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)
“What is out there?” Her eyes are wide, the green bright in the overhead lighting.
“Nothing right now, but something was. Or someone.” I rush out of the room, down the hall to Emma’s door, and knock.
She answers, confused, a moment later. “Kade…”
“I just heard something outside. Stay here and don’t go near the windows.”
She nods, clutching at the door. “Okay.”
I check around under Allie’s window, then shout up. “I don’t see anyone out here. But there are footprints in the snow. Pretty big boot prints. Cowboy boots, worn on one side pretty well like someone was limping a little.” I try to remember if one of our new friends had a limp, but no, they seemed in peak shape, and their boots were definitely too new to make these tracks.
Emma and Allie poke their heads over the sill, and I sigh. “Didn’t I tell you both to stay put?”
But Emma answers. “That’s it. He wants to play games? The next time one of his goons shows up on this ranch, they’ll end up with an ass full of lead.”
“What are you gonna do?” I ask, more out of curiosity than anything else.
“I’m calling Sheriff Tanner.” She waves her phone. “That son of a bitch Lowry thinks he can intimidate us? He’ll learn.”
She barely has the sentence out of her mouth before turning her attention to the phone. “This is Emma Porter. Someone was prowling around outside my house only minutes ago. There are footprints in the snow under Allie’s bedroom window. Now I want something done about this,” she barks.
“I want patrols positioned around my property day and night, got it?” she continues, with her voice getting louder and more vicious. “If you have to bring in men from neighboring counties, so be it. If I have to lock this ranch down, I’ll do that, too.”
She looks at me from the windowsill. “But I will be damned if I let anyone get away with intimidating my daughter or me.”
“Looks like somebody woke up the mama bear,” I murmur.
And I see so much of Allie in Emma right now it makes my chest ache. Maybe I have a little of that in me too.
Chapter 30
Kade
“Is this what you do for fun? I mean, when you’re not drinking Rick out of whiskey?”
I look up from the length of rope I’m playing with, tying and untying knots. Sort of a habit I picked up when I was a kid, practicing quickly tying a honda or a bowline. All I ever wanted was to be useful to Roman.
She’s stretched out across the foot of my bed. Well, not my bed, but the bed I’m using while I stay here. Something on her phone has held her attention for a while. She’s lucky. I couldn’t give two shits what’s happening online. It bores me almost as much as sitting around with nothing to do. That drives me out of my skull. I need activity.
I also need her to be safe, meaning it’s better to stay around the house when possible. It was Emma’s request when she announced she was having dinner with friends tonight. “I won’t be able to enjoy myself unless I know the two of you are safe here.”
So we’re safe. And I’m bored shitless.
Slouched in an armchair by the window, I stretch my legs out and cross my ankles on the windowsill. “What about you? Trying to see if you can scroll to the end of the internet?”
She snorts and sets the phone aside. “Yeah, it’s easy to lose track of time, following along with other people’s much more interesting lives.” She flops onto her back and groans, throwing her arms over her head. “I want to do something.”
So do I. “You know, there is something we could be doing right now,” I point out, tying and untying the lariat.
My tone must give me away. “Don’t you ever get bored doing that?” she asks.
“There’s no such thing.”
I watch, fooling with the knot, while she kicks her legs up and down. Every time she does, the tight leggings she’s wearing give me a delectable view of her extremely delectable ass. She stops, leaving them in midair, freezing in a V shape with her feet pointed toward the ceiling.
I have to.
She pushes herself up on her elbows with a gasp when the rope encircles her ankles, and I pull, tightening the lasso. “Looks like I roped myself a redheaded filly,” I announce.
“You’re such a dick.” She reaches down like she wants to undo it.
I give it a tug, sliding her across the comforter. “Hey!” She’s caught between laughing and being irritated. “Quit it!”
“Make me.” I stand, closing in on her with the rope still in my grasp, moving hand over hand as I cross the rug. “Come on. Make me stop.”
“I think you’re an addict.”