Page 84 of The Cowboy and the Stray

Behind me, someone yelled. Maybe it was Jace. Maybe it was Buck. I didn’t turn around or slow down to find out. My brain was too busy short circuiting.

Hellcat didn’t need much steering. She took off down the main road, then cut left across an open field. The speed was unreal. I clung to the horn and prayed she wouldn’t throw me straight into a cactus.

Hellcat was pure muscle and rage. She veered around rocks, launched over a dry creek, and kept going until the ranch house was a dot behind us. I thought maybe we were safe, maybe I’d outrun whatever the hell had just happened. Then Hellcat made a hard right and aimed straight for a barbed wire fence.

I tried to slow her, but she was having none of it. I yanked the reins. Nothing. She gave a buck, just to let me know who was boss. We hit the fence at a dead run. Hellcat jumped.

I did not.

I went airborne. For a half second, I saw the blue Texas sky and thought, okay, this is how I die. Then I landed, hard, on the rocky ground. The air shot out of me like I’d been sucker punched by a bull. I rolled three times before coming to a stop.

Hellcat kept going. She didn’t even look back.

I lay there, cheek mashed against the dust, waiting for the sky to fell. My ankle throbbed, and my ribs made a weird click when I moved just so. I checked my hands for blood. Nothing serious. I was scraped up, but alive.

That’s when it all caught up to me.

The wolves. The not-wolves. The way Jace had just become a person like it was no big deal. I replayed the whole thing in my head, looking for a possibility that I’d imagined it. There wasn’t one. I started to laugh, but it came out as a dry bark.

It wasn’t real. Maybe I hit my head again. I imagined it. Wolves don’t do that. People don’t do that. Shapeshifting is for movies and crazy people and books.

I tried to get up. My ankle did not agree with that plan. I limped to a stand, favoring my left side, and looked back at the ranch. No one was chasing me. I could barely see the barn from here, just a smudge of white and brown on the horizon.

I checked my pockets. No phone, no keys, nothing. I had no money, no ride, and no friends in this part of Texas. Or anywhere come to think of it. There was no next move. The only place I could go was away.

So that’s what I did.

I hobbled across the field, through knee-high grass and over sun-bleached rocks. Somewhere, a buzzard circled, probably waiting for me to drop. I made it to a dry creek bed and followed it. Every so often, I glanced over my shoulder, looking for wolves. Or men. Or both.

When I’d walked off enough of my ankle’s soreness, I climbed down into a shallow ravine. The walls were crumbling limestone, and the bottom was littered with animal bones and beer cans. It was cooler there, and quiet, except for the hum of crickets. I sank down against the wall and waited for my heart to slow.

“You didn’t see that,” I said. “You hit your head, and you’re tired, and you’re losing it. Jace is not a wolf. Buck is not a wolf. You’re just running on empty.”

I laughed again, but it sounded less real this time.

Damn it all. I knew what I saw.

I pulled my knees up, wrapped my arms around them, and let the sweat dry to my skin. My head thudded with every heartbeat.

I tried to remember the last time I’d been this scared. Maybe in Vegas, when Lance first showed his true colors. Maybe when my mom never came home. But this was different. This was the kind of fear that made me question the shape of the world.

Above me, the sun moved, slow and steady. I watched it track across the sky, then closed my eyes.

I just wanted to wake up from whatever crazy ass dream I’d landed in.

41. CALDER

I was almost in a good mood. Sure, we had that asshole who could appear at any time, but Tess was here with me. She’d come back with surprisingly little convincing. And here I wanted her to stay.

Then, as I was heading for the barn, Jace came sprinting up the main ranch road with both hands waving over his head like he was flagging down a medevac.

I was halfway between the house and the barn, counting out what I’d need to patch the southern fence line. Nothing out there but rattlers and buzzards, but it gave me time to think. The house was on lockdown, but I needed to double-check the stalls and see about moving the tack room tools before the afternoon heat made them too damn hot to touch.

Jace never runs unless something is broken, dying, or on fire. I dropped my bucket and jogged over. He stopped a full yard away, bent over, and spat in the dust before looking up.

“She took Hellcat,” he panted.

I stared at him, my gut churning with apprehension. “Who?”