Page 9 of The Rogue (Four Corners Ranch #11)

Justice could only see red. He was beyond rational thought. He was beyond understanding. He was beyond everything but his

desire to destroy the man who had hurt his Rue. Who had taken her perfect day and turned it into a nightmare.

He was going to bend that man into the shape of a pretzel. And then...

“Asher.”

Asher was halfway to the front door of the church, and he stopped and turned.

“Listen,” he said, putting his hands up.

Justice growled. He crossed the space and without giving him a chance to say another word, punched him in the mouth.

Asher went down. It wasn’t like he was a weak guy. He was in the military. But he was a damned sight smaller than Justice,

and Justice had a feeling that even though he had never been enlisted, he could take this guy.

“Justice,” he said, breathing hard, and not making a move to hit Justice back, which made him feel like he couldn’t hit him

again, even though he wanted to.

“You get the hell outta here,” said Justice. “Or I will kill you. Do you understand me? I don’t mean it as a metaphor. I will kill you. They won’t be able to find your body. It’ll be the mulch I feed to the cows.”

The cows would not eat a human being; the cows were vegetarians. It didn’t matter. Because Justice had a feeling that the

cows would know that he deserved to be eaten.

“I’m sorry,” Asher said.

All the goodwill Justice had ever felt toward Asher was gone. Justice had tolerated him–liked him even–because he made Rue

happy. Now he’d made her cry. So that was it.

“Like that means anything. It’s an insult . Get out of here. She should never have to look at you again. She shouldn’t have to deal with you, she shouldn’t have to

see you. Nothing. Do you understand me?”

“I get it...”

“I can’t believe that I thought you were all right. I never thought you were good enough for her, because nobody could be.

But she loved you. She really did. Do you have any idea how much that meant?”

Rue had risked herself to love him. She had given herself to him. She had...

She had broken down all those walls for him, and this was what he had done to her? The doors to the sanctuary opened, and

his siblings appeared.

They looked at him, and then they looked back at Asher.

“I’m going,” said Asher, putting his hands up in surrender.

And then he walked out of the church. A whimper instead of obeying. Probably for the best, since Jus tice didn’t especially want to get arrested today. But he was willing to. He was absolutely willing to.

“What happened?” Daughtry asked.

“He cheated on Rue. He called the wedding off. I would’ve killed them. But I thought maybe you didn’t want to arrest your

own brother.”

“I might’ve looked the other way,” Daughtry said.

Because that was how much they all loved Rue.

“I have to go to Rue.”

“Yeah. Hey. We’ll explain this to the guests. She doesn’t need to do it.”

“Damn straight,” said Justice.

He trusted that to his siblings. He didn’t trust Rue to anyone but him.

He went straight back into the dressing room, where she was sitting on the floor, her knees held up to her chest. “What am

I going to do?”

She looked lost and miserable. His favorite little go-getter totally devastated by this. This woman who was never without

a plan. There she was all curled up like a kid again. Like when her parents had hurt her.

“Aw, Rue,” he said, getting down on the floor beside her. He put his arm around her, and held her up against him. “First of

all. You’re going to be fine.”

“Am I?” she asked, her voice watery.

“Yes. You are. Because you have been through way worse than this. And there is no ineffectual, weak-willed man who deserves

to take a damn thing from you.”

“But he did,” she said, wiping tears away. “Eight years of my life. I invested eight years of my life in him.”

“That isn’t all you did,” he said. “You kept the yarn shop going, and you made your grandmother’s house a home.

You lived your own life. It wasn’t all about him.

Ever. You’re one of the most levelheaded people I’ve ever known, and you were levelheaded when it came to him too.

I always admired it. Because so many people completely lose it when they get into a relationship.

Like they forget how to function. Forget how to think.

But you never did. You never gave all of yourself to him. You’re still here.”

They sat in silence for a long time. “I should give you your necklace back,” she said.

“No,” he said. “Don’t do that.” His stomach was tight. “You keep it. Because it was about you making a better life. You’re

still going to do that. You don’t need him to do that. You only need yourself.”

She looked up at him, her face tear streaked. It killed him. “But that’s lonely. I was so tired of being alone. You asked

me earlier how I felt about my parents not being here, and the truth is I felt okay. Because I was making a family. With him.

