Page 57 of Protected Hearts

The house, the barn…the veterans’ building. All the vets. The family.

A chat message popped up. Somehow, Shiloh managed to stifle a gasp of surprise but felt her body rock in her seat.

She sliced a glance at Colt, who was absorbed in his work, oblivious to her.

Gulping down the bile hovering too high in her throat, she skimmed the message.

But wait—there’s more.

She could almost hear William’s voice speaking the words in his cocky way. Her heart pounded, but she only had to wait a split second before a new image popped up. This one made all the blood drain out of her head. Her mind swirled, and the room rotated around her.

An image of Oaks dressed in his usual jeans, a canvas coat and a cowboy hat. She’d seen him wear these garments at least three times since coming to the ranch.

But there was a red light on his chest in one photo. In the next, it was centered on his forehead.

Heart pounding, she enlarged the photos and peered closer.

It’s photoshopped. Someone added those dots. They aren’t real.

But the message was clear. William wanted the files she had or Oaks was a dead man.

If William got to Oaks, she could never live with the guilt. Forget about her feelings about the man who rescued her by claiming her as his wife.

This was all her fault. When she realized that William was making deals with the Russian mob, funding their terroristic activities, she should have goneimmediatelyto the police with the information. Instead, she’d spent six months in hiding in hopes of giving the intel to the right person, all because she didn’t trust others. She’d been such a coward.

She would never be that person again. She would be brave, and that meant taking action to save Oaks—or at least not take him down with her.

She didn’t realize she’d set her fingertips to the keys until she felt the smooth plastic. Quickly, she typed the words and then paused to stare at them, her heart a wild bird trapped in her chest.

Let’s set up a meeting.

Her finger hovered over the button that would send the message to the man she only wanted to see on a news story as they dragged him off to a life sentence in prison.

Should she send it? What would happen if she didn’t?

Oaks would die.

She hit send.

Her pulse hammered in her ears as she waited for a response. Those little red pins on the map of the Black Heart Ranch swam before her vision, but the red dots on Oaks’s head and chest made her insides shrivel in terror.

How about lunch? It will be like old times.

She bowed her head over the keyboard, memories of so many lunches with William. Times he’d wine and dine her, wooing her with how worldly and intelligent he was. She fell in love with his head for business. When it came to tech, he was a visionary beyond his years.

He could have gone so far with brains like his, and instead he’d turned to a dark world that she wanted no part of.

She wasn’t proud of the naïve woman she had once been, but her next move would change all that.

Her mind darted ahead to what she must do. She set her fingers to the keys and typed her reply.

Name the time and place.

There’s a diner in the middle of town. How does breakfast sound?

* * * * *

Carson’s personal office was dim, lit only by a single lamp that illuminated the wood desk where dozens of papers were spread out on the surface.

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