King's Country (Oil Kings #4) - Marie Johnston Page 0,24

I didn’t quit until I got to the bedroom.

“Bristol.” Dawson’s voice was soft behind me, like an early warning that I wouldn’t care for what he had to say.

“Lay it on me.”

“Yeah, so, Marshall was pounding on your door when I found him. I think he might’ve busted the latch.”

I sagged onto my crutches. How much more today?

“I can go out there with you,” he said. “I know how you are about the trailer, but we can check it over when we go over there. Get it done with so you know what you’re going back to. Not that you have to go back, since you might be in a walking cast for a while.”

His voice eased the vise around my chest. “Dawson Preston King, are you rambling?”

“Maybe. I don’t want you to tell me to put something nice on and go fuck myself.”

I snorted while choking on a laugh. “He probably does that anyway.”

“A reminder’s always good.” The air between us grew heavy. “I can always go check the door.”

Ah, hell. If the door had been busted open, Dawson would see the mess. My pride was already flayed open. Might as well expose it to the elements.

Dawson might’ve thought about kissing me, but after he saw—and smelled—for himself what my life was like, it’d confirm that he was the one that deserved better.

Dawson

God, the smell.

I forced back a gag. Running a ranch, I came across many smells that were unpleasant. Rancid. Rotting, even. But this was a stench that disturbed me on a visceral level. This wasn’t from a bloated cow’s carcass. This was from a person’s home.

Bristol hung behind me at the bottom of the stairs, her arms hugged around herself. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to come back.

“I, um, stay in the RV.” She was trying to sound strong, but her vulnerability was as clear as the blue sky above us. “I have to use the bathroom in here. That should be clean, but I’m sure being closed up for five weeks made, um . . . made the smell worse.”

“No wonder you’ve been living at the cabin.” I couldn’t go inside. I’d only pushed on the door to the trailer to make sure it was broken and it had swung open, hitting my nose with everything that’d been marinating while Bristol had been at my place.

“How’d you know?”

“Tucker saw the wood pile and garden.” I put my back to the trailer. More fresh air facing this way. “I was going to mention it, but I figured it was you with the garden and the fenced area for Bucket.”

“I should’ve cleaned it all after Pop died.”

It’d only been a couple of months since he’d died. How was she doing? I was used to pretending Danny Cartwright didn’t exist, but he’d been her father. She’d lost her dad.

Fuck, where would my headspace be if I lost Dad?

I went back down the stairs, leaving the door open behind me. That place needed all the air it could get. “Bristol, you don’t have to do this by yourself.”

A furrow formed between her brows. “Who else would do it?”

She was so heartbreakingly alone. She’d been alone all her life. Except for when Mama had been alive and had taken her in like her own.

“I’m here. I can help. Me and the guys can do it. Now or another time. There’s no timeline on grief.”

She blinked. Goddammit, were those tears?

This woman.

I folded her into my embrace. She held her crutches under her armpits and leaned in to me. My sweater muffled a little sob. She sagged further. I held her tighter. And she just cried.

I didn’t know how many minutes went by. I could’ve held her forever, but at the same time, I wanted to cheer her up. Bristol needed more cheer in her life.

She stiffened and pulled away, but I didn’t let her go far. She didn’t look at me as she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt and sniffled. “I should get inside and check it out.”

“I’ll do it. All we really need to do is make sure no pipes froze and that there isn’t a fire hazard.”

“The entire place is tinder.”

“How long have you lived in the RV?”

“The last five years or so.”

I looked around the yard. Besides the trailer house and the three campers—two pull-behinds and the RV Bristol lived in—there was the decrepit barn. An equally broken-down tractor, a four-wheeler, and a side-by-side ATV were next to the barn. I could see Bristol’s work