Page 20 of Montana Mystery

I made myself walk back across to the kitchen and sit at the table while I waited for the coffee to brew. The urge to study her, take her in, was strong. But I wasn’t going to be the guy that watched her sleep. Not today anyway.

Once the coffee was ready, I texted the guys to make sure no one came bounding through the door at full speed, which would probably terrify her. She was obviously exhausted.

The hours moved slowly, but she still didn’t stir. I took care of some things on my phone and took the morning shift on security to keep an eye on her. Liam took care of the animals for me. The guys all understood, and if they wanted to make jokes, they thankfully kept them to themselves.

It was just before noon when she woke, the second time I was rekindling the fire. At her small gasp, I turned to find those eyes trained on me. She wasn’t fully awake, still in the space where everything felt like danger.

I raised my hands, stepping back so she’d know I wasn’t coming at her. “Good morning.” One glance at the clock told me that it was still morning. Barely.

“Morning,” she murmured.

“Coffee?” I asked.

“Yes, please.” Kate sat up and ran her hands through her hair. I poured her a cup of the caffeine that she needed.

She took it from me, a tinge of pink in her cheeks as she did. So was she embarrassed I’d seen her sleeping? Or embarrassed about being caught sleeping here? Either way, there was nothing to be embarrassed about in my eyes.

“There wasn’t time for you to make a round trip to Missoula last night,” I said, sitting in one of the chairs farther away from her. “Where did you go?”

“A hotel on the edge of town.”

I wasn’t trying to interrogate her, but I was curious. “You said you were going back to the hospital, so why didn’t you? Or why didn’t you go home?”

Kate didn’t look at me. In fact, it seemed like she was trying to look at everything but me.

“Kate, please tell me what the hell is going on. I’m not upset you’re here. I’m glad, because it was clear that you were scared, but I’d like to know what happened to make you look that terrified.”

One slow sip of coffee later, she looked up at me and repeated herself. “I went to a hotel on the edge of town. I couldn’t go home.”

Talking, even barely, was good. “Why?” My only goal now was to keep her talking, and in a way that wouldn’t make her afraid again.

“Brandon is awake. He woke up not long before you saw me at the hospital.”

“Is he all right?”

She shrugged. “They say that he will be. But he’s still being... cagey about what happened. I went home yesterday to get some real sleep, shower, take a break since I knew he’d be okay, and—” She took a shaky breath. “There were people in our apartment.”

“What?”

“The door was open, everything was trashed, and they were still there. I hid in a closet that they’d already gone through until they left. They gave me a little more clarity on what’s going on, but... I grabbed everything I could from inside once they were gone and drove straight here.”

Well, that explained why she’d been so pale last night. That would terrify anyone. “What did they say?”

Kate swallowed more coffee. She was trying to hide it, but the way she was holding on to the mug betrayed how shaken she was. “Brandon owes these guys a lot of money. Twenty thousand. They were there to find something for their weekly payment, and they found it. I have—had an emergency stash. If he doesn’t pay them two grand every week, they’ll put him in with the dogs again. That’s what they said.”

Fuck. No wonder she’d asked me about the dog gang last night. She already knew they were one and the same. “Did you get a name for them?”

“Brandon said they were called the Riders. Anyway, when I went to the motel, I freaked myself out. I don’t know how they found my apartment, and I’m not sure they won’t follow me if they are tracking my credit card or whatever, and I just... you’d said I could come back.”

Her face shifted to anger, and she put down the coffee cup. Standing, she shoved the blankets aside. Like she felt too much to be sitting still.

“How can they just do stuff like this and get away with it? They’re going to keep coming after him until they get what they want. They might come after me too. I’ll probably have to move, but I can’t even think about doing that until they go away ’cause they’ll just destroy wherever I go too. Obviously, I can’t stay there now. Everything is ruined and the door barely works.

“On top of that, there’s the money. I could maybe cover the payment next week. If I scrape, it could be two. But twenty thousand dollars? I don’t have that kind of money. And how could Brandon be such an idiot? He knows better. A lot better.”

I smiled at that, but it wasn’t funny. “I’m sure he does.”

Kate looked at me then quickly turned away. Not before I saw the tears in her eyes. She was trying to hide them, but she didn’t need to. This was an impossible situation that was in no way her fault.

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