Page 41 of Down in Flames

"Hey, are you—" West began, but he'd barely completed a single step forward before he was interrupted by a voice that sent chills down his spine.

"I'm not paying for an overnight stay!" Ronald Sutter bellowed, storming out of the exam room Briar had just exited.

Ronald Sutter was one of those townsfolk who dwelled on the periphery of other people's lives. As far as West knew, he had no close friends or family. The best he could claim was some drinking buddies, a son who worked a pump at the truck stop, and an ex-wife who'd settled down in Joseph with a restraining order. But it was those drinking buddies who'd given him the alibi he needed to slither out of suspicion on sparking the fire at the Triple M. He was grizzled and meaty and low, and just looking at him made West's stomach churn.

Briar sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and saying with exquisite patience, "Mr. Sutter, I already explained to you—"

"It was just a little barbed wire! I should have just sewed it up myself."

"But you didn't, did you? The lacerations would have been impossible to close without a heavy dose of acepromazine. That dog would have ripped you to shreds." He looked like a child facing off against a giant, barely coming up to the huge barrel chest of the man who'd nearly destroyed Michael's life.

"Nothin' a bullet couldn't handle." Sutter stuffed his fists in his coverall pockets. They bulged beneath the denim like he couldn't stop clenching them.

"If that's how you feel, I'd be happy to take him off your hands. He'll need extensive rehabilitation. You'll need to keep him indoors for several weeks, at the very least."

"I need him to guard my property!” Sutter looked flabbergasted, chewing on his tongue until his jowls flopped.

"You worried someone's going to take a match to it, you son of a bitch?" West demanded. Even he could hear the current of rage running under the surface of his words, but he couldn't hold it back. Not when he thought of Michael lying flat on his back in that hospital, brought low by some cowardly worm who couldn't handle being called out on the shitty way he treated his animals. Just seeing little Briar standing so close to him set West's teeth on edge.

Briar's head snapped around, attention flicking between the two men while calculations ran behind his wide eyes. West didn't blame him for not immediately connecting the dots. He was still new in town, little more than a friend of a friend, and he probably didn't even remember that West was close to every man and woman who worked on the Triple M. But Theresa knew, and she'd been doing her best to get him in a room before Sutter came out. She was on the phone now, nervously tapping her pen against a clipboard and speaking in a low voice. When she caught him looking, she gestured for Abby to come around the desk so she could put her arm around her.

Abby was silent, clutching her plastic tote and watching him with big eyes.

West knew he should take her outside, but it turned out even he had a temper when pushed too far. There was no way in hell he could turn his back when Sutter was sneering at him in that ugly, disparaging way.

West tipped his head at Theresa, pleading with his eyes. She nodded and ushered Abby toward the door marked employees only, phone still tucked under her chin. As the door swung shut behind her, he heard her saying, "Tell Eli to move his butt."

"Oh, it's you," Sutter said dismissively. "You ain't worth my time, kid."

West's palms were sweating, and his hands flexed at his sides. "Yeah?" he snarled, thrusting out his chin. "Well, you better get used to seeing me because none of us are ever going to forget what you did to the Triple M."

"I didn't do nothing to that shithole," Sutter retorted, shoving past Briar with a hard shoulder check and coming straight at West. He got right up in his face, so close that West couldn't help but focus on his dilated pupils. His breath stank of tobacco and stale coffee when he spat, "Whittaker and his new generation of sanctimonious, self-righteous wannabe cowboys make me sick. He had no call to get my horses taken away from me. What happened to his place was justice, and I wish to God I could shake the hand of whoever did it. But it wasn't me."

"Get out of my face, Sutter," West warned, struggling to hold onto his fraying edges.

"Or what? You gonna go cry to Whittaker? He your sugar daddy too? He gets off on taking care of a bunch of rejects."

West didn't give an inch, not even when the older man purposely stuck out his chest and knocked him back. He'd never been much of a fighter. Never been given the chance. The one time some kids had dared knock him around in high school, Derek had come down on them like a hurricane. Then he'd spent the next year making damn sure West knew how to defend himself. But West was happiest in his role as peacemaker. He even took pride in it. But that didn't mean he was afraid to get his hands dirty, and they were itching now.

"Both of you can quit the dick swinging right here," Briar interjected, shouldering his way between them. His tone had lost its lighthearted lilt, quivering like he was frightened. "Mr. Sutter, I'm asking you to leave this clinic."

"I was here first. He can take a hike!"

"I'm asking you to leave," Briar said, and to his credit, he didn't flinch. Not even when Sutter grabbed him by his injured arm and tossed him aside like he weighed nothing more than a child.

West was on him in a split second—or at least he would have been, if someone hadn't grabbed him by the jacket and hauled him backward so quickly he tripped over his own feet and ended up landing hard on his ass in a waiting room chair. A man the size of a mountain was between them now, shoving Sutter into a wall with an arm bar across his throat. West would have recognized the proud set of those shoulders anywhere.

"I warned you once," Michael snarled, baring his teeth like an animal. He yanked Sutter away from the wall only to slam him back so hard that the other man gasped. "You touch any of my people—any of my people—and I will fucking bury you. You see any of them, you walk the other way.”

"It's just the Owens kid—" Sutter protested, voice hoarse from the forearm collapsing his trachea like a straw.

"He's mine," Michael interrupted, pressing harder. "West is mine. You so much as whistle good morning to him and I will take you apart piece by piece. You hear me? You hear me?”

Sutter wheezed.

"He can't answer if you don't let him breathe," Eli Jackson drawled, strolling through the front entrance in his sheriff's uniform. "Don't make me regret letting you tag along, Whit. I’ll throw cuffs on you in a heartbeat.”

For a split second, Michael didn't look like he was going to let go. His pulse throbbed wildly beneath his jaw and his nostrils flared, memorizing Sutter's stench the way a predator would. West had never seen him like this. Not out of control, exactly. He didn't think Michael had ever been out of control a day in his life. But he’d never seen him look so dangerous. West had no doubt that he meant every word he said.

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