Page 1 of The Lonely Road

CHAPTER 1

mason

The fact that she’s beautiful doesn’t surprise me. I’ve done my homework. I know her as well as one can when you read through a hundred-page profile of someone.

What does surprise me is that I’m attracted to her.

I watch her without being watched—which is what I do best—from the far end of the bar at The Rusty Spur, where I sit with a tumbler of bourbon I haven’t touched.

The place is loud, wall-to-wall—the usual for a Friday night. A live band hammers out something heavy on steel guitar.

Nobody’s paying attention to the man in the corner. That’s by design.

I dress like the locals. I talk like them. I become them—wherever I am.

Taya Morningstar is twelve feet away, and she has no idea I exist.

She’s at a high-top with two women—one dark-haired and rancher-built, one blonde with the kind of easy laugh that fills a room.

I clocked them when I walked in—Aria Delgado Kincaid and Joy Kincaid.

They’re both in the file, tied to significant land in this valley through Maverick Kincaid—Aria’s husband and Joy’s brother. Impressive company for a woman who’s been here just over six months and has already worked her way into the fabric of the place.

I wondered how she’d embedded so fast—but one look at her tells me why.

Some women lean into what their beauty does to a room. Others don’t. That’s the difference between a woman who has female friends and one who doesn’t—and she clearly has them.

She leans forward, says something, and they all crack up. The laughter is contagious and attractive, and several cowboys glance their way. They turn away fast enough. Mav Kincaid, from my files, is known to be a hard-ass—no one in Wildflower Canyon would dare to fuck with someone under his aegis.

“And then it went poof,” she says.

I can’t hear her clearly, but I manage to read her lips. It’s another skill honed during years of working for Uncle Sam. The education I got on the military dime is profitable and handy now that I’ve gone mercenary.

She talks with her whole body. She’s not performing—I don’t think so. I think this is who she is.

Alive.

Her hair is down, dark, and thick past her shoulders. She’s in jeans and a blood-red blouse. She appears to be someone who dresses for herself and achieves something devastating in the process.

I was already impressed by what I read in her file.

Born in Denver, raised in Ignacio on the Southern Ute Reservation. She is Núuchiu.

Harvard Law—natural resources and water law. Top of her class.

Clerked for a federal judge handling water adjudication.

Six years at a top land-use firm in Aspen—partnership track until it got derailed.

Now she represents ranchers in water disputes against firms like the one she used to work for.

The file said she was formidable.

The file was an understatement.

I pick up my bourbon and take a sip.

Get it together, Brooks. She’s a job.