Page 50 of The Rogue (Four Corners Ranch #11)

“All right. I’m going to demonstrate. And then I’ll let you have a couple of practice throws. We can do best out of five after that.”

He looked at her, and she could tell that she had greatly offended his delicate masculine pride by suggesting that he needed

to warm up. Or instruction of any kind.

“I think I can handle it.”

“Just... based on your feelings?”

“Yeah.”

“Your feelings aren’t facts, Chief. No matter how much you might want them to be.”

“Based on feelings and what I know about myself, I think I’m good.”

She affected a very innocent expression, grabbed hold of the axe and slipped out of the truck.

Then she went to stand in front of the target. She squared up and decided to go with a classic, two-handed overhead throw.

She lifted the axe over her head and drew it back.

“Don’t do anything foolish like hopping in front of me,” she said.

“Yeah, I think I can figure that one out, thank you.”

Then without overthinking it, she let the axe fly. She did her best to gauge the distance between herself and the unfamiliar

target, and it flew end over end, landing with a satisfying thunk at the upper left of the target.

“That’s my favorite throw stance,” she said. “And it’s how I recommend you start.”

“It wasn’t a bull’s-eye,” he said.

She rolled her eyes and walked down the slight incline toward the target. She grabbed the axe and wrenched it out of the wood.

“The next one will be.”

She walked back up, lifted the axe over her head and let fly again. This time, she was able to correct and get it right at the center of the target.

She pumped her fist, unable to stop herself from celebrating.

“There you go,” she said. She regarded the implement, then looked at him. “This is a pretty big axe. You might need a smaller

one.”

He lifted a brow. “I think I can figure out how to handle a big one.”

She bit the inside of her cheek, uncertain whether the double entendre had been intentional. That was the problem. She really

didn’t know him.

“The size of the axe doesn’t really matter, Denver.”

“That sounds like something people with small axes say.”

He took the axe from her easily and stood a couple of paces back from where she had been. Smart. He was going to naturally

throw with a lot more strength, so he needed to put distance between himself and the target. She decided to focus on that

rather than a comment on big axes.

He was a big man. She assumed he was... proportional. Though sometimes men could be a surprising disappointment. Sort of

a theme in her life, she had found.

But that was why she didn’t depend on them for anything.

He pulled the axe back over his head, and his shirtsleeves came up, revealing the definition of his bicep, and she couldn’t

help but look.

Instantly, for some reason, she took a moment to imagine Denver King throwing axes shirtless. Okay. She was done with that.

There was really no point mooning after a specific nice-looking man. Because again, it was no guarantee they wouldn’t be disappointing.

He let the axe fly, with way too much force. It bounced off the wooden target and landed in the gravel below, the head sinking

deep into the ground. “Deep stroke,” she said, her lips twitching.

He looked at her, his face completely void of expression. “I’m known for that.”

She ignored the buzzy feeling between her legs.

“Go fetch your axe.”

“Got any tips for me?” he asked as he walked over to where the axe was buried in the dirt.

He pulled it out one-handed, with ease.

“Well,” she said dryly. “You don’t have to go so hard. It’s not a jackhammer.”

“Noted.”

Everything she said felt tainted by double entendres, and she had no idea what to do about it.

“You could also do it one-handed.”

His lips went into a flat line. “Could I?”

“You could,” she returned, not taking her gaze off his. “Of course, using two hands gives you a little bit more control. And

you know, it’s not the size of the axe, it’s the...” She lifted a brow. “Motion of the ocean, so to speak.”

“You’re mixing your metaphors.”

“Am I? Whoops.”

She shouldn’t be indulging in this. It made her blood feel a little bit fizzy. She was going to enter into a business partnership with him, and they didn’t need to go teasing each other like this.

If he was teasing. She genuinely couldn’t tell with him. He was inscrutable. Unknowable.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll try again with your top tips in mind.”

He stood back on the line, lifting the axe up over his head again. This time, he let it fly with a lot more control, and it

hit the target with a satisfying thud. Her aim was still better. But he landed the shot.

“There you go. Now that you’ve found the sweet spot, you just have to keep throwing it at the same angle so that you can hit

the same spot over and over again.”

This time, she saw a glimmer in his dark eyes. “Is that how you do it?”

