Chapter 40

40

Will was an expert at moving around and not getting seen. Tonight was no exception. He’d met Joey in an old parking lot near what used to be R.J.’s bar a few years ago but was now going to be called Tylers’ or something. It was a good deal—Joey was always good for it, and Will had needed the money. Pull in, wait until another car showed up, roll down the window, and it was done just like that.

His favorite place to do those little transfers was church parking lots. He got a bit of a thrill sticking it to the goodie hypocrites in Masterson County.He had had to leave his car behind, though. Damned thing just died, even though the damned thing had been running.

Now what was he supposed to do?

He could call Sammy, but that dumbass was hiding out from everybody right now. Will had to take him food sometimes. He was that paranoid. Sammy’s best bet was to just take off and disappear somewhere. Get a low-level job under the table, picking beets or something, and just fucking get gone.

Will was only about two miles from home. He’d go home, get his dad, and the two of them would just act like Will had been on his way from the all-night gas station or something when he had car trouble.

Make it all innocent-sounding. He had sold his last shit to Joey, so it wasn’t like the damned police would find anything in his truck if they searched it. And not like he’d give them probable cause or anything. He’d just had bad luck. That was all.

He was going to cut through the woods, go the short way to his house. Staying on the road would make it an extra fifteen minutes, and it was damned cold out there now.

He kept walking across the parking lot and to the ranch next door.

Fucking Fletcher Tyler’s place. Of course. His dad had been so excited about whatever Fletcher Tyler was working on out there now.

Frankly, Will didn’t give a shit about ranching technologies, even if they were going to make Fletcher millions. Everyone was talking about how he was even more invested than his prick of an uncle Phil.

Will had had to hear all about it when his dad and his dad’s best friend for years were talking about it tonight. It was one reason why Will had gone out driving around in the first place. His old man’s friend had a real problem with the Tylers in general and had one with Phil Tyler in particular. He had for years, since all that shit had gone down with the Tylers and the Mastersons and the old guy’s sons. Rutherfords and Tylers were probably going to hate each other forever and Will got it.

Not that he wanted to sit there and listen to the two old idiots bitching about Tylers, while Abby waited on them hand and foot. His dad’s old friend had even patted Abby on the ass and told her she’d grown up real pretty and everything.

Will had told him off—told him not to do that again. That was his sister, after all. Guy didn’t need to be pawing her like that. It had seriously made Abby uncomfortable—didn’t his dad understand that? But Abby wouldn’t say anything—not to upset Daddy..

He just kept walking, cursing when he startled three fucking deer and they took off across the snow.

Will looked up. There was a light in the window. Fletcher’s house.

The house was a good distance away from where he was now. But there were people silhouetted in that window.

He darted behind a tree, and stayed there. Had they seen him?

He didn’t want to have to deal with a trespassing charge or something like that.

Everyone in town was so on edge lately, since all the OPJ supply chain was getting so screwed up and everything.

Cops screwing with him now would mess everything up. He had a general idea where that missing shipment was. He just needed his truck, and time, to get it to it. The road was probably still iced over. His old truck wouldn’t get up there to it right now. Or until the snow melted a little and it wasn’t so damned wet out, either.

Will was planning. He was going to take that OPJ and move it right down the line. He’d get enough. He’d buy a ranch of his own nearby, and he’d rub it in his dad and Abby’s faces. He’d let Abby live with him if she wanted, though. If she cooked and cleaned for him. His dad’s friends wouldn’t paw at her like that any longer. Those assholes had been doing that for as long as Will could remember—it always made Abby uncomfortable, but their dad never stopped it. It just pissed Will off.

For now, though, he stayed right there behind the pine tree and watched.

He knew who they were in that window. He just did.

Dylan.

And that son-of-a-bitch Fletcher.

And they were holding each other. Probably screwed each other already tonight. Maybe even right there in the window.

It disgusted him. She could do so much better.

What was so special about Fletcher Tyler anyway?