Page 25 of Branded Mine

He didn’t look away when he spoke again. “He got drunk one night and started runnin’ his mouth,” Ryder said, voice flat and controlled. “Talkin’ about you. About how he was going to bring you home whether you liked it or not. Said some things no man should ever say about his own daughter.” His jaw flexed hard, and I saw his hands curl into tight fists. “Said them right in front of me.”

The air in the barn went still.

Ryder held my gaze for long seconds. “You want me to go on?”

Without thinking, I found myself nodding slowly. But did I really?

“That was the night everything changed,” he continued. “Decided he wasn’t going to get the chance to put his hands on you again. Never say one more goddamn thing about you. Not ever.”

He didn’t tell me the rest. He didn’t have to, and although I didn’t ask the real question, I knew what he was saying. Panic welled in my stomach and radiated through my limbs and head, but I didn't know if it was because of Ryder or this weird relief I felt.

I turned and walked out of the barn before I could figure out what was happening, before I could ask him if he’d killed my father. For me.

He didn’t stop me as I got in my car and drove home. He let me run because he knew I needed it. The implication of what Ryder said was in the car with me like a passenger, heavy and unspoken.

Some men don’t stop til’ someone makes them.

His words hung heavy around me.

For the first time since I’d come home, I wasn’t sure whether the man I cared about—the man I loved—was the safest place I’d ever known… or the most dangerous.

13

Ididn’t sleep. I couldn’t.

Every time I closed my eyes, I heard Ryder’s voice again telling me that some men don’t stop until someone makes them and the quiet certainty behind those words. The implication sat heavy in my chest all night, growing louder until I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

Around two in the morning, I finally gave up. I pulled on an old sweatshirt, went downstairs, and made a pot of coffee. I sat at the kitchen table in the dark and drank it black, staring out the window toward the Kane Ranch even though I couldn’t see anything past the porch light.

My mind kept turning over the way Ryder’s face went carefully blank whenever my father’s name came up, the way he never volunteered a single word about him, and the quiet way the whole town seemed to treat Dwayne’s death like a relief no one wanted to question.

By the time the sky started to pale, I was on my third cup and still no closer to feeling calm or less confused and concerned.

I stood to rinse out my mug but froze and leaned toward the window above the kitchen sink. That’s when I saw it. Ryder’struck was parked at the end of my drive, headlights off. I didn’t need to ask why because I knew. He’d been there all night.

I set the mug down, walked outside barefoot, and crossed the gravel toward him. He opened the driver’s door as I approached but didn’t get out. He just watched me, that same dark intensity settling over him like a second skin.

I stopped a few feet from the open door and crossed my arms over my chest, the early morning air chilly. I wasn't going to beat around the bush. I’d been mulling this over all night. “Did you kill my father?”

The question hung in the cool morning air as Ryder looked at me for a long time. His expression didn’t change. There was no surprise, and he sure as hell didn’t show any shame or guilt. He kept that steady, unshakable stillness.

“Yeah, Lila. I did.” Four words. Flat and final.

I waited, my heart slamming against my ribs, knowing he was going to say more. I took a step back as he climbed fully out of the truck, shut the door with a final click, and leaned against it.

Ryder’s eyes never left mine, and when he spoke again, his voice was low, rough, and stripped of any softness. “He found out where you were living. Got it in his head that he was comin’ to get you. Started talking about what he’d do once he had you back under his roof. Said it like it was already decided.” His jaw flexed hard, the muscle jumping once. “Said it right in front of me. Drunk and mean and smilin’ like he already owned you again.” The quiet that followed made the hairs on the back of my neck raise. “After he started sayin’ that shit about you that night, I decided he wasn’t ever going to touch you again.”

“What did you do?” I asked, and I heard the horror in my own voice.

Ryder didn’t look away as he gave me what I wanted. “Waited until he was good and drunk. Then I messed with the steerin’on his truck just enough that it wouldn’t hold a straight line at speed. Followed him out of town and stayed far enough back that he never saw me. When he started driftin’ all over the old highway, I let him. Didn’t try to help. Just watched.”

His voice stayed low and even, and I didn't know if that comforted me because he was so in control or scared the shit out of me. My father was going to find me and hurt me? It was probably the ramblings of an abusive drunk, but God… what if?

“He went off the road on that bad curve near the river…” He let the words hang. “No one questioned a thing. They already knew what he was.”

A bird called somewhere in the distance cutting through the silence.

“I’d do it again,” Ryder said with no hesitation, no apology. “Be damned if I let anyone—least of all that motherfucker—come near you again.”