Page 3 of When The Dust Settles

Her face went from catastrophic to filled with light and hope in a second, even though still awash in tears. “You saved my guitar?”

“Of course I saved your goddamn guitar,” I groused, scowling. “Where’s the case?”

She pointed. “Right there by the door.”

“And your amp?”

“At work. I never bring it home.”

I grunted.

Kevin was right outside on the porch, and when I opened the screen, I dumped Josie into his arms and grabbed the case in time to see Mr. Barnes, red-faced and sweaty, closing in on me with a baseball bat.

“Rethink your course, old man,” I warned. “I will feed you that fuckin’ bat along with every one of yer teeth.”

“You—”

“You think I don’t see them bruises on her neck and face? Her right eye’s about swoll shut and her lip’s bleedin’.”

“Stop saying she!” he thundered. “That’s a boy! He was born a boy and he’ll die a boy and—”

I cut off his rant. “She sings like an angel, you know. Gonna be big someday, and y’all are gonna be terrible sorry when everyone knows what you did here.”

“At least he looks like a boy now!”

“No, sir.” I shook my head. “She looks like a baby bird that you put under your boot.”

“You—”

“I’ma say this once,” I began, drawing myself up as big as I could. “I don’t never wanna see none of y’all up at The Bronc. If I do I’ll have you arrested for trespassin’.”

“And where will he live? Who will pay for him to go to school or—”

“That ain’t your concern no more, how she pays for anythin’,” I said and turned, kicking the screen door down as I left. Walking over it, I scanned the porch once I was outside.

I found a makeup bag, a broken blow dryer—not that, unfortunately, she’d need one for a while—and lots of thongs, panties, and bras. I gathered it all up and was striding through the now-empty yard moments later.

Everyone screamed at once.

“No!” Josie’s fractured voice rose above the others.

I looked back over my shoulder and saw Mr. Barnes on the porch with his rifle. Wheeling to face him, I ran through every scenario I could imagine, but all of them came back to the same conclusion.

I was dead.

He could shoot me and claim self-defense because I was in his yard. My people would watch me bleed to death, and that would be their last memory of our time together. Or… I could play the last card I had.

“You know Rand Holloway?”

He squinted at me. “Everyone in Hillman knows Rand Holloway, you ignorant—”

I put my hand over my heart. “Glenn Holloway.”

It was fun to watch the color drain from his face. Rand was the kind of man nobody wanted to cross. But it wasn’t really Rand—my cousin, well… half brother—who was so frightening, but his ranch was like a small town now, and there were some men who worked for him, Mac Gentry most notoriously, who had dangerous reputations. Even the police were no better deterrent than the men who called the Red Diamond home.

I saw the rifle shake, and I spun on my heel and walked to the side door of the pickup.

Shawnee zippered open a duffel bag and I dropped all the underwear in. I saw Josie was dressed, and when I got in the truck, I took off my Stetson and shoved it down onto her head, low over her eyes.