Finally. Now I’m not going to have that. I don’t have a family. And I...”

“You have me,” he said. “You have the Kings. I know it’s not what you mean. I know it’s not what you wanted. But you have

us.”

“Thank you,” she said, her voice thin.

He pulled her in tighter, and she rested her hand flat on his chest. He covered it with his own, and sat with her like that.

Him in the tux, her in the bridal gown.

“What did you do?” she asked finally.

“I punched him in the face.”

She jerked away. “You didn’t.”

“I did. He’s going to go back home to that other woman with a fat lip and a sizable bruise. I’m not sorry about it.”

“You can’t just punch people, you know. It’s assault and stuff.”

He shrugged. “It turns out I did, though. So what’s anyone going to do about it?”

She sighed. The way that she did when he was feral, accepting that she couldn’t change him. In context with everything, at

least that felt normal.

“I’ll never forgive him,” he said. “For ruining your special day.”

She leaned back against the wall. “I thought that I’d been through enough. Honestly.”

“Me too.”

“I want to leave,” she said.

“I’ll take you home.”

“I don’t want to go home. Because he’s there. He’s at my house clearing out all of his stuff. I told him that I didn’t want

to see him again. So he needs to get it all now, because whatever else is there... I was going to throw it away.”

“Then you’re coming home with me. You can stay the night.”

“Thank you. What about the guests?”

“Daughtry is taking care of it. We’re going to go up the back, and you don’t have to see anybody. I’ve got you, Rue.”

Because what was the point of being a disreputable best friend if you didn’t use your skills sneaking out the back when your

good-girl best friend was in need? There was no point.

He’d wanted to be good for her today. But the thing about him and Rue was that they complemented each other. So if right now she needed him to be bad, that was what he would do.

When Rue woke up, she couldn’t figure out where she was. The ceiling was unfamiliar, and the bedsheets were scratchy. It wasn’t

her house, with her gloriously high-thread-count sheets. It certainly wasn’t the cute B&B that she had intended to go to with

Asher for their wedding night.

Asher.

She sat bolt upright. The wedding . The wedding hadn’t happened. The wedding had been called off. For a solid thirty seconds she sat there in the bed she hadn’t

identified yet, wondering if that had been a dream. Wondering if today was actually the wedding day. Willing it to be.

But slowly, she was able to focus on the rest of the room. Slowly, she was coming to terms with what day it actually was.

And...

She was at Justice’s house. In his spare room.

Sleeping on a little twin bed, the dubious sheets a testament to his bachelorhood.

She groaned, and put her head in her hands.

She had cried last night until her eyes were sandpaper.

Yeah. Now she remembered everything. Justice had taken her home, Arizona had brought over some clothes, she had changed and then she had gone into the bedroom and curled up in this bed.

She had slept fitfully at first, and then like she had been rendered unconscious.

Which was why she was so disoriented now.

She looked at the basic digital clock on the nightstand.

It was ten thirty in the morning. She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept in that late.

And she still felt exhausted. All the way down to her bones.

She grabbed her phone. It had... exploded. Everyone who had known her well enough to be invited to the wedding—clients

from the yarn store, distant cousins, other local shop owners—had texted her to find out if she was okay. She really couldn’t

deal with it. Not right now.

She always answered her texts. She judged Justice and his eternal red bubble that sat on his text window. The man had 150

unread texts. What kind of monster had that many unread texts? But today, she realized she was going to be that monster.

There was one text that she saw that she felt too curious to ignore. Or maybe curiosity was the wrong word. It was just grim. But...

She touched Asher’s name and opened it up.

Everything is cleared from the house. I wish that we could talk. I love you. And the idea that I’m not going to see you again

kills me. But I understand. I do.

All she could do was stare at it. If he loved her, how had he been able to have sex with somebody else?

Or even more importantly, how could that have felt so important in the moment?

How could it have felt so essential? If she was really the perfect woman for him then why had it been so much more important for him to have an orgasm than to spend his life with her?

She rolled out of bed, and looked at herself in the mirror. She was an absolute nightmare. Her hair was a rat’s nest, her

eyes were swollen nearly shut. Her misery was bleeding out of her pores.

Asher didn’t deserve for her to feel this level of heartbreak. But she had loved him, or she wouldn’t have been intending