Page 57 of Stay for Me

I looked down at him, seeing him in a different light now, the need for revenge flashing in his blue eyes. Every inch of him was drenched in anger, toxic and lethal. It was an anger I was all too familiar with, and after years of fighting it, I was finally in control.

“It’s too soon to make a move on Moonie, Beau,” I told him as Midnight shifted.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“You know damn well what it means. It’s too soon. We have things we need to focus on here that are more important than going after that fucker.”

He scoffed, pulling off his hat and using it to gesture to the ranch. “We were attacked, Mags!”

“Affirmative,” I clipped, memories of the war crawling back to the surface.“We were fucking attacked, and we nearly lost a good woman.” I leaned forward, baring my teeth. “Our priority right now is taking care of us. We heal. We regroup. We do not, under any circumstances, fucking go after the man who set this ranch on fire half-cocked.”

I could still feel the heat of the flames, and I was barely holding on. Beau glared up at me, his nostrils flared. Rage consumed him in a way no one on this ranch could understand but me. He’d lost the woman he loved, and his home, his only source of comfort, had nearly been taken from him.

Hallow Ranch was my sanctuary.

I’d found a family here, and I’d be damned if anything ever happened to it. I’d spent the first half of my twenties in a fucking war zone, fighting nameless strangers with a specific strategy and set of skills I had to teach myself. Right now, Hallow Ranch was in the middle of war, and we’d just lost a battle. We needed to regroup.

Fighting, at least right now, wasn’t a fucking option.

“Take a breath, Beau,” I instructed, and Midnight neighed.

He looked away from me, his eyes on the mountain as his jaw jumped a few times. “This is my home—our home.”

“Yes.”

“We can’t let anything happen to it.”

“Correct.”

He twisted his head back to me and took a deep breath, rolling his neck. “Fuck, I feel useless.”

There was a lot of that going around right now.

“It’s okay to feel that way, Beau,” I assured him. I’d found the man in the middle of the field where he’d proposed to the love of his life, Abbie, and she said no. He was standing, looking up at the moon with a bottle of Jack in one hand and his daddy’s pistol in the other, ready to end it all. If I hadn’t spotted him, the ranch would still be in mourning today. “I need you to keep your feelings in check. Get a lock on them.”

He ran a hand through his golden hair, his eyes on the ground. “Know that, Mags.”

“Promise me then,” I challenged.

Beau’s head shot up. “I promise.”

Good enough.

“Is Kings still at the hospital?” I asked, changing the subject.

When everything went down, I was ready to go to the hospital with Kings, to be there for him like he had for me all these years. He told me to stay.

So, as always, I stayed.

That didn’t mean I wasn’t desperate to know how Valerie was. She was a good woman with a heart of gold. All her life, she’d known nothing but struggle and pain, until she came to Hallow Ranch. I got to witness Kings fall in love with her, open up to her, and start to heal—all because of her.

They deserved nothing but the best, and yet?

I looked over to the mountain as violence seeped into my thoughts, the craving of revenge on my tongue.

“Yeah, they’re releasing Val this afternoon,” Beau answered, pulling me back into the present. “Diana hasn’t left, though. She didn’t want to leave Caleb.”

I looked up to the house again, noting Diana’s Mercedes was still in the same spot I’d found it in early this morning. Of course, she hadn’t left Caleb. She loved that kid like he was her blood.

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