“For optimum satisfaction, yes. If you find a good spot, you keep going.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

He went to the target and yanked the axe out again. Then she took it from him and went to stand in the ready position. “Best

out of five, Denver King. And when we’re done, you can tell me if you want to continue.”

“Okay. In the meantime, though, tell me a little about yourself. Like a job interview.”

“Well, that wasn’t part of the deal.”

“You aren’t setting all the terms, are you?”

“Okay,” she said, her teeth mildly set on edge. She drew the axe back and threw it, letting it fly true until it hit the edge

of the target. She was distracted by him. Which was unacceptable.

“What is it you want to know?” she asked, turning to face him.

“I want to know where your sisters are.”

“Sarah is in college. So is Whitney. Abigail graduated. She got a job in Fresno.”

“Fresno. Wow. Sounds like hell.”

She felt defensive of her sister’s life choices, but he wasn’t wrong. “Yeah. It does to me, too. But she’s happy. And she

isn’t here.”

“Right. But you want to start a business here?”

“Not my end goal.”

She went and took the axe out of the wood, then reset her stance. She handed it to him and let him walk up to the line.

“Does this mean it’s my turn to ask you a question?”

He let the axe fly, and it hit the outer edge of the target. Just barely in.

He didn’t tell her not to ask the question. He didn’t invite her to, but he didn’t tell her not to either. So.

“What’s your ultimate vision for King’s Crest?”

“I want it to be a little bit of a destination. I want to bring more tourism into the area. I want to benefit myself and my

family. But I also want to... to do something worthwhile. My dad did nothing but break shit, as you well know.”

“I do.”

“I want to do better than that. That’s it. End of story.”

“My turn, then?”

She put herself in the ready position and let the axe fly. It went true, right in the center.

“Go for it,” she said.

“So you don’t want to stay here.”

“No. Not long-term. Wherever my sisters end up, I’d like to be a little bit closer to them. It’s possible that they’ll be

far-flung. Maybe I won’t quite be able to pull that off. But I’m going to try. I don’t have a legacy here. Not one to fix.

Not one to give even a single shit about. I lived here because this was where my dad decided to hunker down and get in bed

with a criminal—that’s your dad. We didn’t have roots here.”

“But you want to start your business on my land.”

“I want to start a business, I want it to become profitable, I want to pay you back. And then I want to take some of what

I made and open another location. I’ll leave you the place when I leave. And keep collecting some of the profits.”

“I see.”

“I don’t have happy memories here, Denver. I don’t have a reason to stay. It was...”

It was tangled. Complicated.

For many years, Denver had been the reason she’d stayed.

Oh, not him personally. Because she didn’t even know him personally. But that check he left in the mailbox.

And... in spite of herself, she had to admit that feeling that there was a wolf watching over them.

Maybe even keeping them safe. Plus, things had been hard enough.

Trying to figure out, as a teenager, how to put a house on the market, how to take her sisters and move them to a different school, all of it.

.. It was just a little bit too much. Where she had lived, where she still lived, sat between Mapleton and Pyrite Falls.

She split the difference between the two.

Working in either one had always been about the same.

And it might be kind of a pain sometimes, but it was familiar.

And they could afford the cost of living.

In a city, that wouldn’t be the case. And another small town would be just as difficult to navigate as this one.

So for years, it just hadn’t made any sense.

He went and got the axe. His turn again.

“You want me to help you get a grip on that big axe of yours?”

He snorted, but when he threw the axe, it went wide.

That made her stomach twist a little bit.

Well. It was a good thing to know. That he wasn’t immune.

He was just a dude, after all. Not really a wolf, or any of the other strange, fanciful things she had convinced herself he

might be.

They didn’t ask each other anymore questions, and she was the hands-down winner of the round.

“All right,” he said, plunking the axe head down into the dirt with a thud, his large hand wrapped around the base of the

handle. “You got yourself a business proposition, Sheena Patrick.”

“Good. I look forward to doing business with you.”

She reached into her pocket and took out the poker chip. Then she pressed it into his palm, ignoring the heat the transfer

left behind on her fingertips. “Just let me know when you want to meet next.”

“Depends. Are you going to quit your job down at the bar?”

“I have to put in my two weeks’ notice.”

“Fair. How about we talk after that.”

“I guess we will.”

“I guess we will.”