Rebel Wolf (Wilde Brothers Ranch #5) - Scarlett Grove Page 0,4

next class.

After his graphic design class, Gunner met up with Montana out in the parking lot. Gunner gave Montana a ride home after school every day. He liked the company. She climbed in the car, telling him about how she had found an excellent math tutor.

Everyone was rooting for Montana, since her degree would be especially useful on the ranch. Gunner's brothers didn't quite understand the point of his interest in art, but after a lifetime of living in their shadows, Gunner no longer felt the need to justify himself. And since he'd been drinking and getting into fights at Squad Goals before he'd started his art classes, his brothers had collectively decided to leave him alone about it.

He was driving toward the ranch, bumping along the gravel road when he saw something strange ahead.

“Oh no,” Montana said.

Gunner squinted into the distance. He knew exactly what Montana was concerned about. He rolled up and stopped in the road. The McCoy brothers had their truck parked horizontally across the roadway, preventing Gunner from passing.

“Let's just go the back way,” Montana whispered.

Gunner knew that Montana had had more than one run-in with the McCoys while she'd been out with Shane. Shane might be a deep-thinking philosopher and writer, but he didn't hold back from throwing a punch. Just like all the Wilde brothers, he had been in a tussle or two with the McCoys.

“I'm not going to just let this go.” Gunner picked up his phone.

“What are you going to do?” Montana hissed.

He could feel her fear radiating through the truck. He felt bad. Montana had been through a lot in her life. Having been abducted by hyenas when she was a teenager, she'd spent most of her adult life trapped in one of their compounds. And for a moment, he considered backing down just to spare her. His inner wolf growled.

The McCoy brothers squinted and grinned, and Gunner texted his brothers, letting them know what was happening. He grabbed the rifle off the rack behind him. Montana hissed again, asking him to please reconsider, but the McCoys were trespassing on Wilde land, and there was no way Gunner would back down from that kind of intrusion. He climbed out of the truck, holding the rifle lightly in his hands.

“Well, if it isn't Gunner Wilde,” said Charlie McCoy. Charlie had been in the same class as Cal and Cash, the twins, and they had had plenty of run-ins. But since they'd settled down with River Radcliffe, the rivalry between them had seemed to settled down as well. Until today.

“Is that Montana Eaten in your truck?” Bobby asked. He was the same age as Shane and had been relentlessly dogging poor Montana since Shane had mated with her.

Gunner knew Montana didn't deserve any of it. He probably should have listened when she'd asked him to leave. And although Gunner wanted to find his own way in the world, he was a Wilde through and through and would always defend his family and his ranch from the likes of Charlie and Bobby McCoy.

“You leave Montana out of this.”

“I always wondered what it was like for her with those hyenas. I've heard rumors about what they did to women in those compounds. How does your brother Shane like having a hyena's sloppy seconds?”

Gunner growled at the harsh vulgarity of Charlie's comments. He didn't want poor Montana to have to hear what Charlie had said, but he knew it was too late. He glanced behind him and saw her face as she sat in his car.

“You're gonna regret that.” Gunner cocked his rifle.

“What are you going to do, junior?” Charlie sneered.

“Who are you calling junior?” Gunner heard as his brothers rolled up behind the McCoys. It was Shane, Cash, and Cal. They climbed out of Shane's Jeep, all holding rifles.

Montana gasped from the car. “Shane, be careful.”

“What are you doing on our land?” Cash asked.

“Consider this a word of warning,” Charlie said before he and Bobby climbed into their car, did a three-point turn, swerving around Gunner’s truck, and hightailed it down the road.

Montana leapt out of the car and ran to Shane. He held her in his arms and tried to calm her down, but she was beside herself. Gunner understood why. The rivalry with the McCoys was getting out of hand. They had been harassing all of the Wildes' mates, including Cheyenne with her baby when she'd been at the farmers market buying fruit for her preserves. Now they were harassing the Wildes in