Page 147 of Deacon

I can’t keep from smiling. If she says yes to me, I’ll make sure she never regrets it. By rights, she shouldn’t even be a possibility for me. She’s smart, beautiful, and she’s got the sweetest soul that shines through her bright, clear eyes.

My truck lurches, and right away, I can tell there’s something wrong. The wheel, which I was barely holding, spins. The worldblurs, but I keep my composure enough to keep my hand loose so the truck can do a full circle and come to a halt halfway in the shallow ditch.

What the fuck?

Heart thumping, I take the rifle from the backseat and kick open the door. I’m in a wooded area, less than a mile from the entrance of Ryder Ranch. Up ahead, the trees thin, and the road cuts through a field. Just over that hill is the gate.

I jump out, water and mud coming up over my boots. The woods are empty, but the birds are still singing. That’s a good sign. It means nobody is around.

Slowly, I check overhead, then in the tree line, which is mercifully sparse. There’s no disturbance. Treading carefully on the sides of my boots, I circle the truck and walk back to the place where I spun out.

There’s a spike strip a dozen yards up the road and a ditch dug out at my feet.

I must have hit the spikes, not realizing it until my wheel went into the ditch. With nothing to buffer the hit, I spun out.

I lift my head.

I’ve been gone less than forty minutes. There’s no way anybody knew I was gone.

Then, it hits me—the man standing by the stalled truck was Elijah McClaine.

This is a trap.

Fear clamps down on my chest like a vise. This means, somehow, they tracked me. They knew I left the ranch. Heart pounding, I spin on my heel and go to the side of my truck where Aiden hit it just over an hour ago. I dip my hand into the bed, and there it is—a little metal tracker stuck to the side.

I look down at it, gray in my palm.

They know Freya is alone.

My feet start going before I know what’s happening. I’m running up the road, going as hard as I can toward where the trees open. My heart is in my throat.

The world spins out.

I haven’t been this scared before in my life, not even when Henderson stuck me to a tree and left me to bleed out.

I don’t remember running down the road and up the driveway. All I know is suddenly, I’m tearing up to the porch with my rifle in my hand and my lungs on fire. The door to the house is ajar, swinging in the breeze. The gravel of the drive has two deep marks where someone spun out.

Inside, Stu yaps and whines pitifully.

I lift my rifle, moving up the porch, and kick the door wide open. It swings in, revealing an empty hall. Swiftly, I move along, checking behind every door, even though I know the truth.

There’s nobody here, but I already know who’s responsible for breaking in. I know who did this, and he’s got a vested interest in taking what’s most precious to me and disappearing fast.

My boots echo as I go upstairs and burst through the open door of our bedroom. The covers are pulled back. The bed is empty.

The pillow on her side is bloody. Not a lot, like she scraped herself. Maybe bumped her face and split her lip.

If Aiden hit her… Fuck.

My vision flashes. If they hurt her, God help them. I’m going to gun down every man who had a hand in this and burn their bodies at the top of Deacon’s Hill so everyone sees the smoke.

I’m not an angry man, not the way she was afraid I’d be. But I lose it and lash out, kicking the center of the bed frame so hard, the solid wood splinters.

It bows in the middle, the bed where I fell in love with her, where I coaxed her to trust me.

Maybe the place we made our baby.

Deep down, I want to believe she’s pregnant.

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