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S omething was off with West and I couldn’t put my fucking finger on it. I wanted to say it had something to do with the file I had on him, but he insisted he was fine—everything was fine. And fuck me, I wanted to believe him.

But his mood made it hard to trust his words. He was withdrawn and snappy. Angry and confrontational. After he almost hit one of my guys, I quarantined him away from everyone else by putting him with the animals. At least with them, he was careful.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t that careful with himself.

The radio call about him getting hurt on some piece of equipment sent my heart galloping damn near as fast as I urged Zeus across the field. I hoped for the best but prepared for the worst.

West sat on a stool in the stables with a towel pressed over his forearm. Blood dripped off his fingers and soaked through the towel, but he didn’t bother to change it.

“I’m fine,” West snapped the instant he saw me .

“No, you’re not,” I retorted, not in the mood for his fucking attitude. Not when his blood was all over the ground. I dropped my hat on a bale of hale and crouched in front of him. When I reached for his hand, he jerked away. “Let me see your hand.”

“I said I’m fine.”

“I don’t give a fuck. Let me see your hand.”

“No.”

“Give me your fucking hand, West!”

“I don’t need you to baby me—”

“Give me your goddamn hand,” I demanded over him. “I ain’t asking as your anything. I’m telling you to do it as your goddamn boss. My ranch, my rules, my fucking liability.”

If looks could fucking kill. I didn’t give a damn. I needed to look at his arm, and if that meant I had to pull rank as his goddamn boss, I would.

There was a moment where I thought he was legitimately going to fight me—that we’d see this thing all the way through with his pissed-off attitude. And I didn’t have it in me to truly fight him. I knew that, and he knew that. It’d only end in an ugly blowout.

I held back a sigh of relief when he relented. It wasn’t lost on me the way he tensed up when I took hold of his arm. How much of it was pain from getting hurt and how much was it something else? I still didn’t quite understand his whole aversion to touch—if it was something more than just not liking it.

The gash in his forearm was deep but not enough for me to throw him in the truck and take him to the hospital. Thank fuck. There was no way in hell I’d get him there.

“How the hell did this happen?” I asked as I grabbed another towel to stem the bleeding.

“Hoof knife,” West muttered.

“You need to be more careful.”

“I don’t need your fucking help,” he snapped before I could say more. He knocked away my hand and took over applying pressure. “And I’m not a fucking liability.”

He stormed away, stomping out the door without ever giving me a chance to respond. Shutting my eyes, I pinched the bridge of my nose as I took a moment for myself. Took a moment to process. The back-and-forth whiplash was killing me. The hot and cold was killing me. I didn’t know what to anticipate or when to anticipate it. I felt like I was failing him for lack of knowing what the hell to expect.