Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 100226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
“I have the shop.”
“We’ll either have your people handle it or close the shop for the week.”
“What did I say about you being the boss of me?”
“Do you have any idea how fucking out of my mind I’ve been today?” My voice is a growl against her ear as all the emotions of the day swamp me again. “How terrified? I saw Betty on that camera, and I swear my soul left my body. So, if you think that I’m not about to come unhinged and keep you in bed for at least a week, you don’t know me very well, Rosie.”
“I think you’re obsessed with me.” There’s humor in her voice, as if she’s trying to lighten the mood. But she has no idea just how obsessed I am with her.
“Are you just now figuring that out? And here I thought you were the smart one in this marriage.”
She snorts out a laugh and then leans her head back on my shoulder.
“Fine. Be obsessed. I guess I kind of like you, too.”
I smirk and kiss her hair, and then the barn comes into view as we exit through the trees.
The Blackwells have already gone home, but I see the lights on in the barn, telling me my guys are still inside, waiting for us.
“I’m going to set you in my truck, and then I have to talk to the guys really quick, okay?”
“I need a shower, Hol—husband.”
I grin at the almost slip of the tongue. “I know. I just need two minutes, and then we’ll go home and get cleaned up.”
I lead the horse to the truck and slide down, then I lower Millie into my arms and get her settled in the front seat.
Levi and Vance are immediately at my side, the reins already in Levi’s hand.
“Is she okay?” Vance asks with a scowl.
“Yeah, she’s going to be fine. I need Tim.”
“He’s still in the office.” Levi licks his lips. “What do you need us to do, boss?”
“If you could get the horse cleaned up and put in its stall, that’d be a huge help. There will be a lot of work starting tomorrow.”
As we walk to the barn, I outline the search I expect them to do to see if there are other holes.
“He was a sick fuck,” Vance says, shaking his head. “But I didn’t think he’d do something like that.”
“Don’t just look for holes. Look for any kind of booby trap, and be careful, in case he set fucking bear traps. I wouldn’t put anything past that son of a bitch. Keep me posted. I’ll be home with her for the week while she recovers.”
When I walk into the office, I find Tim sitting at the desk, his head in his hands, and when he looks up at me, he looks…haunted.
“I didn’t remember it,” he says immediately. “Your daddy had us dig those holes thirty years ago. Most of them collapsed in on themselves from rain and snow.”
“But you knew they were out there.”
“Thirty years ago,” he repeats.
“By the Wild property line.”
“He hated that family and was convinced that they came onto this land. For what, who knows? He wanted to catch them.”
“He wanted to kill them.”
“That was never a secret,” Tim says with a sigh.
“So, let me get this straight. My wife went out for a ride by herself today and fell into a thirty-fucking-year-old hole that my dad dug so he could trap and kill her family.” The fury has a life of its own as it courses through me. “I’m lucky that it didn’t cave in on her!”
“Jesus, Holden. Jesus, I’m sorry. Like I said, none of them held up longer than a year. I didn’t know it was still there.”
“What other booby traps did he set?”
Tim shakes his head. “None that I know of, but he was sneaky, and he didn’t trust anyone, so he might have done other things that we didn’t know about.”
“The three of you are going to ride every fucking square inch of this ranch and find anything that might so much as give her a hangnail.” I lean in, glaring at the older man. “Understood?”
“Got it, boss.”
“Good.” I storm out of the barn and climb into my truck. Millie’s sleeping peacefully, not even stirring when I close the door.
Maybe her dad is right. Maybe being with me is still a threat to her, even with the fucker dead. She wouldn’t have gotten hurt today if it wasn’t for me.
I shouldn’t hold her to the terms of the marriage.
But I’ll be fucking damned if I can let her go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MILLIE
God, who knew that everything in my freaking body would hurt so bad? I feel like I got hit by a semi and then was dragged behind it for about seventy miles.
I even discovered some road rash on my elbow that I didn’t know I had because it was covered in mud.