“I’m not dead yet.”
My stomach dropped. “So this isn’t a together thing, working the ranch like we’d talked about. It’s you, then me once you’re gone? In what, twenty years or more?”
“Don’t be so melodramatic.”
“Like you are about the talk of meth on our land?”
“Jesus, why do you have to push?” he asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“The meth! The trailer. Hollaroy.”
“I knew nothing about the meth until Holt and Theo came by the other day.”
His eyes widened, and his head reared back as if I’d punched him. “It’s Holt and Theo now? Oh, fuck, Alison, are you seeing one of them? Is that where you were last night?”
I wasn’t a teenager sneaking around behind her parents’ back with the cute quarterback, staying out past curfew. I was an adult. I could make my own choices, and I didn’t need my father’s approval to spend the night in a guy’s bed. I’d have liked it, but it wasn’t required any longer. Not after the choices he’d been making.
“Yes.” I didn’t clarify, or correct that I was seeing both of them.
He reached out and swiped a calendar and address book, shoving them off the counter. I jumped at his outburst.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done by being with him?” he shouted.
“Why don’t you tell me what you’ve done, Dad?” I said, my voice quiet compared to his.
He faced me again, set his hands on his hips. “I had no choice. I wanted to keep you out of it, but you got involved with the law. The enemy.”
“Since when is the sheriff or DEA the enemy?” I asked.
“Since Hollaroy brought his shit to our property and I have to hide it.”
Oh, fuck. It was true. Hollaroy was involved. No, not involved. He was the one Theo was seeking. My dad was part of it.
“Why didn’t you tell him no?” I asked, my voice rising. “He has a huge ranch. If he’s making meth and distributing it, he could do it from—”
“No!” He began to pace. “He pulled me in. I had no choice. I have no choice.”
“Why? What did you do?”
He waved me off and continued. “Now you’re here, and he’s going to—”
“I’m going to what, Jenkins?” a voice rang out from down the hall.
Dad went pale, and I picked up the knife on the cutting board.
Mr. Hollaroy—I didn’t think of him by any other name—walked into the kitchen. He’d come in the back door without knocking, as if this were his ranch, not ours.
Dad cleared his throat. “Nothing.”
Hollaroy was bigger than my dad. While he was in his early sixties, he was still well over six feet tall. He was stocky, and had a beer gut that could sustain him as a reserve like a bear in hibernation.
I’d known him my whole life, but mostly in passing, seeing him at the diner or the county fair. I’d always found him to be a little intimidating, but now I was downright scared.
“Going to know about your daughter’s fling with the law?” He eyed me in a way that made my skin crawl. Like I wasn’t just a rancher friend’s daughter any longer, but a woman.
“It’s nothing. Rebellion. Just getting back at me,” my dad said. He was protecting me, and I was surprised.
“She’s fucking the law. Our enemy. They came here. They’re sniffing around,” Mr. Hollaroy said.
He had no idea that they had literally been sniffing around.
He waved his beefy hand in the air as he came around the counter, picked up a piece of chopped carrot and tossed it in his mouth. I stepped away.
“This works,” he said while chewing. “She can help us now. No one suspects a woman like her.”
I didn’t know what that meant exactly, but I wasn’t going to ask.
I was actually afraid of this guy. Of the situation. Of how easily he was in control. How he’d waltzed right into the house and eaten off my cutting board.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, frowning and trying to look confused. Sweat trickled down my back and I tried to keep my voice even.
“Your daddy told me Sheriff Cooke and the DEA came by.”
I flicked my gaze at my father, who looked like a bullied fifth grader in his own house.
I nodded. “They did, and he sent them on their way.”
“Yet you followed. What did they tell you about their investigation?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Right.” He drew the word out as if he didn’t believe me. “But you’re curious. Questioning. You’ll be useful.”
“No,” I said, without thinking.
He stared at me, then laughed. His jowls shifted as he did so. “You think you have a choice?”
“Alison,” Dad warned, but didn’t do anything else to protect me.
“Send a text to your boyfriend. Tell him to come here at ten.”
I blinked. “Wh—why?”
“Because while they may have slapped me with a fine for shooting those fucking wolves last summer, they’re not messing with my meth.”