Rope the Moon (Runaway Ranch, #2)(46)

It’s not my right to get involved. But a little voice inside my head tells me I’m already involved. I couldn’t get out if I tried.

By the time I hit the end of the article, the chair in front of my desk screeches across the floor. My lanky little brother drops into it with a huff and swipes the beacon from my desk, turning it over in his hands like a melon.

I place my phone face down on the desk and ignore the eyebrow raise Deputy Parker is currently giving me. “What do you want, Wyatt?”

“Need to report a crime.”

I shuffle a few papers around, down the remainder of my cold coffee. At this point, it’s basically a race to see whether it’s a Dakota or a Wyatt aneurysm that finishes me off first. “Not my circus. Take it up with Topper.”

“Theft of my childhood. The night a big brother of mine left me sleeping out in the field.”

My head jerks up and I scowl. “That was over twenty years ago.”

“Yeah, well, what is time?”

“And I told you that wasn’t me. That was Ford.” I stretch a hand over my eyes to rub at my temples. Kid still drives me crazy, even at thirty-three years old. “What do you want?” I sound like a broken record.

“We’re stocking up on supplies to reno the ranch. Not like you’d know much about it, seeing as how you’re preoccupied.”

“I’m busy, but it’s my ranch too,” I bark, rolling out my shoulders. It pisses me off that my little brother thinks I’ve let my responsibilities slack. But most of all it pisses me off that he’s right. That Dakota’s safety usurps any of my concerns about the ranch.

“And why do you need me for this? Ask Charlie.”

“Can’t. Left Charlie at the hardware store. Lost Ruby in the antique store.”

No surprise. My family storming around Resurrection like a wild pack of marauders.

Wyatt folds his hands together, his face growing serious. “That cabin up at Eden—we bulldozing it or what?”

Eden is a property in a hard-to-find area behind Runaway Ranch. While we use the cabin as a bunkhouse for groups or fishing excursions, it’s set back in the high forest. The only two access routes are a forty-five-minute drive over Dead Fred’s Curve or the shortcut behind the lodge up the old hiking trail.

It’s also the spot where Dakota and I started and ended.

Something soft burrows its way into my heart. Bulldozing memories to make room for one more building doesn’t sit right with me.

“Not sure yet,” I say gruffly. “Let me think about it.”

Wyatt shrugs. “If you want, I can handle it.”

I eye him shrewdly. “I don’t want another chicken shed fiasco.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“When you blew up that building. What the fuck do you think I’m talking about?” I rub my brow at the memory. “Christ.”

Wyatt sits up in his seat, eagle eyes snagging on the folder. “Puttin’ a tail on Dakota?”

Goddamn it.

I grab up the folder, hit him with it. “Shut up.”

He cackles out a laugh, making my blood pressure rise, then sticks the screw driver into the beacon and pops off the battery cap.

“Think I could get one on Fallon? Girl keeps skippin’ practice.” Though his demeanor is easy, his voice holds a tight strain of tension.

“Ain’t skippin’ practice,” I tell him. Across the street I watch old Waylon Wiggins enter the store. I hope Koty isn’t getting put through the small-town third degree. “She’s just skippin’ yours.”

Wyatt’s head jerks up so fast I can’t be sure he didn’t get whiplash. “The fuck. With who?”

It’s a big brother asshole move, but if it gets him off my back about Dakota, I’ll pull the low blow.

“Not sure,” I say, sliding my laptop toward me and opening a case file. “She’s acting cagey about it. Don’t think Stede knows, so keep it on the down low. Guy doesn’t need any more stress.”

Wyatt’s head tips back to look at me, a sudden storm in his eyes. “I don’t know what the hell that girl thinks she’s doing,” he grumbles. “She’s gotta ride in the rough stock days, and she’s gonna be out of shape. And when she comes crawling back next year, I’m gonna have a hell of a time whipping her ass into gear.”

I snort, side-eyeing him.

Wyatt and Fallon’s petty rivalry might fool all of Resurrection, but they can’t fool me. I’ve been the fucking idiot keeping his mouth shut. I know where it got me, and if Wyatt continues down this stubborn path of denial, I know where it’ll get him.

Absolutely nothing.

Wyatt fidgets in his chair. “How can you sit here, man? Makes me itch.”

I rasp out a laugh, seeing that little rough and tumble ten-year-old I used to boss around on the ranch back in Georgia. “Patience, brother. It’s called patience.”

Wyatt has to be constantly on the move, on the back of a horse knocking his front teeth out or training his cowboys, but for me, the quiet, watchful chase is in my blood.

Stakeouts don’t bother me. Whether it’s taking up post in the dusty desert or in a small-town police station, the objective is always the same—to serve and protect.

This time, it’s someone I care about. The mission can’t go wrong. Not like the last time.