Page 25 of Song Bird Hearts (Green River Hearts #4)

Valerie

T he road curls around the mountain like a lazy snake, slow and winding through thick forest and switchbacks still slick from morning melt.

Though it’s spring, this high up on the mountain, frost still forms at night, but as soon as the sun comes up, it starts melting away.

It’ll be like this for another month. Maybe we’ll get one last surprise snowfall before summer comes around.

Either way, it’s a relief to feel the sun on my face through the backseat window.

Inside the car, no one talks.

Kevin sits snugly between me and Gilden in the back seat, snorting softly, completely unbothered by the tension that thickens the air.

I can tell he’s enjoyed this little vacation, away from the flashing lights and hordes of people.

Of course, he’s also enjoyed the snacks and bits of food that Gilden sneaks him all the time. The two became fast friends after that.

Gilden has one boot up on the back of Knox’s seat and is humming something under his breath, but even he hasn’t poked the bear today.

He’s no longer dressed in his signature loafers, choosing instead to stick with jeans, a dark t-shirt, and boots, like he’s prepared for war. I suppose he is. I suppose we all are.

Wolf rides shotgun, all still and silent as a statue as he stares out the window like he can feel a trap coming.

His eyes take in every detail, hunting for signs of attack.

Of the three men, he’s the most supportive of this plan, happy to see me stepping back into the woman I was before fame set in.

Knox drives with both hands tight on the wheel, his jaw clenched against the tension around us. His eyes are hard on the road in front of us as he expertly drives along the hazardous road. He’s dressed like Gilden, just as prepared for war.

Or for earning his paycheck, I guess.

God. I probably should have asked Hank how much he had to pay for this protection. I should pay him back so I can free Knox from this hell. Free both of us at this point. I’m sure he’d enjoy that.

I continue to stare out my own window, my arms crossed against the tension.

Knox keeps looking at me in the rearview mirror when he thinks I’m not looking.

I catch him out of the corner of my eye, but I don’t look back or let him know I see.

He’d made his opinion perfectly clear. I’m reckless, na?ve, and a paycheck he’d once considered letting die.

He doesn’t trust my choices and he doesn’t trust himself with me.

And maybe he’s right.

Maybe I am stupid for this, for wanting to stop pretending I’m someone I’m not, for wanting more than survival.

By the time we make it to the main road again and start heading toward White Stag Pastures, I’ve fully convinced myself I’m an idiot for all of this, but it’s too late to back down now.

Even if I admitted this was a bad idea, we’d still need somewhere else to go, and there are only so many places to hide from an organization as large as the 27 Foundation.

The only thing keeping me grounded is Kevin’s snout in my lap and Gilden’s fingers threaded through mine. Through all of this, Gilden and Wolf are steadfast in their decisions to support me and happy to tell me how they feel.

Even if Gilden hasn’t told me that he loved me like he’s apparently told Knox.

That’s a conversation for another time.

Gilden’s humming comes to an abrupt stop. It’s the first sign of something being wrong. When Wolf stiffens a split second later, I tense and straighten in my seat.

“Vehicle behind us,” Wolf says, calm and controlled. “Been there since the last turn.”

I turn and take in the black SUV a ways behind us. It’s gaining fast, clearing speeding up.

“Just one?” Gilden asks.

“For now,” Wolf answers, his eyes on the mirrors.

Knox’s eyes sharpen. His voice stays low. “Seatbelts. Now.”

I’m already wearing mine, but the others dutifully click theirs on. Kevin finally straightens in concern, fueled by the sudden fear coming from me. He presses tighter against me and I wrap my arms around him in comfort.

I thought we’d at least have time to make it to the ranch before they attacked. They were just waiting. . .

Knox slowly picks up speed and I look behind us, watching what the SUV will do. When it guns the engine harder and starts really closing the distance, I realize we’re in a whole heap of trouble. At least it’s only one car to tangle with. At least it isn’t a whole team of cars.

“Here we go,” Knox mutters, almost annoyed, before he slams on the gas.

The tires squeal briefly before we launch forward and I’m pressed back into the seat. My arms tighten around Kevin, fear dancing in my chest. My heart leaps in my throat and it takes everything in me not to reveal just how panicked I am.

“Tell me he can drive,” I say to Gilden as I grip Kevin to me like he’s my guardian angel. A guardian angel pig. When pigs fly. Maybe we’re lucky right now. I’m rambling. Oh god. We’re gonna die.

“He can drive,” Gilden fires back, grinning despite the situation. Adrenaline sparkles in his tone, as if this is the most exciting thing he’s done in a while. Honestly, that puts me more at ease than anything else. If Gilden panics, then I know we’re in trouble.

Despite Knox’s driving, the SUV clearly has more horsepower than this car does.

It surges up alongside us, trying to clip our rear end and send us spiraling.

Knox swerves with surgical precision, weaving between lanes like he was born to drive like this.

When their SUV hits us, he goes with it, preventing us from spiraling into an uncontrollable spin.

It might be the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen Knox do, the way he drives. The way he keeps us from dying.

We hit a narrow pass and the SUV tries again, this time aiming to ram us off the road entirely. Knox yanks the wheel left, skidding just enough to avoid impact and keep control.

