignored laws usually wasn’t on a casual visit. It meant something bad was happening. He was after someone or was trying to stop something from happening.
Maternal instinct made me hold on to Gabby’s hand
a little tighter and pull her closer so I could protect her from whatever might be happening. Darcy took a half step closer to me, noticing the same thing. But when the deputy opened the door to the cruiser, he didn’t jump out and run anywhere. He didn’t look urgent in any way. Instead, he closed the door casually behind him, glanced around as he adjusted his belt, and grinned toward us. I knew that look in his eyes. I’d seen it before. It was like having a target on me. Darcy and I were in that man’s crosshairs and there wasn’t much we could do to get away from him save breaking away and running.
As that didn’t seem like the most logical or mature approach, we let him walk up to us and start talking. There was some of the same slow drawl in his voice as in Clayton’s, but it wasn’t as sweet or deep. He was perfectly polite and friendly, but the conversation felt measured, rehearsed in a way. It was like he had gone over this same set of words many times before and was just waiting to see how they would be received this time. He wasn’t taking a direct route to his point but wandering his way through, circling around Darcy and me until he’d convinced us to follow along with what he was thinking. It was the kind of conversation that was meant to end up in one of those restaurants he mentioned or with Darcy bringing Gabby off to the hotel and him showing me the coffee shop. I wasn’t supposed to notice he was doing it. He wouldn’t come right out and ask. That way, I couldn’t reject him.
I hated that kind of man.
But the same couldn’t be said about Clayton.
“Thank you so much,” I finally said when we were far enough away from Roy Hayes he wouldn’t be able to hear us. “I thought we’d never get away from him. Thank you for rescuing us.”
“Gia has never been good with law enforcement,” Darcy said.
Clayton glanced at her and then eyed me.
I rolled my eyes at Darcy. “She means I’ve never been very comfortable around law enforcement,” I clarified. “There’s been a few conflicts with my family and the law in the past. But I have never so much as had a parking ticket. I do my best to avoid them.”
Clayton chuckled and gave a nod. “Well, there may be more than one reason to be uncomfortable around Roy Hayes, but him being in law enforcement isn’t one of them. He’s a waste of the badge.”
I laughed and looked at him out of the corner of my eye as we kept walking back toward the hotel. I couldn’t help but be curious about this handsome cowboy. He was nothing like any man I had ever met.
“Good to know,” I told him.
“So, how long are you staying?” he asked.
I gave a hint of a smile and shook my head at him. “Not long,” I told him. “We stuck around for a little bit, but we’re still heading on our way.”
“How come?” Clayton asked.
That surprised me but not nearly as much as the words that came out of my mouth next.
“Well, we might stay a while.”
That earned me a shocked expression from Darcy, but I ignored her. There was going to be enough of a conversation about this later. I might as well wait for it. Besides, I was far too engrossed in the pleased smile that slipped across Clayton’s lips when he heard the news.
“That sounds better,” he said. “I’m more than happy to show you the ropes of Green Valley tomorrow if you want. I was born and raised around here. Nobody knows it better.”
We got to the hotel and he held the door open for us. We walked through and Clayton leaned his hip against one of the tables set up around the lobby. He gazed at me, waiting for me to respond. I wanted to tell him no. I wanted to say that we were doing just fine on our own or that we didn’t need him to show us around because we weren’t going to be in town long enough to need to know anything else about it. But I couldn’t make my mouth form the words. The truth was I didn’t actually want to say those things at all.
I wanted to see him again, as ridiculous as that might be. He intrigued me. This was a man who was truly genuine. There wasn’t anything manufactured about him, nothing presented just for the purpose of impressing us. He was exactly who he said he was. That wasn’t something I was used to. The same couldn’t be said about the men I’d encountered in my life. They approached each day with an agenda, with a narrative they wanted to fulfill. It wasn’t really about them but about the people around them. They decided who they wanted to manipulate, who they were going to control, who they were going to pretend they controlled them. It was all a game and it became difficult to tell what about them was real and what wasn’t. There wasn’t a shred of that with Clayton, and somehow, that made him even more fascinating.
I looked over at Darcy and she met my eyes. Her eyebrows lifted just slightly, communicating to me without having to say a word.
Turning back to Clayton, I smiled. “We would love that. Thank you.”
