Page 59 of Christmas with Three Cowboys

Movement by the gate itself catches my eye, and I zero in on it.

“Fellas,” I say, drawing their attention. I lift my chin in the direction of the gates and say, “Truck.”

Immediately, they follow my gaze. Ethan opens the CCTV app on his phone and pulls up a closer view of the gate. “Motherf…” he mumbles. “It’s him.”

“Ethan, wait,” I manage to say before he bolts to his truck, parked about twenty yards away and closer to the northern gate.

“We can’t let him go off on his own,” Mitch warns.

“No shit,” I shoot back as I run after Ethan.

Before he can turn the key in the ignition, we’re in the truck with him, fully aware there are at least two rifles at our feet, locked and loaded. He’s never unprepared, and I need to make sure he doesn’t go for option number three today, even though he’s clearly itching for it.

“Don’t be stupid,” I tell him.

The truck engine roars to life.

“I’m not stupid. He obviously needs a reminder,” he replies, his voice annoyingly calm.

“Let’s see what he wants,” Mitch suggests. “I’m going to text Sammy and tell him to stay at the house with Melissa or get Kyle or Jason to stay with her. Either way, while this fucker’s prowling around, she shouldn’t be alone.”

“If she knows he came back, she might try to run off again,” I mutter.

I think that’s what the three of us fear the most.

“Ethan, stay calm,” I remind my brother as he pulls up in front of the gate.

Beyond it, Jake Miller stands next to his truck, huddled under a thick brown parka.

We climb out of the truck and walk toward the gate.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“We need to talk,” Jake replies with a subtle smile, stealing watchful glances at Ethan. “I would appreciate it if you kept your gorilla at bay, though.”

“You might want to choose your words better,” I warn him. “There’s three of us here.”

“Well, he started it,” Jake replies, nodding at Ethan.

To my brother’s credit, he is remarkably self-restrained. I thought I’d have to wrangle him off this bastard even though my blood is boiling, too.

“You came after and threatened Melissa,” I say. “You’re lucky my brother didn’t do worse. Now, what are you doing here? I thought you were told to keep your distance.”

“You clearly don’t know everything about Melissa, otherwise, you wouldn’t think of me as the bad guy in this picture because I’m not,” Jake says.

“Oh? What are we missing?” Mitch shoots back, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

“She’s not the saint you think she is. First of all, she got caught moving a hell of a lot of drugs and went to prison for it, right?”

“We all know those were your drugs,” I cut in.

“Those weren’t… Ugh, okay, so, here’s the thing,” Jake stutters, realizing we’re not buying whatever he’s so eager to sell us. “I didn’t know the cops would be there that night, okay? She was supposed to take a different route.”

“All I’m hearing is more excuses,” I say.

“She knew exactly what I did for a living!” he snaps. “She knew, and she looked away. And when she agreed to drive that van, sheknew what kind of product she was moving.”

“I find that real hard to believe.”

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