Page 126 of Cowboy Heat

“Can’t you see what’s going on?” Alice yells at her. “Everyone is working together. It’s onlyuswho have earned it to be left standing!Wedeserve what they have. It wasuswho worked for it!”

Alice is yelling so hard her face is reddened. She’s spitting. She’s a whole new level of mad.

And I don’t think she’s talking about her and Kissy anymore.

The world slows down around me. Every question and answer I’ve gotten in Robin’s Tree goes from chaotic to ordered. I’m missing some pieces, but right now, I’m looking at Alice Dean with new eyes.

She’s angry.Realangry. Yet, it’s not born from annoyance or being beneath someone’s thumb. Alice Dean is radiating a hatred. A long-standing one that’s been building and now is ready to knock Guidry down.

But why would Alice have that for Guidry? And who does she thinks deserve what he has more than him?

I do some fast math and I slam into a memory.

Then I turn to Micah.

“Worked for what?” Kissy asks. “What are you-”

I interrupt her before she can finish the thought.

“Micah, do you remember the picture May showed you that you told me about? The secret picture of the Bayou Cowboy that she fell in love with when she was a teenager?”

He nods.

I don’t know everything there is to know about Robin’s Tree but every instinct in me is pointing to a new possibility.

Two secrets, years apart.

Micah keeps my eye contact as I take a stab in the dark.

“Did May ever say how old the woman was who gave her the picture?”

Normally, I wouldn’t betray the boy’s trust like this, but it’s important now.

He must realize it, even though there’s confusion in his tone.

“She said it was an old lady who was visiting. Like a grandma.”

My adrenaline starts surging again.

If the lady who owned the photograph was old enough and if Alice was young enough…

Everyone has put their line of questioning and focus on Alice on hold.

Even Alice has paused.

But when I swing my gaze back to her, she’s zeroed in on only me.

“Do you know who was she visiting?” I ask Micah.

He doesn’t get a chance to answer, but not because of her.

“He knows!” Sheriff Roland yells.

I have two guns.

Guidry has one.

Whatever clarity I’ve just grabbed onto goes out in a new, terrifying wave of chaos because of them.