Page 60 of Nanny for the Single Dad Cowboy
My stomach drops. “Sienna, please tell me you’re kidding.”
“I’m not. I changed passwords, wiped everything, but if it was Richard—“
The name hits like a knife twisting between my ribs. “You’re a hacker. How do you get beaten at your own game?” I snap.
“I’m sorry,” she cries.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I scold as the room tilts.
I grab the edge of the dresser to steady myself. The phone feels like it weighs a hundred pounds in my hand.
Then she drops an even bigger bomb on my lap. “I just got an alert. He skipped bail yesterday. The FBI is looking for him, but no one knows where he is.”
The silence after those words is deafening. I can still hear her voice on the line, shaky, scared. My world’s narrowed down tothe frantic thud of my heartbeat and the rush of blood in my ears.
“Tessa?”
I can’t speak. My throat’s closing, my pulse hammering too fast. I can feel the walls closing in, the security of this ranch, the one place I thought I was safe, crumbling around me like it was never real.
“He’s coming for me,” I whisper. “He’s really coming.”
My fingers tighten around the phone until my knuckles ache. I need to think. I need to move. I need to—
A knock splits the quiet. I flinch so hard the phone nearly slips from my hand.
“Tess?” Sienna’s voice crackles through the speaker. “What’s happening? Are you okay?”
Another knock follows, louder this time.
My chest constricts. Every instinct screams run, but my legs won’t move. The room is too still. Then I hear it—the voice that cuts through everything. Calm. Deep. Laced with something dangerous.
“Open the door, Tessa!”
Jace.
My pulse spikes. Relief and fear crash together so violently that I nearly pass out. Because I don’t know if I’m more afraid of what’s outside the ranch… or of the truth waiting on the other side of that door.
The phone slips from my hand and lands on the carpet with a soft thud. Sienna’s voice is still faint in the background, calling my name.
But all I can do is stare at the doorknob, frozen, as Jace knocks again.
“Open it,” he says again—quieter now, but it’s not a request.
My feet pad across the room, hand trembling as I reach for the lock.
24
JACE
I watch as Tessa races upstairs, every instinct in me telling me to go after her, but instead, I sit stuck in my chair until she disappears. She tried to act as if she is not connected to this whole thing, but I already know everything, or at least enough to know that she’s involved somehow.
Running my hand over my face, I feel frustration crawling up my neck. I haven’t had a wink of sleep since the attack, bouncing between the sheriff’s men and the security feeds, as I try to piece together all the pieces so I can give my family the answers they need.
Everything and everyone around me is tense, with the dark cloud of the attack still hovering over us. The ranch hasn’t felt this quiet in years. Not even after the storm that wreaked havocall over the property. It’s that kind of silence that hums beneath the skin—heavy and expectant, too still to trust. Outside, the sun has already set, the night bringing with it looming terror and fear. Inside, the air still smells faintly of bleach and gunpowder.
It’s up to me to keep my family safe; security is my responsibility, so the fact that they tried to take Ella right under my nose has left me feeling lacking as a big brother.
“Did y’all see the military-grade equipment these assholes had? Night vision gear, tactical wear, guns, knives. It’s like they were prepared for a small war. Who the hell was behind them to afford this kind of setup?” Zane asks from the corner, scrolling through the report on his tablet.
