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Lacy turned around and yelled as she took off, “Run!”

* * *

After a long dayand a far-too-short supper where Eric didn’t see Ali, he headed to Connor’s office for their evening meeting. He settled into his usual chair and waited for the meeting to start. The group usually kept pretty quiet since none of the guys other than Brendon and Connor spoke unless they had to.

Brendon handed Connor a few printed sheets of paper from his desk printer, then rolled back a few inches, giving the floor to Connor.

“Evening,” Connor started. “We’ve had a good day with the boys. Thank you to Eric, Sam, and Junior for working with them today. For the first time since they arrived, they looked tired at supper.”

Junior chuckled. “That may have been because a minor fight broke out between Big E and Jayzon, and I told them if they had the energy to fight, they had the energy to muck stalls. They’ll fight in private from now on.”

Eric snorted. Even the guests got to do some work around the ranch just to get the feel of real life again. Though the Wayside men usually didn’t ask guests to do that particular job. “Must have been some fight.”

Junior grinned. “Bloody lip. I sent Terrell to the tack room and showed him how to care for some tack while the other two were mucking. It might not have been arewardbecause it was still work, but because he stayed out of the fight, he didn’t have to grab a pitchfork.”

Connor snorted. “You’re lucky they didn’t take them to each other.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll be careful not to leave next time.”

Snorts and soft chuckles filled the small room.

Connor glanced around. “Honestly, that brings us to the main thing I wanted to talk to you about tonight. Direction. I can tell that helping these boys isn’t where most of you saw this ranch going. You don’t complain, and I appreciate that, but I need to know how all of you feel about bringing Wayside back to the way it was meant to be.”

Everyone within Eric’s sight slowly nodded their agreement. Even though he enjoyed helping Terrell, Terrell didn’t have the same finish-line goal that the usual guests of Wayside Ranch had. With Viceroy all but silent, keeping people away seemed wrong.

“I know Viceroy isn’t into horses, so I don’t see the theft of my horse as an issue to think about before we bring people back, but we do need to consider that danger,” Eric said.

Connor nodded. “I heartily agree. We always need to think about what we’re doing at least three steps ahead of when we do it. But the boys are only here for a month, and over a week of that is gone. If we want to bring people in here, we have to start looking at applications right now. So, all in favor of starting up applications again, say yea.”

Every hand rose in agreement, including Connor’s.

“All opposed, nay.” Connor glanced around the room. Not a single hand rose.

“Good. Brendon and I have already tentatively started looking through our stack. We’re planning to choose people who were rescued from further away than we usually do. While this might make healing more difficult on them and their families, since they’ll be parted, it also makes their security and safety easier.”

Brendon nodded. “I agree. As much as I was happy to help someone who was close to being from our community return to health and security, they had to move in order to be safe. Speaking of which…” He motioned for Connor to continue.

Connor raised the pages Brendon had printed off. “I received an email from Artemis and the other Guardians this morning that I wanted to share with all of you.” He held up the page in front of him.

He read aloud, “’Connor, I wanted to let you know that we are all settled on a rural plot of land outside of Duluth, Minnesota. There’s enough space for us to train, live, and have as a home base. It’s working for us so far. I’m not sure how we’ll get started as a security company, but I can promise you The Guardians will be more careful with our new employees. I hope you’ll accept my apologies for what happened.’”

Connor glanced up to the group. “I assured him in my reply that we’re all fine. I don’t want him worrying about us when he’s got a new venture to run.”

Connor didn’t wait for the men to agree and continued with the letter. “’I’m sure you’re wondering about Trace and Scarlet. They are both working for a coffee shop a few miles from our home. We offered them their own space when we arrived here, knowing they had nowhere else to go. They’ve looked at housing on their own, but the homeless and vagrant population is larger than I thought. Neither of them feel safe on their own yet. For now, they are safer with us and we’re happy to have them here.

“’There has been no sign of Viceroy or anyone nosing where they shouldn’t be, but I’ll keep a watch out for anyone. Hopefully, the silence means Scarlet and Trace are finally free. Godspeed, Artemis.’”

The room stayed silent for a moment. Scarlet had wanted to be free the entire time she was at Wayside, and no matter what they’d done, she hadn’t felt it. Until she’d left. That was the sticky web she’d escaped. It constantly wanted to draw her back in.

“I’m so glad they are slowly recovering their lives,” Edwyn said.

Connor nodded. “Before we break up this meeting, I just wanted to tell you Officer Blake called and they have no new leads on the horse theft yet, but they are still working. We can’t give up.”

Eric wouldn’t give up, but where could he begin?

ChapterEighteen

Ali raced to the car and locked her door the moment they were both inside. Lacy started the engine and whipped a U-turn, leaving the farm in the dust behind her.