Page 66 of Warrior Security
Behind us, the lights near the tree line were pulling back. The low grind of an engine moved away through the access road, heading for the county route. Whoever had been out there was leaving.
Lark heard it too. She started past me. “I have to tell them not to come back. That I’ll call the cops.”
I grabbed her arm. “We can’t go after them.”
“Those are people on my property. At two in the morning.”
“I know. And I need you to trust me right now. We can’t go rushing in there.”
I could see her frustration as she looked toward the lights. “Why can’t I go after whoever is trespassing on my property?”
“Because they’re not kids and they’re not lost. I’m pretty damn sure the people out there are bad news.”
“What?” But she stopped pulling at my hand holding her.
The engine sounds continued to fade until they were nothing. They were gone.
The silence between us pulled tight.
“Bad news? What exactly does that mean?”
“There’s a drug operation running through the county.” I said it straight because that was the only way to say it. “They move product through remote rural properties. Back roads, access points, land where the owners aren’t patrolling their far boundaries.”
“And you think they’re using Pawsitive.”
I let go of her arm. “I’ve been finding signs on your property for a while but wasn’t sure.”
“Signs like what?”
“Tire tracks on the back access road, two sets, heavy. A section of fence cut clean with wire cutters on the south boundary. The old equipment shed has been used as a meetup spot—although that looked like teens more than anything. I went to Hunter with all of it.”
“Hunter? Why?”
“The Warrior Security guys mentioned the drug issue when I saw them in town a couple weeks ago but said it was primarily on properties on the east side of Garnet Bend.”
“Well, it looks like it’s not just the east side of town anymore.” She ran a tense hand through her hair, pulling it back from her face. “And you’ve known about this for a while and didn’t tell me.”
“I wasn’t sure it was definitely drug-related. Could have been kids getting into trouble. I didn’t want to scare you over something that might have been nothing.”
“But you were concerned enough that you told Hunter.”
Shit. She was pissed. And rightfully so. “I went to Hunter. Laid out everything I’d found. He confirmed it matches the operation they’ve been tracking with Lachlan.”
“You told Hunter about activity on my property. Before you told me.”
“Lark—”
“You made a decision.” Her voice had gone low. Controlled. “About what I needed to know about my own land. You decided what I could handle, and you took it to someone else, someone who doesn’t live here, doesn’t own a single board of this place, and you gave him information that should have come to me first.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“I know exactly what you were trying to do.” She took a step back, and the distance between us widened into something that had nothing to do with measurement. “I’ve lived through this before, Logan. I had someone who decided what I was allowed to know, what information I deserved to have about my own life. He called it protecting me too.”
It landed harder than the elbow she’d thrown. Harder because I couldn’t set my jaw against it or shake it off or file it under things that didn’t apply to me, because itdidapply to me.
My reasons were nothing like Carter’s. My intentions were clean. But the result was identical: a man had decided what she was strong enough for and kept her in the dark about her own life.
I stood there and took it because the truth was the only thing I had.
