“Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do,” I said, voice low. “I’m tired of the attitude. You wanna square up every damn day like this is middle school? Grow up. We fucked. I hurt you. It’s been four years, and I have a family to feed. I’d appreciate it if you stopped busting my balls and let me do my fucking job!”
His mouth twitched like he was about to lunge, and for half a second, I almost wanted him to. When we fought, when he punched me, it hurt so good. Finally having him touch me, even if it was in hate.
“Hudson!”
The door to the barn banged open. A pair of boots pounded hard against the floor, scattering hay and horse dust, as a young ranch hand—Micah, barely twenty—came flying down the aisle, chest heaving.
“Hudson!”
I jerked my head toward him. “What’s up?”
“Sorry, sorry to interrupt, but… your wife, man.”
I stiffened. With my wife, the news could be anything. Passed out at the bar again. Holed up in some motel roomwith a stranger she just met. Or even burned our house down for the insurance money.
“What about Heather?”
“She’s gone.”
My heart stopped. “What?”
Micah bent over, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. “I just came from town. She’s gone, dude. Packed up her car and left about an hour ago. She… someone said she left with Lonnie Fischer.”
My vision tunneled.
Lonnie. Fucking. Fischer.
The town drunk. The guy who still owed a debt to practically everyone in town, including me. The one who got kicked out of the saloon twice last month for pissing in a booth. The man I’d caught her with twice already.
Over my dead body would she have him hanging around my daughter.
Ivy.
My heart skipped a beat, and I grabbed Micah by his collar. “Did she take Ivy?” My voice came out strangled, my throat suddenly dry. “Micah, did she take my daughter?”
My darling Ivy. The only joy I’d found in the last four years.
He shook his head, eyes wide. “No! No, she left her. Left her with Estelle, I think. I-I don’t know all the details, man. Just folks at the gas station were talking. I thought you should know.”
Relief hit me like a gut punch. I nearly collapsed from it.
Ivy was safe.
But her mother left her.
“Jesus Christ.” I fished for my keys in my back pocket.
“Hudson,” Matty said sharply.
I turned.
His face was pale, but his eyes were still hard. “We’re not finished.”
“I have to go,” I said, voice flat.
“No, you don’t. We’re in the middle of?—”
“Get out of my face, Magnuson,” I growled. “I swear to God, not right now.”
