Page 2 of Wilder Heart

“I know, believe me. I thought I had two more years before I had to think about this. I always figured he’d come home. I didn’t think he’d come home so soon.”

“Is he dangerous?” That was the most important question. Mary-Beth was pregnant, and they had a seven-year-old little girl running around, Annalise.

“I don’t think so.”

Cash’s brows lifted. That wasn’t the guarantee he’d hoped to hear.

Lain winced again. “I know. I’m sorry. I haven’t seen or talked to him in eight years, okay? I really don’t know. We were thick as thieves as kids. But we… didn’t part on good terms.”

“I would say fucking not.” Cash ducked his head. “Sorry, boss.”

Lain huffed out a laugh. “It’s fine. I understand why you’re concerned. He was never violent before the—incident, so I have to assume it’s the same now.”

“I don’t understand, Lain.” He rarely used the boss’s first name, but it felt necessary now, given the seriousness of the conversation. This was more than boss and foreman. “Did he just snap? What drove him to kill yourfather?”

Lain pursed his lips, looking down at his keyboard. “Our father was… not a good man. He had a drinking problem, and he drove this ranch into the ground when our mother passed. We were too young to really remember her, but he always resentedus after that. I think she’s the one who wanted kids, and he just wanted to make her happy. So when she died, and he was left alone with us, something in him broke.”

“Jesus.”

“Wilder always took the worst of it. That last night was… rough. Dad snapped, and then Wilder snapped, too. He was young and strong and so, so angry. I called the police while they were fighting. I knew one of them was going to die, but I didn’t know which one. The cops came, Dad was dead, and Wilder was arrested. And I was left all alone, with a dying ranch and a bloodstain in the living room carpet.”

Cash didn’t know what to say to that. Finally, he found his voice. “He only got ten years for murder?”

Lain bobbed his head. “Crime of passion. Second degree. He was young, and his lawyer argued his case about an abused kid fighting back. They couldn’t deny he’d done it, but they gave him a lighter sentence because of the circumstances surrounding the fight. We both,” he hesitated, then forged on, “had injuries that night, which helped his case.”

There were more emotional scars here than physical ones. Cash delicately asked, “And what do you think about him coming here?” Lain’s opinion was the most important one.

Lain blew out a breath. “I don’t know if I want him here.” He grimaced. “Which I hate to say, but he’s a wild card. I have no idea how this is going to go. We’ll give him a room in the bunkhouse and find him jobs to do around here. As long as he earns his keep and doesn’t cause problems, I’m okay with having him here. I’d prefer to keep my distance, I think, which is why I’m telling you all of this. You’ll be in charge of him. You’ll be spending more time with him than I will. I want you to know everything going in. If you’re uncomfortable or if you think this won’t work, I’d like to know now so I can get him set up somewhere else.”

Cash hesitated. It didn’t seem fair to turn the man away after Lain had already promised him a bed and a job, nor did it seem right to spurn someone who might really be reaching out and wanting to do better for himself. Like Lain said, he was a wild card.

“I don’t want to make any judgments before he gets here,” he said slowly, weighing his opinion as he spoke. “I’m willing to give him a shot. Are you okay with letting me be in charge of keeping him on or firing him if there’s an issue?”

Some of the tension left Lain’s shoulders. “Yeah, actually, that’d be great. I have no idea how I’d go about firing my own brother. That’s not something I was looking forward to—assuming it even has to happen.”

“With luck, it won’t,” Cash agreed. “It’s good to be on the same page, though.”

“Agreed.”

There was really just one more thing Cash needed to know. “When should we expect him?”

Lain blew out a breath. “Friday.”

CHAPTER 2

WILDER

The bus smelled like lemon-scented cleaner, which was better than the prison. Wilder sat in the cushioned seat next to the window and watched the world fly past, one arm resting on his backpack. Everything, including the clothes on his back, he’d bought from the prison commissary on his way out the door, and he just barely had enough for the bus ticket when all was said and done.

There were only a handful of people on the bus with him, traveling from one sleepy town in Montana to the next. Roselake was barely a dot on the map, but it was home. Or it used to be. He wasn’t sure what awaited him there now. When he’d left it in handcuffs, the ranch had been in a state of disrepair. The paint on the house was peeling. The front porch was dry-rotted. The barn’s roof was beginning to sag. The picket fence was no longer white, and broken rails littered the whole length.

He’d looked up the ranch in the prison’s library occasionally. There weren’t a lot of pictures, but a handful of articles touted the return of Blackwood Ranch, now a big name in the angus beef industry. Lain had done well for himself, by the sound of it. Wilder was glad.

It was a long ride from the state penitentiary to Roselake’s lone bus station. When the bus rolled to a hissing stop, he stood, shouldering his meager backpack and checking his seat to make sure he left nothing behind. The clothes he’d gone into prison with were long gone, and they wouldn’t have fit even if they’d given them back to him. He was bigger, broader. Still lean, maybe, but not like he’d been as a scrawny teenager.

On his way out of the bus, a middle-aged woman eyed him as he passed, lingering on the tattoo on his neck. It served him well in prison. Things would likely be very different outside of it.

Exhaust fumes hit him as he stepped out onto the pavement. No one else got off, and he waited until the bus rolled away to start walking. Across the street, a field stretched toward the horizon. Mountains rose up in the distance, hazy and blue. He’d grown up staring at the view, and seeing it now made him feel both eighteen again and far older than his years.

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