“Fuck!” I gasp as I clutch Kevin to my chest like he’s a seatbelt extension. With how much we’re moving around, I don’t want him to get hurt if we actually do spin out.

“We’re six minutes out from White Stag,” Knox barks. “Hang on.”

He cuts across the ditch, bypassing a turn entirely, and the whole car catches air for a breathless second before slamming back down on the road. Kevin squeals. I scream.

Wolf is laughing under his breath. Laughing!

We tear through the last stretch of open land, and just when I catch the first glimpse of the White Stag ranch fence, I realize that once we get there, we don’t have any reinforcements. We’ll be sitting ducks, and we’ll also be putting anyone who might be there at this time in danger.

“Give me your phone!” I tell Gilden.

“What?”

“Give me your fucking phone!” We don’t have long and I need him to move faster.

He tugs it from his pocket and tosses it to me and I immediately start typing in numbers that haven’t changed since we were kids.

He picks up on the second ring. “John,” I breath, the panic hard to hide in my voice. “We’re comin’ in hot and we’re being followed by a black SUV that’s tryin’ to run us off the road. White Stag.”

“You at the gate?” he asks, all business.

“Less than a minute out,” I reply. “We need help.”

“I’m close. I’ll be there,” he answers and then ends the call. The sound of his sirens being flicked on echo in my ear for a split second before it cuts off.

We hit the gravel stretch hard, the car losing traction for a few seconds before Knox confidently guides it back straight.

The black SUV is just a blink behind us, trying their hardest to stop us from reaching our destination.

White Stag rises out of the dust like a fortress in front of us.

Dressed in weather-worn wood with peeling white paint, fencing reinforced with iron, and the great bronze statue of a stag still standing tall near the main barn, White Stag looks every inch one of the thirteen great ranches of the basin.

The gates are already open for us, waiting, and we come flying inside.

Knox tears through the entry, does a wild e-brake spin in the main driveway that has both Kevin and I squealing, and comes to a stop with screeching tires and gravel dust. The SUV slams to a stop just before the gate.

But John doesn’t let me down. He comes from the other direction, cutting through White Stag from the back roads, skidding on the gravel as he slams on his breaks. He climbs from the car, his cowboy hat on, his badge flashing, with his gun in his hand as he steps toward our car.

“Stay inside,” Knox commands before climbing out himself. Gilden follows, but Wolf stays firmly in the car with me and Kevin.

The SUV idles just past the second gate, matte black and menacing. Its windows are tinted too dark to see inside, but the energy is unmistakable. They’re coiled, watching, waiting. Whoever is inside means to do us harm, and they’re not afraid of us knowing that.

Knox doesn’t take his eyes off it, one hand on his gun. “They get out,” he warns the others low, “we put them down.”

Gilden nods from beside him, his own gun in his hand.

But they don’t have to fire their weapons.

Because behind us, the ranch comes alive.

First comes the barking, dozens of dogs rushing the fence line, their hackles raised and their teeth bared. Shepherds, mutts, and a few cattle dogs that had been saved from bad homes come barking like hell itself had loosened them.

Then the doors open. From the main house, from the far barn, from the bunkhouse and the woods beyond, they appear.

Ranch hands, kin, family. Familiar faces I’ve missed since I’ve been gone fill the yard, people I’ve grown up with, who took care of me when mama passed.

These people are family. These people are home.

Not a single one of them comes out unarmed in the face of the unknown people in the black SUV.

Some hold tools that can double as weapons: hammers, axes, heavy fenceposts.

Plenty hold guns. One of the older women pushing seventy, Cathy Jenkins, carries a double-barrel shotgun with floral etching on the side and an apron with flour still on it tied around her waist. She’s the manager of the ranch while I’m gone on tour and the best damn baker this side of the Grand Teton Mountains.

Another young man, one of the Victor twins, has a bow slung across his back and a cigarette in his mouth. He flicks the ash with casual menace.

White Stag doesn’t flinch.

It doesn’t need to.

They just stand there—twenty, maybe more—shoulder to shoulder behind our car. Silent. Unyielding. The bronze statue before them of the great stag fits. These people all hold the same spirit.

“Hoo boy,” Gilden whispers from where he has the protected door open, his eyes wild. “This what home looks like?”

“Damn right it does,” I murmur, my heart kicking hard in my chest.

The SUV sits there for a few long, tense seconds more.

Then it backs up.

Fast.

It reverses all the way down the gravel road, tires spinning in retreat, and vanishing around the bend without every cracking open a door. The moment it’s gone, the dogs all relax and rush over to investigate who’s in our car.

People start murmuring, nodding to me as I finally climb out of the car, giving me that hard-earned respect that came from growing up in the Green River basin.

And then John turns toward me and I know I’m in for a tongue lashin’.

The others give him a wide berth as he steps forward, dust settling around his boots.

That same old Stetson sits on his head, the felt nice and worn in.

Those same tired eyes that have seen too much over the course of his life but never look away meet mine.

“You wanna tell me,” he says, voice even but pointed, “why I just stepped out of my car into a damn standoff?”

I swallow. “It’s a long story.”

He raises a brow. “Then you better start talkin’, superstar. You know I’ll stand with you, but I’m not standin’ blind.” He crosses his arms. “And the explanation better come with some of Mrs. Cathy’s lemonade.”