Page 41 of Whispers of Sweetwater

The shadows were getting closer.

CHAPTER 11

Later that night, long after Brianna’s Hilux had turned out of his drive and disappeared into the gums, Hayden still found himself on the verandah, arms folded tight across his chest, shoulder pressed into the post like it might hold him together. He hated letting them go. Not because he didn’t trust Brianna, because he did, more than she probably realised, but because something about the day had sat wrong in his gut. That early-morning phone call still rang in his ears. Her voice tight with fear, Molly pale and shaking, Sherlock’s growl carrying the kind of warning no man should ignore.

And even now, with them back at the cottage and his property quiet around him, the feeling didn’t ease. It clung sharp and restless; it made him want to grab his keys, drive back into town and sit guard outside her door until morning. Should he? He wanted to. Ached to. But Brianna struck him as the kind of woman a man should never hover over, not without her say-so. Push too hard, and he’d risk crossing a line she wasn’t ready for.

But, good god, he had to do something.

Anything to stop feeling so damn helpless. Like he had with Casey, standing by while something cruel and unstoppable hollowed her out. He wasn’t going to feel that again. Not about a woman. No way. Especially when it came to two women that he cared deeply for. Two women he needed, almost instinctively, to protect.

At all costs.

His hand went to his phone, thumb hovering over Brianna’s name, but he stopped himself. She’d already messaged. Already told him she was home safe. Reaching out now would only be for him, to soothe his nerves, not hers. And she didn’t need him piling his worry on top of everything else.

Grinding his teeth, he scrolled instead, landing on another name.

The old stockman Tierney.

Walt was retired from the saddle now, and gruff, but sharp. Too sharp to have ever lent Jack Matherson a cent, but close enough to the man to have shared more than a few drinks. If anyone had seen the cracks before Jack had fallen into them, it’d be Walt.

He sucked in a deep breath and hit the call button.

The line picked up after two rings. ‘Well, I’ll be damned. Hayden Pierce. What’s got you calling after bedtime?’

‘Sorry to bother you, Walt.’

‘If I were bothered, I wouldn’t have picked up. So, go on then, Pierce, spill the beans.’

Hayden didn’t waste time. ‘You remember Jack?’

A grunt. ‘Course. Liked to bet more than he earned. What about him?’

‘What do you remember about his last few weeks, before the accident?’

There was a pause on the line, long enough for Hayden to picture Walt out by his shed, glass of something strong in hand, eyes narrowed at the stars like they still held secrets.

‘He looked like a man walking with ghosts,’ Walt said eventually. ‘The last time I spoke to him, he said he’d gotten into a fight. Serious one. And not only about money for once, nah, this one was about a woman too. But before you ask, he didn’t say who. Just that it had ended badly.’

Hayden’s stomach tightened. ‘So you have no idea who it could’ve been?’

‘No. Nada. But Jack was pretty antsy.’ A smoker’s cough racked down the line. ‘When he was telling me at the bar, he was looking over his shoulder like the bloke he fought with might be watching him, listening in.’

A flicker of something cold passed through Hayden’s chest. ‘Did he ever mention his debts? Like owing the wrong kind of people big dollars?’

‘Yeah, bits and pieces, but nothing I didn’t expect from a bloke like Jack. He said they didn’t let things go; even if you die, they just pass the debt on like a bloody heirloom.’ Ice chinked. ‘I told him he was a bloody dickhead, messing with people like that.’

‘Bloody hell.’ Hayden swallowed hard. ‘So, you think they’re sniffing around Molly now?’

There was a lengthy silence, then Walt’s sigh of realisation almost echoed. ‘All I can say, Pierce, is that if poor Molly’s caught up in her dodgy brother’s mess now,’ he said quietly, ‘then lord help her.’

Hayden thanked him and hung up before he could draw any more conclusions. He already felt as if he’d tapped the toe of his boot on the line Molly had drawn, regarding keeping this to themselves, and he sure as hell didn’t want to step all the way over it. Not yet anyway. He would if push came to shove. But that hadn’t happened. Not yet. Although, he surmised, it would. Soon enough.

He stepped inside and moved through the dark kitchen. A photo of Casey on the fridge, her eyes laughing, caught the hallway light. He touched the picture briefly. ‘Not again, Case,’ he whispered. ‘I can’t let something bad happen again.’

Sighing, feeling utterly helpless right now, he pulled up a chair and sat for a while, an untouched coffee from that morning beside him. He couldn’t stop thinking about Brianna’s shaky voice on that call. And then, again, about the dare he hadn’t told her about, still clawing at him. He hadn’t meant to feel this way about her. But dammit, here he was. Falling for her.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the way she looked at him, all fire and steel one moment and soft uncertainty the next. Or about the way she threw herself into everything – her work, Molly, that adorable dog of hers – like she carried the whole damn world on her back and still found space to smile. She deserved more than someone like him, someone carrying ghosts, someone who’d already lost once and never quite dragged his way back.