No White Knight

Plus a few anecdotes about towns where he’s ripped businesses off, too.

Declan’s entire history is full of bad loans, flashy bling, and debtors on his heels.

Him using sob stories about how he got conned himself. He talks folks into being his muscle to go shake a target, only to disappear with every damn penny after getting others to do his dirty work.

They describe him like those old-school riverboat gamblers.

Fine clothes, likes nice things, puts on the illusion of refinement, but underneath it, he’s a brawler.

Dark hair. Cold eyes. Oily smile.

That’s the Declan I know, all right.

Fuck.

Sierra’s boyfriend isn’t with the bank at all.

He’s a liar and a cheat who must’ve seen the public notice about the lien and saw an opportunity to get in good and pull one over on some small-town rubes.

Only, I’ve been around real con men. Big city millionaire con men.

Declan’s a guppy.

I doubt he’s tried to pull a con job this big before, and it’s showing in how he’s getting fidgety around the edges and heavy-handed.

What if that heavy-handedness means violence?

Shit, fuck, damn.

My mind zips back to Libby in a heartbeat.

It’s been days since I heard from her, I realize.

Days since she was trying to talk to me at my trailer in a huff, but I was so focused on the fire I just breezed right past her with my heart in my throat.

It’s a miracle she hasn’t hunted me down and set my hair on fire yet.

But the silence alone tells me I’m probably in a fuckton of trouble, if she’ll even speak to me.

I pick up my phone and pull up her contact—and that’s when I notice the missed call from the day my site got torched. It must’ve come through when my phone was dead.

With the way things have been, Libby probably thought I was ghosting her.

She’s gonna shoot to kill the next time she sees me.

I know she is.

If she’s able to shoot me, and somebody hasn’t shot her first.

Hey, I text. I’m coming by to talk. Found some stuff you need to see. It’s important.

I wait a good fifteen minutes while I scroll through more stories of the nameless trucker with those plates.

No call. No cuss-filled texts. No rude emojis.

Nothing.

That shouldn’t worry me.

Libby’s a busy gal. She might be up to her elbows in shearing sheep right now, or God only knows what else.

Maybe she’s just ghosting me right back for spite, but hell.

With the stakes here, you’d think telling her I found important stuff would get a response.

Snarling, I try calling again.

It rings a good seven times before it goes to voicemail.

So she didn’t deliberately shunt me, unless she let it ring out.

I sigh.

Goddamn my meddling and my paranoia, too.

I need to know she’s okay.

Because Declan’s the snake who burned down my construction site, and next he might just go gunning for Libby with more than threats.

I barely keep it together enough to get ready.

Then I haul myself up, make sure my Colt is tucked under my shirt, and go barreling into the dead of night.

Tell me I’m being stupid again.

Whatever.

I’d rather be dumber than hell than be right about this.

13

Making Hay (Libby)

If everybody could stop making my life difficult for one freaking day, I’d never ask for anything else.

I’ve got ten voicemails from Reid Cherish. Every last one asking the same thing in his robotic monotone: Please call me at your earliest convenience.

Holt Silverton has vanished off the face of the Earth.

Oh, I’m not done with him. Not until I can rip him a new asshole.

If he thinks I’m gonna let him treat me the way he treats every conquest, he’s got another thing coming. It’s shaped a lot like a searing slap to the face.

The cherry on top must be Sierra refusing to answer her texts.

I know she’s guilty.

She was the one who drove out to Ursa with Declan, I’m sure, and helped him navigate.

Worst part is, I can’t even legally get her for trespassing because it’s her property, too.

Needless to say, I’ve had it.

When my phone buzzes while I’m making a late dinner, I whip it out of my pocket, ready to yell at Sierra. But it’s not her.

It’s King Idiot himself.

Holt, yammering on about how he found something and it’s oh-so-important and I—I just can’t.

Maybe later, but for now?

I’ll keep stabbing this spoon into my big old pot of pot roast stew until it’s ready to eat and I can finally sink my teeth into something that doesn’t taste like rage and disappointment. The savory smell of meat so tender it’s falling apart is a nice distraction.

Then I hear a noise outside.

A clatter.

A barn door swinging, squealing on its hinges.

Not the kind of noises a coyote makes.

One day.

All I ever asked for was one flipping day of peace.

I grab my sawed-off shotgun and make sure it’s loaded with a good scatter of buckshot, but just in case, I tuck a few proper slugs into my pocket if I need ‘em.