Page 13 of The Cowboy and the Stray

6. CALDER

Since I'd been up since four, the day was halfway gone by the time I swung up into Brimstone's saddle. The big gelding huffed and stamped, eager to be moving. I knew how he felt. We still had a long day ahead. Checking fences and surveying the damage from last week's storms. But more than that, I needed to move, to think. Because every time I stood still, my mind circled back to the woman who'd blown onto the ranch like a tumbleweed, carrying the scent of trouble on the wind. I should’ve sent her packing that first night. Should’ve, but didn’t.

Reid and Gray were already waiting by the barn, their horses saddled and ready. Reid gave me a nod as I rode up, his face inscrutable as always beneath the shadow of his hat brim.

"Mornin' boss," Gray said, a lazy smile tugging at his mouth. "Thought we were gonna have to send a search party."

I snorted. "You offering to take on my grandmother's interrogation over breakfast?" That woman could’ve waterboarded secrets out of the CIA.

Gray held up his hands in mock surrender. "Hell, no. Woman could make the devil sweat."

Reid just shook his head, gathering up his reins. "We burning daylight jawing or riding?"

We rode out in companionable silence. The ranch spread out before us, rolling hills of green and gold divided by rough limestone walls and barbed wire.

I tried to keep my eyes on the horizon, looking for trouble spots, but my mind kept turning inward to the trouble already under my roof. Tess.

We were tight knit, us Maddox wolves, and change didn't come easy. Having a stranger in our midst, one carrying a lifetime worth of secrets, rubbed wrong.

A tree down over the fence line pulled me out of my thoughts. We dismounted to haul the downed branches clear of the wires, digging our boots into the soft loam and putting our backs into it. There was something settling about good, honest work, about the strain of muscle and sting of sweat. It grounded me in the here and now, in what had always been my first duty. Keeping the ranch whole. Sweat didn’t lie. Unlike feelings.

Gray nodded to the north pasture as we rode the perimeter. "You see anyone poking around that way? Jace mentioned tire tracks where there shouldn't be any, but it could've been someone turning around or something."

I frowned, scanning the distant tree line. Not everything had to be suspicious. We'd had our share of trespassers over the years. Cattle thieves, teenagers looking for trouble, even a few lone wolves hoping to sniff out our borders. But something told me this was different. I thought of Tess again, of the tight set of her mouth and the way her eyes darted to the shadows. The way Sloane turned up nothing on her, no matter how deep she dug.

If Tess was running from something, I had a feeling it wasn't the law. It was worse. The kind of worse that could reach out and crush someone at a distance. And if it came calling at the ranch, I had to be ready.

We stopped in the shade of a bunch of oaks for lunch. Reid tossed me a canteen, and I took a long pull, lukewarm water washing the trail dust from my throat.

"You hear the Coleman place might've struck oil?" Gray asked as he unwrapped a hunk of Midge's sourdough.

That was just what we needed. "They'll be crawling with landmen and rawbones before the month is out if that's true."

Reid grunted his agreement. "Gonna have to shore up the east fence line. Last thing we need is roustabouts stumbling onto pack land, liquored up and starting shit." Just what we needed, some drunk roughneck trying to pet the wrong wolf.

We finished eating in silence, each turning over our thoughts. Oil meant money, but it also meant outsiders. Strangers poking into business that wasn't theirs to mind. Over the years, my family had fought hard to carve out our little world here, where the pack could live alongside the humans without questions or suspicion. One bad apple could bring it all tumbling down. And it’d start with a single footprint in the wrong patch of dirt.

The afternoon passed in a blur of sweat as we restrung barbed wire and my mind wandered again to Tess. To the heavy circles under her eyes that spoke of too many long nights. Whatever she was running from, it had marked her, body and soul. Like something had chewed her up and spat out the bones.

I didn't know her story. I didn't know if I even wanted to. But I couldn't turn her out, not knowing she had nowhere to go.

Dusk was bleeding into the hills by the time we turned back toward home, the sky streaking orange and indigo above the tired slope of our shoulders. I let Brimstone have his head, his long strides eating up the miles.

The ranch was the only world I knew, the only world I wanted. It was carved into my bones, sunk into my marrow, and I'd fight to my last breath to keep it safe. To keep my people safe. Even if I had to stand between them and her.

We rode back into the yard to find the lights of the house glowing warm and welcoming.

I handed Brimstone off to Gray and climbed the porch steps. Bracing myself, I walked into the warm, bright heart of my territory, to the sights and the scents of family and pack and home.

The kitchen was spotless, the counters gleaming, and the air rich with the scent of baking bread and simmering stew. Midge stood at the stove, stirring a pot with a steady rhythm, even as she fixed me with a look that said she knew every errant thought that had chased itself around my head that day. Midge could flay you to the bone with just a few words. But I was the alpha, even if part of me wanted to crawl behind her and hide behind her apron strings.

I ducked my chin in a nod and washed my hands before I grabbed a stack of plates, focusing on the simple task of setting the table. Focusing on anything but the conversation I knew was coming. Keep your head down, set the table, dodge the inquisition.

The screen door banged open, and the pack started trickling in, jostling and laughing as they washed up at the big farmhouse sink. It was a nightly ritual. Everyone gathering together to break bread no matter how hard the day's work had been. A time to reconnect, to remember what mattered.

I caught a flash of red hair on the edge of the group. Tess. She was trying her best to blend into the wallpaper, her eyes downcast as she slipped into a seat at the far end of the table. Like maybe if she didn't take up too much space, we'd forget she was there.

Fat chance of that. Sloane's gaze cut to her immediately, sharp as a gutting knife. Eli and Jace angled their bodies away, a clear line drawn. Even Noah, who'd never met a stranger, kept his distance.