Page 3 of The Last Promise You Made

“She took a shift at the hospital for another doctor.”

When McKenna had shown up months ago, I hadn’t thought it would end well for Maddox. I hadn’t expected her to give up her life in California to finish her residency in the one state she’d run from as a teen. Seeing the love bloom between them again had opened old wounds in my chest.

I couldn’t—wouldn’t—be like my brother, who’d gone from swearing off anything serious to falling right back head-over-heels for the one woman who’d wounded him to begin with. I’d never forgive Ravyn for what she’d done to me and my family, and I didn’t plan on getting hooked up with anyone again. While I saw nothing wrong with losing myself in the scent and feel of soft curves for a few hours, I wasn’t getting roped into thoughts of forever after.

My brother got in his truck, tooted the horn as a goodbye, and I strode back to the barn to find what I needed to bury a damn bird. After replacing the shotgun with a shovel, I grabbed an empty feed sack and went back to the crabapple trees. I about destroyed my hands and shoulders digging a hole in the frozen earth for a damned crow.

I picked up the dead bird with a gloved hand, dropped it into the sack, and stuck the bag in the ground. Last thing I needed was for Mila to see the bloody bird and burst into tears all over again. By the time I was done, I was sweaty and cussing the crows all over again as a line of the black beasts watched me from the trees.

I could almost hear them cackling.

When I looked back at the barn, Mila and Mama were making their way across the field. My niece had her two rainbow unicorns tucked in her armpits and a leftover poinsettia plant from the holidays in her hands.

When they reached me, my mama handed me a piece of paper.

“What’s this?”

“Last rites.”

Her eyes were glittering with laughter. Had it really only been an hour or so ago that I’d been looking at the ranch and thinking how much I loved my family?

Mama hit play on her phone, and Irish funeral music streamed out of it. I nearly choked out a curse before looking down at Mila’s wide, innocent eyes. Gritting my teeth, I ripped the paper from my mother’s hands.

I silently read what they’d come up with, grinding my teeth over the sweet words for a pest who shouldn’t have been in the trees to begin with.

“To the damn bird I accidentally killed,” I growled out, and Mila interrupted me with a huff.

“You owe a dollar for the swear jar, Uncle Ryder. And you don’t sound sorry at all. You have to feel it”—she reached up and patted my chest—“in here.”

I met my mama’s gaze with a glower that promised retribution. She hid her smile behind her hand. I cleared my throat, looked skyward for help that wouldn’t come, and then started over. “To the sweet crow that was ripped from his life too soon by an evil shot by a careless human.”

I somehow got through the rest of it to Mila’s satisfaction and helped her stuff a little cross in the ground supported by the poinsettia while Mama held her unicorns. When we stood back up, Mila looked at me with her hands on her hips and said, “Now promise you’ll never kill another living thing again, Uncle Ryder.”

My stomach turned. We lived on a ranch. Animals sometimes needed to be put down. It was part of the cycle, but as I looked into her innocent face, I knew I wouldn’t be able to tell her no. It would cost me a pretty penny to keep that promise if I had to hire someone to do the work for me. Still, I sighed and said, “All right, Bug-a-boo. No animal will be harmed by these hands again.”

She stuck out her little finger. “Pinky promise?”

When my large finger twined with her tiny one, my chest filled with an unexpected ache. An ache for something I’d once thought I’d have but had lost. Something I’d sworn to never let into my life again?a wife and a child.

Chapter Two

Gia

SOMETHIN’ BAD

Performed by Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood

The scene was about as ugly as it could get. The woman’s hands were shredded, and vicious cuts sliced her chest, blood pouring from them onto a hotel carpet already stained dark with old spills. The crime scene investigators would be hard-pressed to sort through the evidence and figure out what was related to the murder and what was residual from years’ worth of guests who’d stayed at the cheap motel on the outskirts of Denver.

The victim was dark-haired, in her early thirties, with a wild beauty evident even with the shadows under her eyes and the blotchiness of her skin. My gut twisted with something close to guilt. She’d been on the run, and I’d been one of the people chasing her.

My jaw clenched tight. Another woman’s death that would haunt me.

Logically, I knew neither this woman nor the one in D.C. two months ago had been my fault. Their deaths came from conspiring with one of the largest, most vile cartels in the Americas. The Lovatos had their hands in everything from drugs to guns to financial schemes, and they were known for ruthlessly eliminating not only the competition but any traitors or weak links.

The question was which one Anna Smith had been.

If she’d been the organization’s genius technophile, like I thought, she’d had years of the Lovatos’ secrets at her disposal. Had she decided to trade in on them? Or had the screw-up in D.C. placed a black mark on her that couldn’t be removed?

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