Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63469 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63469 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
That thought came from being brought up on a ranch. Nothing ever changed, and everyone got a weird, ridiculous hypersensitivity to anything out of the ordinary. Like, why was the Mullins boy driving so fast? Did the Ballards get a new truck? Or, like now, why the hell were a Toyota Highlander and a Prius, of all the cars on the planet, in Rand’s driveway? Except for Stef’s car, vehicles everywhere in the county were American-made—and always had been, I was sure. My own truck had come over with the Vikings, a hand-me-down from my father I hadn’t bothered to replace yet, as it still had some life left in the ancient engine.
Maybe I was being stupid, but still, who would be visiting Stef in the late afternoon on a Saturday when all the men who would normally be on the ranch, including Rand, were gone?
For a second I thought maybe it was a robbery because Stef was away, but his new Volvo XC60 was in the driveway. Plus, again, the dog was there, and Stef was rarely without her.
So instead of going to the porch, I rode Juju behind the thick hedge to the left that had been planted to camouflage the concrete bunker that hid the sewage tank, and ordered her to stay there to keep her from drawing attention.
I darted around the west end of the porch and went to the far side window on the left, where I was immediately joined by a whining Bella.
Kneeling down, I petted her and then told her to be quiet, a command she knew because Rand trained the dogs to either herd the cattle or move between them silently. So she understood me, which was lucky, considering what I saw inside the house.
Stef, with Wyatt asleep in his arms, was standing in the living room with a young guy, maybe nineteen or twenty, bookish, in slacks and a long-sleeved button-down. Next to them was a girl who looked about the same age, wearing Daisy Dukes and a fuchsia crop top, and flanking her were two more guys, both older and bigger. One of them had on a camouflage baseball cap and a denim shirt with the sleeves ripped off, and the other was in a straw cowboy hat and a gray T-shirt about two sizes too small that showed off every muscle in his abdomen, chest, and arms. He was taller and bulkier than me, but I wasn’t worried about that. It was the baseball-cap guy who gave me pause. He was the one with the gun.
I was too afraid to leave Stef and Wyatt alone to ride back to get whoever was down by the stockyard. If I crossed to where my truck was parked to get my phone, they’d surely see me, and since I’d left the sat phone with Rand, I didn’t have that either. Sending Bella to find Everett might have worked if this were a movie, but it certainly was not. There was only one thing to do, and that was to get my ass in the house. It made sense in my head that once I got the gun, the others would scatter. I wanted them out of the home and away from Rand’s family. If they ran, who cared? We could find everyone later; the county wasn’t that big.
I debated going around through the kitchen, but the screen door in back creaked loudly and the boards on the deck squeaked. Since they would all see me coming through the front screen door or any of the porch windows, I opted for one of the other open windows. I jumped off the porch and darted around the left side of the house, which faced the hills and the wind turbines, to the window in the first of two sitting rooms, the one that had been converted into Stef’s office a few years back.
Making a short jump up for the decorative molding that ran around each exterior wall of the house, I grabbed on to the window ledge above me and balanced there. Then I moved so I was next to the window frame, holding on to it. I levered up the screen, pushed in, and then pulled it off, letting it fall to the ground under me. Then I used my hand on the glass and slid the window open, thankful that locking anything on the ranch never happened.
I climbed through, doing the wheelbarrow maneuver where I walked forward on my hands until I could slowly, gently put my feet down on the floor inside the house. Two years ago I wouldn’t have been able to get in quietly. I’d been heavier, carrying a lot more muscle, and wasn’t half as flexible then. But now, lighter and more limber, I did it easily.
Once I was securely in the house, I leaned back out the window, whipping my Stetson out onto the grass, and gave Bella a harshly whispered order. “Get inside, girl. Get in!”