Best Friend's Ex Box Set

“Yep?”

“Did your contacts get all that shit on Coates legally?” I asked.

“Uh huh. Why?”

“If you passed it on to the sheriff, it might be enough to light a fire under his ass. You know, inspire him to do some decent investigating,” I said.

“I like the way you think, Smith. Talk to you later.”

I knew I needed to go help the kitchen prep for lunch and dinner tonight, but my head was reeling. I wanted to be there when the company installed the cameras, but I was technically supposed to be behind the bar tonight. Tiffany was slowly getting better, but I still had to really rely on Rick to get a lot of things done around the ranch, and I knew it could really use my touch until Tif got herself out of the cast.

So, I took my contact book of employees and started calling to see if anyone could come in and work this evening. If I had the shifts covered and my chef could keep an eye on things, I could go help Rick before I went to see Cheyenne.

And then I could use these damn cameras to catch the son of a bitch who I knew was still lurking around my place. There were times I came back from work and just knew I was being watched, but now I was going to be the one doing the watching.

I just hoped they stuck to my ranch instead of migrating back over to Cheyenne’s.

It was going to be no help to us if they weren’t doing anything under the watchful eye of my cameras.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Cheyenne

Colt’s words kept ringing in my head. The passion we shared had nothing to do with it, but it was the fire behind the truth of his words that I couldn’t get past. He was dead set on making sure I didn’t leave town, and the intensity in his eyes when he told me he wasn’t ready to let me go gave me the strength I needed to make the decision to stay. I called the neighboring sanctuaries and told them I was no longer in need of their services, and then I started packing my bags.

If Colt was getting security cameras installed and he was this set on making sure I didn’t leave town, I felt safer staying with him. If things continued her

e with my barn and my animals, I had no way to catch who was doing it. But Colt told me cameras were supposed to be installed last night at his house, so if taking the target back to their home was necessary to catch who was doing this, I felt more courageous than ever about taking the fight back to them.

He made me feel a way that Dexter never had. I didn’t just feel wanted and prized, but I also still felt I had my independence. He was never adamant about interjecting himself into plans or into my home, and he was always courteous when it came to hearing me out. Even when I was storming off his property a few days ago, he never demanded that I listen. He simply kept trying to get a word in edgewise before he tried to convince me to stay.

Not to listen to him. Not to do what he was telling me to do.

Just to stay, and nothing else.

Every time I saw him, a part of the wall I’d thrown up after I ran to Green Point in the first place eroded. Every time that beautiful cowboy hat came bobbing up my driveway and every time those thick, strong arms wrapped themselves around my body, a part of it crumbled to the ground. He was soaking me in attention I’d never received from a man, and I still felt his equal.

I was folding clothes and putting them into my suitcase when I heard a loud knock at the door. I’d just gotten off the phone with Tiffany, who was ecstatic that I was heading back to the farm today, and I figured it was probably Colt who’d caught wind of the news.

But when the knock turned into a bang, I felt the hair on my arm stand up on end.

“Damn it, Cheyenne! Open this door!”

Bill’s voice rang out into my home, and I remembered the gun Colt had brought me last night. He came around ringing my doorbell with a shotgun and shells in his hand, and even though I told him I didn’t want a gun on my property, he was insistent that I keep it.

And now, I was glad he had persuaded me.

“I know you’re in there! Open this fucking door!”

I went downstairs and grabbed the gun out of the closet I had stuck it in, and stuffed rounds into it. Then I propped it up in the hallway before I grabbed the doorknob. I wanted it away from me, so Bill didn’t think I was going to be an aggressor, but I wanted him to know it was present so it didn’t shock him if I grabbed it.

But when I opened the door and saw him, I knew then and there that his strength wouldn’t be an issue. He looked like hell frozen over and resurrected. His eyes were sunken in, and massive dark bags hung underneath them. He’d lost weight, his eyes were red, and he had his shirt on inside out. His hair was greasy, and his nails had dirt caked underneath. Though I’m not proud of this, part of me smiled inwardly with triumph.

He finally got to understand a bit of how his horses felt when he mistreated them.

“You’ve ruined me,” he said, with a grumble. “I’m done for in this town. You and your, your phone calls and your pranks and your jokes. You think you can get away with all this shit?”

I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, but I wasn’t about to let on to that. As long as he didn’t breach the doorway of my home, I’d be fine. But the moment he stepped foot into my foyer, it was game on.