Rough and Ready (More Than A Cowboy 2)

I couldn’t help my eyebrows going up. “The guys in the parking lot?”

“They said they’d been here, but I just hoped maybe they were wrong. If I kept my lights out, stayed hidden, they’d give up.”

I frowned. “You kept your lights out?”

She nodded. “I didn’t want them to know I was home—they might try to get in.”

This was so fucked up. Especially since she thought she was alone in this. Dealing with these assholes.

My mind churned through everything she said. “Wait. What do you mean they said they’d been here? You talked to them?”

Now she looked away. “They were waiting for me at the airport. They… they slashed my tires.”

I knew the men were long gone from the lot by now, Gray and the others ensuring it, but I wanted to hunt them down and kill them for fucking with Harper. It seemed I had to make a list of who to hurt. Her brother, her parents. Those assholes who slashed her tires.

“Why now? If they got away with it two years ago, why are they back?”

“Cam. He’s out of jail.”

“I thought your parents got him out of his involvement with your assault.” I bit out the last few words.

“He was, but a week later, after he was cleared, he was arrested for drug possession with intent to sell. My parents… well, my dad, who’s a lawyer… got it lowered to a misdemeanor. Cam had no choice but to do two years.”

“And?”

“And he’s out now. But those men? They never got the money Cam owed before he went to prison.”

I couldn’t help but frown. When I thought she had some issues, I had no idea it was like this. And she wanted to push me away. “Okay, but why go after you? Why weren’t they waiting for your brother when he walked out the prison gates?”

“Because they know he doesn’t have the money. He probably told them I had it to keep himself alive.”

To keep himself alive and put the heat on his sister. The fucking asshole.

“Do you have the money?” I was so confused. Why the hell was she mixed up in this? This mess was between a loan shark and Cameron Lane.

“Yes.”

I lifted her up enough, so I could slide out from beneath her, turned her so she was sitting in my chair, and I paced.

“You have money Cam needs to pay off his debt? His two-year-old debt?”

She nodded, curled her feet beneath her.

I ran my hand over the back of my neck. “When did you talk to him last?”

She looked as if she were scrolling back through a calendar in her mind. “Actually, it was right before I met you. The elevator panic attack. He’d called me, and I’d been upset, decided to run it off.”

Yeah, I could see now why she liked to burn off the angst and why she could run marathons.

“Like I said, me having the money is why he’s still alive, at least I assume. If they’d killed him in jail, they’d never get the money.

I guess they’re patient, or they expect a lot of interest, but now that he’s out, they want it.”

“And Cam?”

“I haven’t talked to him since that time, but he’s left messages, texted. Telling me to give it to him.”

“I assume you haven’t.” If she had, they’d leave her alone. No airport visits. No slashed tires. No parking lot surveillance.