Page 19 of Destined Predator
“On…?”
“As in, I’ll take that bet, because I know you’re wrong and gonna lose. All my men are sound. Had a couple who didn’t take well to Jack being gay and dating your brother—”
“Mated.He’s mated to my brother.” Casey tamped down the anger rising in him like a tide.
“Sorry. They are, yeah. What was I saying?” Rhett scratched his head. “My crew know how to work for a boss. So. What’re the stakes? For this bet?”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Casey grinned. “Anything. Winner sets ’em.”
Rhett’s hand closed around his, big and rough and hot, and something shifted—an echo of their earlier touch, only this time there was no sex between them, just challenge and promise twisted up tight.
Rhett didn’t waste more words, just stuck out his hand and shook Casey’s, and damn if Casey didn’t like the feel of the cowboy’s hand in his.
The others took Robin home, and Casey followed Rhett, his bike trailing after the truck to the Double T. Rhett didn’t go in the front door but strode around to the side of the ranch and a small room there. It looked like a shed or storeroom, but turned out to be an office, if a mess and a half of one that hadn’t been modernized, let alonecleaned, for a decade.
There was a guy at the phone on the desk in there, sheaves of forms in front of him, who finished whatever it was he was ordering and hung up, as Rhett walked in. “’S’up, boss?” he asked, looking from him to Casey.
“Phil Town, Casey Akers.” Rhett waved a hand. “Phil, we found a steel-jawed leg-hold trap at the edge of the east pasture.”
“What?”
The guy’s reaction, especially the way he sprang to his feet, had to be genuine. Phil sucked at the inside of his mouth.
“I didn’t order any such thing,” Rhett stated.
“Of course you didn’t.” Phil glared at Casey, as if he’d accused the boss then and there. “You wouldn’t.”
“So how did it get there?” Rhett continued. “I don’t wanna think any of you would lay something like that on my land.”
“Boss!” Phil protested. “None of us would set traps. And none of us would take a decision like that without your say-so.”
Convinced?Rhett’s expression asked of Casey.
“I’m concerned there’s more.” Casey spoke to both men.
“Shit.” Phil chewed on what Casey realized was a plug of tobacco. “Sorry. Doctor said to stop but it ain’t that easy.” He snatched a walkie talkie off the desk and nodded to one hanging by its strap from a shelf. “I’ll raise Jerry, and you Javon? Was gonna say Ernesto, but—”
“Yeah.” He’d gone, after the battle. Just vanished without a goodbye. “Hopin’ he’ll be back, but if not, I’ll look to hiring.”
Focusing on the now, Rhett pulled the device free and spoke to someone named Javon, while Phil informed whoever Jerry was. “You’re nearing the east ridge?” Phil asked Jerry. “Be especially careful then.”
“I want you out there checking too,” Rhett told Phil.
“On it.” Snatching his hat off a stand near the door, Phil was gone.
“I should get out there, too.” Rhett looked out of the office window.
“Have you slept?” Casey asked, betting the answer was no.
Rhett shook his head. He hadn’t shaved and the stubble made his face more like a handsome rancher than ever. He could have been advertising something farming or western in a magazine or even on a book cover.
“Well, sit down. You’re probably just as much use here, coordinating.” Casey glanced at what the office held. “You want some of that coffee? You didn’t have breakfast either, right?”
“I’ll get it. Sit.” Rhett moved a pile of papers from a sofa chair for Casey and crossed to the window where the table with the coffee pod machine and mugs stood. “Offer you one?”
“Why, thank you.” Rhett as host was something else. “Creamer, if you got it.”
“And cookies.” Rhett seemed to catch on to Casey’s amusement and rattled the tin. “Only the finest snack station here at the Double T.”
