Page 16 of Hell or High Water

“You never wanted to ride a horse?” he asked me.

I cut my eyes at him. “Where was I gonna find one to ride?”

He shrugged. “I figured you’d have dated enough guys that one of them was bound to have horses.”

I let out a sarcastic laugh. Oh, he thought he had me all figured out. Smug bastard.

I had dated three boys in my life. The first one, Momma had scared off with that gun stunt. He never asked me out again. The second one lasted a month, but when I wouldn’t have sex with him, he cheated on me with another girl. And lastly, there was Bray Hark. The one guy I thought maybe I could love eventually. I almost gave him my virginity, which I’d held close because I didn’t want to end up pregnant at seventeen. He was romantic and sweet. I enjoyed being with him. He made me laugh, and we had fun together.

Then Momma got sick, and the more her health declined, the more I didn’t want to leave her side. She needed me, and I knew I wanted every second I had left.

Then, scanning Instagram one night while I sat in a hospital room, watching Momma sleep, I came across a photo at a party, posted by a friend. She was sticking her tongue out withrock onhand signals and a bottle of tequila in front of her. In the background, however, there was Bray with Hazzie Noel’s lips locked on his and his hand down the back of her bikini bottoms, gripping her ass.

I simply took a screenshot of the picture, texted it to him, and said,We’re done.

He showed up with flowers, begged me to forgive him, blamed it on being drunk, and tried for a couple of months to get me to take him back.

Normally, I thought text breakups were tacky, but seeing as he’d been making out with another girl while I watched my momma slowly slip away from me in a hospital room, I didn’t much give a shit. He deserved it.

And that had been the end of Bray and me.

“If you can behave and be a good girl, we will see about getting you on Jack for some lessons.”

My head snapped around to look at Than. Had he just tried to bribe me to be a good girl? I was insulted…and maybe a touch turned on. The way his voice had sounded, sayinggood girl, sent an odd rush through me.

“What? Is that too big of a request?”

I narrowed my eyes, not sure if I was more annoyed with him or me. “You assume you know me, but you don’t.”

“I know enough,” he replied in a clipped tone.

No, he didn’t. He didn’t know nearly enough. And he never would.

I would probably love riding, and this might be my only chance. But I wasn’t doing anything that required I spend any more time with this man than I had to.

Seven

Than

Fuck. Her nipples were hard. I tore my eyes off them poking through yet another crop top she had on without a bra and looked back at Diane. Inhaling deeply through my nose, I thought of things that would make my dick go limp because, right now, it was thickening.

The slam of a car door got my attention, and I scowled, then strode toward the entrance to see who was here. Willing my cock to go down, I slowed my pace just in case it was Linc. He’d think shit was going on with us that wasn’t happening. Although her eyes had flared and her lips parted with a small gasp when I saidgood girl. Then that had been followed by her stiff nipples poking against the fabric of that cropped AC/DC shirt she was wearing. I had to stop thinking about it. It wasn’t helping my problem.

Before stepping out into the sun, I hesitated, wondering if I should adjust my crotch first, but then Montana would see me do it. If she was watching me. I glanced back at her, and she was squatted down, talking to the foal. The cutoff jean shorts she was wearing hung on her hips, and in that crouched position, I could see the thin red strap that told me she was wearing a G-string. Dammit. Not helping my dick.

I couldn’t keep from coming out here when I saw where she had stopped on the tracker I’d put on her phone last night. My lie about Linc had worked, but I’d already come up with that bullshit on my walk out here.

I should have stayed my ass in the cabin. Away from her. Going through her phone last night had fucked with my head. Instead of having ammunition to use against her, I had questions. Because the girl whose text, voice mails, and emails I’d read didn’t match the girl blackmailing the governor. And what nineteen-year-old female didn’t have any fucking social media? Nothing. Not one damn app. No TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat.

There was even one text thread that I’d read where this dude was pleading with her to forgive him. She wasn’t responding. I started to feel sorry for the guy and wanted to text him to grow a set of balls. But when I scrolled up until I found the last text she had sent to him, I had to cover my mouth to muffle my laughter. It was a screenshot, and although the girl who had posted it was the main focus of the photo, there was a couple making out in the background. I’d assumed it was the guy texting her since she’d broken up with him with a simple,We’re done.

Whoever had driven up had stopped me because I had been seconds away from shoving her against the wall and demanding she tell me how the girl’s phone I’d gone through last night and the one blackmailing her father was the same person.

Had her mother’s death made her that angry? Or was it that she really just needed some financial help and Baskin had been a dick about it?

The text threads she had with a Peg and a Melody sounded like she hadn’t had anywhere to live. They’d both been helping her and told her she didn’t have to ask the bastard for help.

That was something I did have that I could give to Linc—the first names of the people who knew about Baskin being her father. The thread with Melody sounded as if she had been sleeping on Melody’s sofa since selling her mom’s house. I just didn’t have their last names, but that should be easy enough to find out.

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