Page 21 of Death Valley

JENSEN

The screen door slams behind me, the sound echoing off the mountains like a gunshot. I take a deep breath, trying to settle the restlessness that’s been buzzing under my skin since Aubrey walked into my kitchen.

Since she walked onto my ranch, if I’m being honest, bringing with her both redemption and futility.

I set off toward the back pasture, boots crunching on the hard ground as I stare ahead at the trees that sway in the building storm. The familiar woods feel different somehow. Charged with a waiting energy, like the whole mountain is holding its breath.

Or maybe that’s just me.

I know what’s she’s asking me to do. I know what she’s paying me to do.

But she doesn’t.

Neither does Cole, Red, or Hank, though I’m sure they suspect something is wrong since I’m insisting on their company. Only Eli knows the truth about what happened. Only he knows what’s truly at stake.

It’s not too late, I tell myself.Not too late to tell her you can’t do it. You don’t owe her an explanation. Just decline her funds and send her packing.

And yet I won’t do that. I’m putting myself, my crew, and her into harm’s way because I’m too damn desperate and a stubborn son of a bitch.

Who knows, maybe it won’t be like last time.

Maybe we’ll be spared.

I can only hope that we won’t find any sign of her sister.

I shake my head, trying to clear it. It’s been a long time since someone got under my skin like this. Aubrey with her watchful eyes and her frank smiles and her goddamn questions. Her determination to find Lainey is admirable, but there’s something else there, something I can’t figure out.

She’s too clever by half. Too observant. Too close to the truth about the ranch, about, well, everything. Folks around here know better than to ask about things that don’t concern them. Especially when it comes to my family. But Aubrey’s curiosity is getting dangerous.

I think of my mother, wasting away in her bed. The bitterness of it all rises in my throat like bile. The unfairness that she’s reduced to this, after everything she’s gone through.

After everything we’ve done.

A twig snaps in the underbrush, making me freeze. But it’s just a deer, white tail flashing in the moonlight as it bounds away, a straggler heading some place safe to hunker down for the night. I let out a breath, flexing my fingers against the urge to reach for the knife at my belt.

Can’t be too careful out here. The fellas call me paranoid, but they don’t know what I’ve seen. They don’t really know what’s waiting for us. I pray they never do.

But prayers have an expiry date.

I force my feet to keep moving, to follow the well-worn path through the trees. Overhead, the clouds gather fast, blotting out the moon and stars, the wind sharp and cold as it barrels down the mountain.

I’m so lost in my head, I almost miss the light in Aubrey’s cottage window. Almost.

I pause at the edge of the tree line, watching. She moves behind the thin curtains, a silhouette backlit by the warm glow of the lamp. For a moment, I let myself imagine what it would be like to be in there with her. To chase the chill from her skin with my hands, my mouth. To bury myself in her softness and her heat and forget, just for a little while. Can’t remember the last time I had a good fuck, that I let my worries reduce to nothing.

But forgetting’s a luxury I can’t afford. Not with the ghosts that dog my heels and the debts that hang around my neck like a noose.

Marcus’s face flashes through my mind, smug and cruel. The memory of our last conversation tastes like copper on my tongue, sharp and metallic.

“You owe me, McGraw,” he’d said, blowing a plume of cigar smoke in my face, cigars I’d given him as a gesture of goodwill. “And I always collect on my debts. One way or another.”

I tear my gaze away from Aubrey’s window, disgusted with myself. I’m in no position to offer her anything but trouble. No matter how much I might want to.

And god help me, I want to.

I force my feet to keep moving, to carry me away from temptation and back to the cold reality of the work that needs doing. There’s gear to be checked if we’re heading up there, routes to be charted. A thousand details that could mean the difference between life and death in the Sierras. Not to mention making sure everything is secure here for the storm.

Eventually my walk leads me back toward barn where Eli is waiting by the pen, his face grim in the harsh light of the floodlamps. He falls into step beside me, our breath clouding in the frigid air.

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