He grinned again, standing up straighter. “Great,” he said. “I look forward to it. Can I come by here in the morning?”
“Sure,” I said.
“I have work that has to be done around the ranch first thing, but I’ll come by after breakfast. Say around nine?”
Darcy and I exchanged glances again and I nodded. “We’ll be ready.”
“I’ll see you then,” Clayton said, starting toward the door again. “Have a good afternoon.”
“You too,” I said.
He walked out of the hotel and settled his hat back on his head as he stood on the sidewalk. Darcy and I scurried across the lobby to watch him walk down the sidewalk to his truck and climb inside. He pulled away and I kept standing there, unable to pull my eyes away even as the truck disappeared down the road. A sharp pain in my ribs broke my attention and I whipped my eyes over to Darcy. Her elbow was still pulled back like she was preparing to jab me again.
“Ouch,” I said with aggravation in my voice as I rubbed my side. “What the hell was that for?”
She stared at me like I should automatically know what she was thinking, or at least admit to what she was thinking I was thinking. Too bad for me, she was absolutely right. I knew exactly what she was thinking and that she was right about what I was thinking. Too bad for her, I wasn’t about to admit to anything. I kept my eyes wide and innocent, and finally, she rolled her eyes and laughed.
“If you were any more doe-eyed about this cowboy, I’m going to need to put on a bright orange vest to protect you,” she said. “He has seriously gotten to you.”
“No, he hasn’t,” I protested, then smiled at Gabby. “Are you ready to go upstairs for a snack and a nap?”
She nodded sleepily at me and I reached down to scoop her up into my arms. She had insisted on walking for most of the time through the town and now she looked exhausted. As soon as I had her up in my arms, she looped her arms around my neck and rested her head on my shoulder. I started toward the stairs and Darcy scoffed behind me.
“That’s really all you’ve got?” she asked. “You’re just going to say no and that’s going to be enough?”
“Yep,” I said over my shoulder and kept heading toward the room.
“It’s not fooling me. I know you, Gia.” She rushed to catch up with me. “I know what that look means. You can’t wait to see him tomorrow.”
“He is very nice, and I look forward to him showing me the town,” I told her.
Even as I said it, I cringed.
“You mean us,” Darcy corrected.
“Of course. That’s what I said.”
Gabby was almost asleep by the time I opened the door to the hotel room. It smelled freshly cleaned and I set her down onto the newly made bed.
“Mmm hmm,” Darcy said.
I kicked off my shoes and dropped down onto the bed beside Gabby, letting out a sigh and closing my eyes.
Chapter 11
Clayton
I got to the hotel a few minutes before I’d planned to pick the women up. I didn’t want to seem too anxious, but at the same time, I woke up excited to see Gia again. That was such an odd feeling for me. I wasn’t used to thinking much about anybody, much less a w
oman I barely knew. But she left an impression on me I couldn’t shake.
The entire evening on Thursday, I thought about her. There was something in her. There was a story behind those big brown eyes, and I wanted to know it. But there was also pain there, something hesitant. It made me wonder what really brought her all the way to Green Valley.
This wasn’t a woman who just happened on a Montana ranch town. She mentioned she and her friend were looking for a fresh start but didn’t explain why. I couldn’t see Gia as the type of woman to just suddenly decide she was going to pull up stakes and hit the road to see where the wind brought her. Especially not with that sweet little girl by her side. She wouldn’t ruffle her life up by dragging her off on some whim. There had to be some reason behind it.
But I wasn’t going to push. That wasn’t my place. I didn’t have a place with her at all. I barely even knew her. If I had my way, though, I might change that. First, I had to convince her to hang around town a bit longer.
I hung around the lobby of the hotel until I heard the women coming. Looking across the space, I saw them come down the thickly carpeted steps. The women were on either side of Gabby, who was in the middle holding both of their hands. As they reached the bottom step, they lifted her up and swung her out into the air in front of them. She giggled, the sound pure and sweet. Nothing fake or held back about it.
That was something about little children that always got me. They found so much wonder and joy in the world and were still too little to have any sense that they should hold it back. When they found something that made them happy, they just enjoyed it. Something as small as a few seconds swinging up in the air was enough to give them true happiness. Maybe that was part of what was wrong with the world. Grownups just didn’t know that kind of joy and worried about holding it back when they found it.
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