Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 120186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
“Fine,” I say.
Sawyer blinks. “That’s it?”
“You want a speech?”
“I want to know you mean it.”
“I mean it.” I set the glass on the shelf. “I’m not saying I have it all worked out. But you’re right about the ranch. I’m in. I’m a fucking Bishop, ain’t I?”
Calder’s shoulders drop an inch. He nods, once, slow. “That’s all we needed.”
Levi starts to grin. I point at him.
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
He holds both hands up. Sawyer makes a sound that might be a laugh if the bastard knew how. The room breathes a little easier, and so do I.
“South pasture,” Calder says, already back to his papers. “I have names I want to run down. Don’t think those men acted alone. Somebody sent them. I need to know who before we do anything.”
“I have contacts in that world,” Levi says. “I’ll make some calls.”
He looks up. Something in his face settles. “Good.”
I leave them to finish things for now.
By the time I hit the second-floor landing, the whole morning is stacked up in my chest. My brothers, the study, Calder in that chair, everything it kicked loose in me. The drive. The hours I sat in my truck like a damn fool watching Allie move down the block.
I need sleep. I need food. I need a lot of things, and none of them are what I actually want.
What I want is her.
I want to get out of my own head, and the only way I know how to do that is with her. I want my hands on her. I want to watch that tight set leave her jaw, watch her stop bracing for the next hit, watch her quit carrying all that weight for ten damn minutes. She’s wound herself up so tight lately that sometimes I look at her and feel it like a cord pulled to its last thread. And if it’s not me holding that thread, she might unravel.
She lets go for me. That’s the thing. She fights it every time, fights me, fights herself, but when she finally falls apart, it’s something. The sounds she makes, the way she grabs on—like the whole world went quiet and there’s nothing left but that. I need to give her that. And I need it for myself just as bad. Need something solid under my hands that isn’t a problem I have to solve or a brother I have to answer to or a ghost I can’t get out of this house.
I need her to come apart so I can feel like something in this world still makes sense.
My phone goes off.
I figure it’s Calder with a follow-up, some name he wants me to run, and I pull it out without breaking stride.
Allie: I know you were following me in town. I saw you. I don’t know if I should be scared or grateful, but Kade, I need to talk to you. I need to see you. I’m losing it.
I stop walking.
Read it again. Then once more.
Me: I’m coming.
And I turn around on the landing and head straight back down the stairs, grabbing my jacket off the hook, not even bothering to think through the calls Calder might need or the sleep I want or any of the hundred things that were supposed to happen today. None of it matters right now.
She needs to see me.
And God help me, I need to see her more than I’ve needed anything in a long time.
Chapter 22
Allie
Ikeep pacing the same strip of floor.
Back and forth, back and forth, wall to window, window to wall.
I check the time again. It’s late. He texted back that he was coming, and I believe him. Kade doesn’t make promises unless he plans on keeping them, and I’m counting that as the one decent thing I know about him right now.
I need him here. That’s what I hate most about it.
Joseph Lowry’s face keeps coming back to me. That look he had on the sidewalk, like he already knew the answer and was giving me a chance to say it first. I got through it. I said everything right. But a man like that doesn’t just drop a thread because you smiled at him.
And then Buck out of nowhere, and then Kade across the street.
I sat in my own driveway for five minutes when I got home before I could make myself go inside. Sat on my bed and stared at the wall. Then I texted Kade because he’s the only person alive who knows what I’m actually living with. I hated every word I typed, yet I typed them anyway.
The trellis rattles.
I knew that’s how he’d do it. He’s never once used the front door like a normal human being. And the kitchen is probably too busy right now for the root cellar entrance. I go to the window and shove it up without thinking, stepping back into the dark of my room to wait.