it was up to you how you dealt with it. Move forward or stay stuck in the past. Let it consume you or learn to live with the aftereffects. He knew if the shoe was on the other foot, he’d want his brothers to move forward. To be happy. And he sure as hell wouldn’t want them to take the blame. That truth struck him in the solar plexus as he watched his woman laugh her ass off. When she turned, bright eyes full of happiness—instead of pain and stress—his way, he couldn’t hold back any longer. He reached out and curled his hand around her neck and jerked her to him, kissing her wet and deep so he could lay claim once again to all that beauty.
He wasn’t sure how long it would take for this overwhelming need to claim her constantly to cease. It was just her brothers and the fucking mountains in the distance, but the persistent drive to beat his chest like a fucking caveman overpowered him. He wanted to hole up with Skylar for a month until he was as under her skin as she was to him. Wanted to be at the bar every second so he could stand between her and danger. Wanted to put a ring on her finger and his kid in her belly before they were even ready, just to prove to the world who she belonged to. He knew he needed to come to grips with the intense need to keep her in his sights at all times. To calm the voice in his head that said if he turned his back for one second, she’d be gone. Vanish. Just like his brothers.
Ripping his mouth for hers, Logan pinned her to his body while he tried to collect his rambling thoughts. Tried to figure out why the hair on the back of his neck seemed to be standing on end suddenly. Why his radar was on high alert at that very moment. Everything in him said to stalk to his truck and pull out his M40. To scan the area for intruders. And when Max growled beside him, putting Logan on alert, just as he’d been trained, he knew his instincts were right. His attention darted from scanning the area for the enemy to his war dog. He followed Max’s line of sight up, up, up until he saw a dark figure on the rocky outcropping just below Chance’s monstrosity of a home.
Then he was running to his truck.
Twenty-One
Puzzle Pieces
WHILE PINNED TO Logan’s chest—his arms wrapped so tightly around me I could barely breathe—you’d think my whole being would be centered on the man holding me. But a dark figure of a man weaving and stumbling on the outcropping above our land held my attention instead. Focusing on the distant figure, I was certain it wasn’t Chance. The man had shorter hair and a stockier build than my older brother. I’d seen ranch hands near the edge before, but never this close. Why Justice never put a guard rail up when Chance was a baby, I’ll never know. Hell, why he built his house so close to the edge I’ll never understand. I always figured it was some perverted way of looking down on the rest of us. On all of Madison County. The proverbial king on his throne, watching the peasants as they spent their days in pursuit of a fraction of what he’d attained in his life.
The man seemed to stumble then right himself as he grew closer to the edge. I opened my mouth to shout a warning I knew he wouldn’t hear, but Logan must have seen him too because he let go of me suddenly, running for his truck with a barking Max close at his heel. But there was nothing Logan could do. I watched in horror as the man stumbled again, then pitched forward and walked right off the side of the ridge in a free fall. I spun around, unable to watch him fall to his death, and clenched my eyes shut as a scream spilled from my throat. Jake and Josh both rushed to my side, shouting, “What’s wrong?” so I pointed behind me, pulling air deep into my lungs to keep from passing out at the thought of what the fall had done to his body.
“A man just walked off the ridge,” I finally choked out.
Both turned instantly when Logan’s truck revved—breaking the eerie silence—and took off. I followed