Chapter 3

I pulled Nell in through my door and locked it. She was shaking but quiet.

Boone walked to the toolbox bolted behind the cab and came back with a tire iron. He tapped the tip against the driver's window. Light. Almost lazy.

"One."

Tap.

"Two."

"Swing."

He looked at me.

"Go ahead," I said. "Do it."

He raised the iron. Held it up. His eyes drifted to the cherry-red paint. The chrome trim. The Calloway Livestock Auction decal on the tailgate.

This truck wasn't his. Title in my father's name. Loan in my father's name. One busted window would cost five grand he didn't have.

He set the iron down on the roof and crossed his arms.

From the back seat, Nell — voice raw: "Coward."

"This is unlawful restraint, Boone. Felony in this state. Let me out of this truck or I'm calling the sheriff and every one of you goes in."

He grinned. "Call him." Jerked his chin at the hills. "Show me how many bars you got."

I already knew.

"Nearest tower is twelve miles east, Briar. Nothing gets in or out of the back forty unless I let it."

He picked up the rope his mother had dropped and started pushing it through the gap at the top of the window. Inch by inch. The end swung in front of my face.

Up close it was worse than I thought. Stiff with old sweat and dried-on crud from years of dragging calves through processing. Dark stains in the fibers. A smell that hit the back of my throat and stayed.

Nell gagged behind me.

Then his voice changed. Went soft. Slow. The drawl came back — the patient, coaxing one he saved for when he wanted me to fold.

"Come on, babe. Lean your head over. Let me slip this on. Ten seconds, one picture for the family, and I take it right off. We go inside, cut the cake, and tonight it's just us." He paused. "I'll do whatever you want after this. Promise."

That voice. The one that always came out right before I gave in on something I shouldn't have.

The threats I could fight. This was worse.

I pulled my head back. "I'm not putting it on."

His face went flat. "Fine."

He jammed his arm through the window gap up to the elbow and closed his fist around my hair. Right at the base, close to the scalp.

And pulled.

Pain tore through my skull so hard my vision whited out. Bobby pins popped off and scattered. I felt strands rip free at the root, winding around his knuckles.

He hauled my head toward the gap. Breath hot against the glass.

"I'll drag you through that chute by your hair if I have to. Quit making this my problem."

Don't pull away. He's got a fistful. The harder you fight, the more it rips.

I stopped struggling. Went slack. Leaned into his hand instead of away.

The pain dropped. His grip loosened — just barely. He thought I was done fighting.

"There you go," he breathed. "Easy."

I found Nell's eyes in the rearview. She was already watching. I mouthed one word.

Keys.

She reached forward and turned the ignition.

My thumb hit the window switch.

The glass shot up. Boone's forearm caught at the wrist. His knuckles went purple in a second.

He screamed. His hand let go of my hair. Strands of it fell across the seat.

He kicked the door, thrashing, yelling for someone to break the glass. Ranch hands were already coming with tools.

I didn't look at them. My scalp was still burning. I popped the center console.

The CB handset was right there. My cousin Gideon had tuned every truck in the caravan to channel nineteen before we left. "Case somebody blows a tire," he'd said.

Behind that baler — ten of my cousins in ten trucks. Gideon did two tours in the Marines before he came home to haul cattle. Tobias rode bulls on the rodeo circuit. Amos could put a twelve-hundred-pound steer on the ground by himself. And none of them could hear a thing from up here.

I pressed the talk button. One chirp.

"They want to run me through their cattle chute. Wedding's off." My throat tightened. "I need you here. Now."

Static. Two seconds.

Then Gideon. Low. Flat. Dead calm.

"Who."