She was out of breath and her pulse thundered in her ears by the time she reached the property. She knew Wyatt would still be home, as he said he wasn’t heading to the kitchen at the pub until about eleven. It was only nine o’clock now.

He told her the code for the gate and she punched it in, still slightly out of breath and constantly pivoting to make sure nobody was watching her.

Once she was through the gate, she ran to his front door and burst inside. The boys were finally awake and sitting in their boxer shorts at the kitchen table eating cereal. Jake was reading, and Griffon was watching something on the tablet while Wyatt unloaded the dishwasher. They were accompanied by a fourth person as well. A very tall, bearded man with glasses sat at the table, casually sipping from a mug while his legs stretched out for days in front of him. All four of them took one look at her and their eyes went wide.

Wyatt set down a plate and came to her. “What happened?” He took in her disheveled appearance, fear on his face as he reached forward and pulled something out of her hair. It was just a long piece of dry grass and there was probably more.

“I … I was nearly run over. Someone came at me. They tried to run me over the road.”

His gaze narrowed. “You mean, ‘off’ the road?”

“Yes. They tried to run meoffthe road. I was walking and moved over to the side … to the, you know. The, the …”

“The shoulder?” the bearded man offered.

Vica nodded. “Yes, the shoulder. But the driver swerved and drove onto the shoulder, speeding up. So I had to dive into the ditch. They wanted to hit me. This was not an accident.”

“You’ll go snoop around?” Wyatt asked, pivoting and facing the bearded man, who was already standing up to his full height, looking more like a bear with enormous arms than anything else.

The man nodded. “Yep.”

“Thanks, Jag.”

Ah, so this was Jagger, the fifth and final brother.

The bearded bear stuck out his enormous hand. “Jagger. Nice to meet you.” Dear god, his voice was deep.

She took his hand. It was cool, rough and he gave her a nice strong handshake, even though her mind was in so many places she couldn’t really entertain pleasantries beyond a, “You too.”

Jagger left, leaving Vica standing there with Wyatt and his boys, who had remained quiet, but paid keen attention.

“Someone tried to run Vica over?” Griffon finally said. “Why would they do that?”

“To keep her quiet,” Jake said matter-of-factly. “She knows something, or is going to do something that someone else doesn’t like.”

“Jake,” Wyatt warned, his tone stern.

Jake gave his father a confused look. “What? The same thing happened to the Evans twins in Volume Three. They saw someone get killed, and the murderer came after them and tried to run them over. They were the only witnesses. So this has to be related to the man who hit Vica the other night.”

“Do I need to take the Evans Twins away?” Wyatt asked. “This is dark, dude.”

Jake clutched his book to his chest. “No, Dad. Please.”

Wyatt rolled his eyes and exhaled. “Go find an uncle. I’ll text everyone to let them know Vica and I are going to the police station. She needs to give a statement about what happened.”

He shot off a quick text on his phone and the boys quickly finished their breakfasts, then raced upstairs and came back down moments later in T-shirts and shorts.

“Uncle Clint said you can go over to his house. Brooke and Talia are making jam.”

“I want to make jam,” Griffon said with excitement.

“I want to read,” Jake said with no excitement.

“You can do both those things.” Wyatt ushered his sons out the door while holding it open so Vica could step out as well.

“Wait,” she said, “I have a hair appointment at ten.”

He glanced at his watch, and for some stupid reason, her belly fluttered at the sight of the light brown hair that dusted his arms. Beneath the hair was a healthy speckling of freckles and that just turned her on even more. There was something really wrong with her.