Page 132 of The Mountain Echoes

I move to touch her cheek, but she shifts, glares.

“What’s wrong?”

“Wrong?” Her chest heaves. “You know, this morning I came by Kincaid Farms to…doesn’t matter why I came. It’s what I found there that’s?—”

“You saw Celine?” My heart begins to beat fast. She heard me talk to her sister, that’s the only reason why the eyes that usually look at me with affection are spitting fire.

“Yeah, and I heard how you’re waitin’ for me to fail.” She’s angry and hurt. She’s seething.

“Aria, you need to hear me out on this.”

“Why?” She flings her hands up in the air. “You’re just likethem. Like Hudson and…actually, you’re worse. You behaved like you were…like we were….” Her voice trails off, thinned by unspoken pain.

“What do you think you heard when I talked to Celine?” I tilt my head, hating how crushed she looks.

“Think?” She huffs out a harsh laugh. “You were telling her that your plan all along has been to see me fumble the ball, and the only reason you’re helpin’ me isso that people don’t think you’re the one sabotaging Longhorn.”

I hold her gaze. “You believe that.”

“Of course, I do. I heard you say it.”

“Don’t listen to what you heard,” I say huskily. “Listen to what you know. To what you felt.” I step closer, until I’m in her space.

She swallows hard. “She says she’s in love with you. She had her arms around you and you?—”

“Why do you think I’d do that?”

“Because you’re an asshole, that’s why.” There are tears in her eyes. She’s angry and tired and beautiful.Andshe’s mine.

“First things first, Tate probably recommended Wes because Celine asked him to.”

Her expression flickers—confusion, hope, fear. “What?” She looks around. “Is that why he’s gone missin’?”

“She probably warned him or some such thing. I don’t know.”

Aria is a smart woman, and I see the wheels turn in her head. “Are you tellin’ me that what you said to her was to stop the sabotage?”

“Yes. To give you time to get your herd to Gunnison. To give Hugh time to get proof against her and Hudson.”

She opens her mouth and then closes it.

“I don’t believe you,” she whispers, but the force with which she’d been angry earlier is now gone. She’s not sure of my guilt anymore. But she’s not certain about my innocence either, my feelings for her.

A part of me is injured by her lack of trust. But a larger part of me understands. Aria has never had anyone on her side. The one time she thought she did and accepted it, she was betrayed.

Now, she thinks history is repeating itself.

“I said what I needed to protect you. I need her to think I’m still on her side. I don’t know if I convinced her or…she knows and is regrouping.”

She looks down at the ground for a long moment and then at me. “Wes has been fuckin’ with the ranch.”

“Yeah. That’s my guess.”

Her brows knit in irritation. “Damn. I knew Tate always had a thing for her, but I didn’t think he’d actually do somethin’ like this on purpose.”

“I told Hugh what’s goin’ on. He’s got people lookin’ for Wes.”

Her expression twists in puzzlement. She holds up a hand. “What do you mean, Hugh knows? How the hell does he know? I haven’t gone to him.”