Page 102 of Knot Her Cowboys
“Who the fuck are all the rest?” One of them asked. “We only have the vet on the list.”
“I grabbed the ranch hands best able to help,” Levi told them. “The faster we work, the fewer animals you’ll lose.”
They discussed between them, each second that passed making me sweat a little more. Two searched through the truck bed, presumably making sure we had no weapons stashed away. When they waved us inside, they made us park and step out for a pat-down.
Before I could panic, a voice shouted from one of the barns. “Stop slowing down my fucking help! Jesus fucking Christ. Do you want these animals saved or not?”
The guards waved us along. Levi grabbed his kit out of the back, passing supplies to the others to carry, and a smaller bag to me so I wasn’t suspicious. We crossed the stretch of land from the gate to where the spotlights were set up so people could work on the goats, and it was one of the most nerve-wracking walks of my life.
Levi met up with the vet handling everything and everyone plunged into action while I slipped into the dark. I tripped over someone hiding in the grass a second later, face-planting in the dirt with a groan.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Are you hurt?” a soft voice asked.
“I’ll survive.” I turned to the small figure in the shadows, who was watching the chaos with a toddler on her lap. “What’re you doing hiding out here?”
“I heard all the commotion and came to check it out. Do you think the goats will make it?” she asked me. “I hate to think about them suffering.”
“They’re in the best hands around,” I replied awkwardly, unsure what else to say.
She stared at me for a moment, her long, straight blonde hair shining in the moonlight. “What are you doing over here? Shouldn’t you be helping?”
Shit. I didn’t know if she was brainwashed to the cult or desperate to get out. “I was looking for someone.”
“Don’t you know it’s dangerous to be in here? If they find out you’re a woman…”
Thank fuck. She wasn’t totally lost to this place at least. “Do you know Maisie Combs? Is she safe?”
“…Maisie? What do you want with her?”
I bit my tongue, trying to decide how much to say. “Her sister is back in town.” I didn’t want to risk any more than that.
The woman’s mouth dropped open. “Oh my god.Riley? That’s why you look so familiar. It’sme.”
I stared at her features, noting the bits that made up the girl I used to know juxtaposed against the foreign hair color and the dark shadows beneath her eyes. “Maisie?”
She burst into tears, throwing herself against my chest, mindful of the child. “You can’t be here. You got out. You have to leave.”
“I can’t leave until they’re done with the goats. I snuck in with Levi and came to see you.”
Maisie dragged me closer, ensuring I was hidden by her side in the waist-high grasses.
“Who’s this you’ve got here? Am I an auntie?”
Maisie adjusted the toddler onto her lap. “Her name is Nora. She’s my third.”
“Third?” Maisie was only twenty-six, and while I knew some people had kids young, three already seemed like a lot.
“Cody is my oldest—he just turned eight. And Paisley is five. She’s starting kindergarten soon. Nora turns two next month.”
I did the math backward. “Paul got you pregnant when you were eighteen?”
Maisie’s breath hitched. “A trap baby. He makes me have another every time he can sense I’m working up to leaving.”
Hot fury poured through me. “I’m going to kill him.”
“I can’tactuallyleave,” she said softly. “Not ever. Not really.”
“Why not?”
