Page 78 of Barbed Wire Hearts

“My ass?” I laugh.

“Among other things,” he grins.

I pause. “Tempting, but I suspect I doactuallyneed the sleep.” I wave to them all and pick up Fuzz where he’s sleeping in the messenger bag. I’ve been hanging it in my tent so he feels at home, but the tiny thing is nocturnal so he’s often wandering around in the tent and keeping me awake. The troublemaker. “Good night,” I say.

And then I leave them to their campfire and their confidence. I sure don’t have any.

ChapterForty-Eight

DAKOTA

“One of us needs to stay awake and keep watch now,” I say the moment I’m sure she’s in her tent and can’t hear us. “I’ll take the first watch.”

“You think they’ll come back so soon?” Wiley asks, watching me carefully. Of the three of us, he’s the most perceptive. Despite his carefree attitude, Wiley is a motherfucker when it comes to the details around him. Photographic memory. He can remember a license plate of a car that drove by us on the road weeks ago. I’d like to say it’s skill but it’s probably trauma. It’s always fucking trauma.

“I think they want her real bad,” I say, poking at the fire. “And I’m not taking any chances with our girl.”

“Look at you,” Wiley teases. “Calling her our girl. To think you had a hard time admitting you liked her in the beginning.”

“Shut up,” I grumble, but I’m not really annoyed. I’d tried my best to fight the attraction, but I’d lost. Shit, none of us stood a chance against the brilliance that is Kate. She’s a fucking inferno, burning so bright without even knowing it.

“I’ll take second watch,” Levi offers. “Wiley can take third.”

“Sounds good,” Wiley says, immediately moving down. “I best get some shut eye now then.”

We all agree and both Wiley and Levi lay down on their cots and sleeping bags, trying to get some shut eye. The night is only broken up by the sounds of the summer bugs and the frogs calling out to each other. Every now and then, there’s a gentle “moo” from one of the cows in the herd, but nothing else interrupts the symphony. Wiley snores every so often, but he just turns on his side when Levi kicks at him and he stops.

I keep my eyes on the darkness around us as the fire dies down, watching, thinking. I don’t know how she did it, but Kate has become an integral part of our life. She’d drove up in her little purple BMW and her cat on a leash and we hadn’t even realized the threat she was. We’d never known, and now it’s too late. So she comes with some trouble? What woman doesn’t? Though a gang is a far bigger problem than an ex-boyfriend hung up on her, I suppose.

I sit there for a few hours, unmoving, watching, and nothing happens. I start to think Iambeing paranoid, that this was just overkill, when movement to my left catches my attention. I can’t see what it is right away, only that it’s large. It could be a bear or a mountain lion at this point. Either could be a threat still, especially since we’re out in the open, but I can’t be too sure for at least a few more minutes. It isn’t until the shape grows closer that I realize it’s too tall to be either a lion or a bear. It’s moving slowly, creeping along, crossing the path from the road to our position.

Oh, they wasted no time then.

I tap my boot against Levi’s. He jerks, but he doesn’t make a sound. No. Levi grew up knowing not to make too much noise when he was awake. When I point out the shape, he pokes Wiley who wakes up soundlessly for another reason.

Trauma. We’re all fucking full of it.

Together, we watch the shape crawl closer and closer to Kate’s tent. I pull my gun and aim.

ChapterForty-Nine

Kate

The rustling of the tent wakes me, but I don’t immediately move. It could just be Fuzz again, the butthole. Last night, he tried to get out of the tent flap, not to get away clearly because he wore a small hole and didn’t go out it. Just because he could.

When the rustling comes again, I pop my eyes open, but I don’t move. A shadow dances around the edge of the tent. The fire has clearly died down outside and I don’t know what time it is, but it feels late. I try and blink the sleep from my eyes as the sound comes again, gently, as if someone is trying really hard to be quiet. Maybe it’s Wiley. It’s not unusual for him to want to cuddle in the middle of the night. I don’t mind his cuddles.

The tent flap begins to unzip, and I hold myself very still. If it’s Wiley, I’m gonna scare the fucker for daring to wake me up. I’m pretty sure Fuzz can’t unzip the door. I’d be surprised if it’s Dakota or Levi, but both would be welcome as well.

There isn’t any light in the tent, but there’s a little bit coming from outside from the moonlight. It’s not enough to show too many details but it is enough for me to see the face of the man leaning into the tent.

It’s not Wiley. It’s not Levi or Dakota either.

I open my mouth to scream, to call for the others, when the sounds of a gun going off roars in my ears. The scream comes out anyways as the man slumps on top of me and wet specks splatter across my face. I scream again as I realize I’m now trapped beneath this stranger and that he’s not moving. My ears ring with the gunshot and there’s shouting outside, both from Wiley and from the other ranchers down the herd. Some of the cows are up and mooing in distress. I’m starting to hyperventilate. Oh god! What’s going on?

The strange man is yanked off me suddenly, pulled back outside the tent flap and then Wiley is there gathering me into his arms, whispering soft words that I can’t focus on over the roaring in my ears.

“What happened?” I croak, clinging onto him. “What’s going on?” I reach up and brush at the wetness on my face as a flashlight lights up outside the tent. I look down at my fingers and see red. Blood. “Oh god, there’s blood on me,” I gasp. “There’sbloodon me!”

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