Page 56 of Mountain Grump Protector

I glance down at Willow. Is she mine?

The tangle of feelings rolling me right now—protectiveness, relief, desire, frustration, and God help me, love—settles it.

I tighten my arm around her. We have a lot to talk about. A lot. But Holt’s right about one thing: there’s no point in fighting it when it comes to Willow, and I wouldn’t want to.

Even when she can be infuriating. And she really can.

“It was—” I hold my hand up to stop all the objections I know I’m about to get. “Smart,” I finish, and Willow looks up at me, a tentative smile on her face. “It was really smart,” I say directly to her. “Hopefully it’s enough to put him away for a long time.”

“It sure as hell should be,” Beck says, jumping into our conversation. “But it would be better if we had the truck. With evidence like that…” he lets out a low whistle.

“Maybe I can help with that.”

All heads turn to Bryson, who’s standing a few steps away from the rest of us like he’s not sure if he should turn and run before we all remember he’s still there.

If he were smarter, it’s exactly what he should have done.

I turn, releasing Willow only so I can grab the kid if he does bolt. “What do you mean?”

“The truck,” he stammers. “I know where it is.”

“What do you mean?" Beck steps up. "You know where the truck is?"

“I assumed you would have dumped it,” I say. “Or sold it.”

Bryson looks between Willow and me as if his sister can help him answer for him. I’m growing very weary of this kid leaning on his sister to get him out of all his problems.

When Willow doesn't offer any guidance, Bryson turns back to me and starts talking. "I took the truck because I needed a way to get out of town," he shoots a guilty glance at his sister. "But when I realized what was inside, I didn't want anything to do with it. I mean... there's trouble, and then there's trouble," he says. “So I dumped it down by the river. If I got caught with that…”

“You would have had bigger problems than Ronnie to deal with,” Willow says with a shake of her head. “At least you made one somewhat smart decision in all this.”

I failed to see how he’d made any smart decisions, but it didn’t seem like the time to bring it up.

“And you can take me to the truck?” Beck asks.

Bryson nods.

“Let’s go,” he jerks his head toward the truck.

“Right now?”

“You got something else to do?”

Bryson glances at his sister. Willow doesn’t say a word. She crosses her arms and shakes her head tightly.

“Guess not.”

There’ll be time for her to deal with her brother, but I agree, now is not the time.

“We’ll take him down the mountain,” Holt says to me. “He’s going to have a lot of explaining to do,” he addresses the last comment to Willow, who only shrugs.

“I can’t protect him from everything,” she says. “Not anymore. If he broke the law, he needs to face it.”

I know it hurts her to say it, but I’m so proud of her for coming to the realization that she doesn’t need to carry the weight of his choices.

“Thanks, guys.” I look at each of my buddies. “I appreciate⁠—”

“You don’t need to say it,” Holt stops me.