Page 93 of Ruthless Enforcer

I open to a clean page, and my charcoal starts moving.

Jake first. Broad shoulders, hard lines, his body angled almost imperceptibly toward Emma even while his attention remains fixed on Gabriel. Emma beside him. Softer lines, but no less strong.

Luke leaning against the counter, loose and irreverent, although there’s nothing careless about his eyes.

Then Gabriel.

I barely have to look at him anymore to know the lines.

The hard angle of his jaw. The sweep of his shoulders. The hand resting on the table beside mine. His wedding ring catches against the dark wood.

Mine.

The thought still gives me a little thrill.

I’m shading the curve of his thumb when a door somewhere behind the kitchen bangs open.

Footsteps come fast down the hall.

Mason appears first, Harper directly behind him.

Both are flushed from the cold. Harper has a tablet tucked under one arm, and whatever they were doing, they abandoned it in a hurry.

“We've got a problem,” Mason says.

The room changes. Luke puts down his coffee, and Jake straightens.

Gabriel rises beside me. “What?”

Harper comes straight to the table and puts the tablet down in the middle of it. “The feeds at Turner Ranch aren't live.”

Jake comes around the island. “How do you know?”

“We've been watching the property since yesterday,” Mason says. “Nothing. No vehicles. No movement around the house or barn. We assumed the place was empty.”

“It probably is.” Harper types with nimble fingers on the tablet’s keyboard. “But I kept seeing the same magpie.”

Luke leans over the tablet. “The same magpie.”

“Yes.”

“Maybe he lives there.”

Harper looks at him.

Luke nods gravely. “You’re right. Nobody likes a fence post that much.”

Shaking her head, she scrolls through the footage.

A gravel drive fills the screen, bordered by fence and pine. A black-and-white bird swoops down and lands on one of the posts.

Harper rewinds several more minutes.

The bird swoops down.

Same post.

Same flutter of wings.