Page 10 of The Outsider

“Get in,” he said.

She went toward the back seat.

“Up here,” he said, gesturing to the passenger door.

She frowned. “Wow. Never ridden in the front of one of these before.”

She opened up the door and slid inside, and only then did she realize that she’d betrayed more of herself than she meant to.

“Ridden in the back, though?” he asked when he got in beside her.

“I plead the Fifth.”

“So yes,” he said.

“No, I’m just exercising my constitutional rights.”

“A word to the wise, Bix. Anything you say can be used against you, but what you don’t say will form opinions.”

“Aren’t you just a six-foot-four-inch magic eight ball.”

“Shake me and find out.”

She snorted. She knew that she smelled like sweat, and the earth, the trees. She knew a moment of embarrassment sitting next to him. All clean and well pressed in this uniform. He was muscular, broad shouldered. His jaw was square, like an old-fashioned Hollywood movie star. His nose was straight, and his lips looked like they might even be appealing if he ever smiled.

He was flat outhandsome. She didn’t normally waste time pondering the handsomeness of men.

Threatornot a threat, that was all she needed to know about men. And whether they were handsome-shaped or not didn’t inform that assessment.

Neither did him being a cop.

She’d rather take her chances with a convict, generally speaking.

Depending on what they were convicted of.

Cops were just government-funded mafia in her estimation and she’d do well to remember that.

She rested her elbow on the door’s armrest, and the rest of her chin on her fist. She winced. She had forgotten that she had a scab there. She couldn’t even remember now how she’d done it. But it just added to that feeling of inadequacy. He owned a ranch. He was someone who had things. She wondered what his family was like. They must be wonderful. They must have pushed him to have dreams. To have goals.

Goals other than being a shady criminal.

She shoved that to the side. There was no earthly point in feeling sorry for herself. It wasn’t useful. Not in the least.

It only took a couple of minutes for them to turn off the paved road and onto a dirt driveway.

“This is Four Corners Ranch,” he said. “It’s been owned by four ranching families since the late eighteen hundreds. My family is one of them.”

Elitist. Inherited wealth. He would have no idea what it was like to have inherited nothing but poverty and a sketchy relationship to morality.

“Interesting,” she said.

She was not interested.

They rolled up to the farmhouse some five minutes later. It was idyllic. Lovely. Two stories with a wide front porch. There were trucks parked out front, andshe had the feeling that there was a whole mess of people inside.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d hung out in a group. Well, a group where they weren’t making moonshine.

“You all right?”

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