Chapter 2

2

Chantal was holding on to her breakfast with as much control as she possibly could. She’d run as fast as she could from where she had been walking along the fence that separated her family’s ranch from the one owned by Gene Hiller and his brothers and sisters.

Chantal wasn’t entirely certain how she’d gotten there.

Instinct, probably.

She’d hiked that fence line every day since she’d been around eleven, and her parents had let her walk the quarter of a mile of fencing by herself to visit her closest friends in the world. Back when Gene’s parents had owned the place.

She had been terrified no one would be there. But there was. Gene. Even if it had to be Gene, at least someone was there. That was the only reason she was holding herself together right now.

Gene had always had a way of just looking at her that told her he found her completely lacking in everything that mattered to him in every possible way. She’d tried before to prove him wrong—when she’d been all of stupid and twenty-three and madly in love with the man in front of her now.

That had lasted all of one week, until she’d seen him wrapped around some blonde in a crop top right there on a picnic blanket between the Hillers’ place and her family’s.

Then he’d looked up and noticed her, on her horse, stunned at seeing his naked ass right there in the hot Texas sun.

She’d stumbled out an apology and rode away. Chantal had never looked at him the same again. He and that stupid blonde had made it clear that Chantal was to keep her mouth shut.

Him, because he said he’d been protecting his girlfriend.

His girlfriend because she’d been bullying Chantal for years anyway and had liked it. Had liked knowing Gene thought Chantal had done it on purpose. Had stood there watching, like a voyeur or something.

Disgusting.

If he had been with anyone but that particular woman... Chantal would have just gotten over her embarrassment, but Mandy ? Even Gene could have done better than that.

Gene’s sister, Chantal’s best friend Genny, had lit into him a week later, explaining exactly how that woman had treated Chantal through the years. And Genny vowed to make Mandy’s life miserable if she ever harassed Chantal again—Gene’s, too, while Genny was at it.

Genny hadn’t spoken to Gene for over a month after that.

That hadn’t exactly brought Gene over to Chantal’s side. The exact opposite. But she didn’t care. She’d gotten over Gene long ago.

There was a dead woman out there now.

That mattered more than Gene Hiller ever could.

It was going to take hours for the Value sheriff to get someone to them—he and the deputies were at the bottom of the county helping the Garrity County sheriff with something major. They were stretched too thin. Chantal knew how it all worked. The dispatcher was going to send someone from Finley Creek.

After she disconnected, Chantal called... Charlie. Her big brother would get there as soon as he could. Just like Chantal had known he would.

Charlie told her to keep herself—and Gene—right there in the Hillers’ house until the police got there. Until Charlie got there. No matter what.

Charlie had trust issues where the TSP were concerned—not surprising, since rogue TSP officers or whatever they were had shot Chantal’s niece and almost killed her eighteen months or so ago. People Charlie worked with had been ambushed just weeks ago, and it wasn’t over yet.

Charlie said not to disturb the scene any more than it already had been. And to lock the doors, and for Gene to grab a gun, just in case. That the killer might still be out there.

Charlie was on his way to her now. He was going to stop and check on their parents first.

She and Gene waited in silence.

Chantal studied him for a long, long time. She hadn’t been alone with Gene in over six years. Nor had she been this close to him. Not since that day when he’d ripped her to shreds. At least she had never told him how she had felt back then—not that it had been anything more than a stupid, shy girl’s crush.

Chantal had learned a lot about men since then.

Enough to know what she wanted from the man she married.

If she ever married.

She wanted a nice man—a good man—one who looked at her like she was the center of his world. The way her brother Charlie looked at his new wife Rory now. The way her father had always looked at her mother. The way Gene’s dad looked at his mom, and the way his older brother looked at his wife Ronnie.

Chantal wasn’t going to settle for anything less. The man she finally loved would be the exact opposite of the man in front of her. Period.

But as he loaded a shotgun and locked the doors, she was just glad she wasn’t alone.

She wasn’t alone now.