Page 93 of Ransom
"For what?"
"For him."
Rafe's eyes searched my face for something he didn't find.
"He's a Ranger, Ransom. He's not even ours."
The anger came up so fast I tasted it. I let it come this time. I wasn't going to swallow another goddamn thing today.
"Maybe he ain't yours. But he's mine. And I love him, Rafe."
The yard went still.
I said it again because I needed to hear it again.
"I love him. I'll be damned if I'm going to stand here and let Rex torture and execute the man I love."
His hand was still in my shirt. The yard had gone quiet around us. Cruz's breathing came across the porch. Pearl panted low at Sierra's leg. Coyote, off to my right, had not moved. I didn't look at any of them. I kept my eyes on Rafe.
"Get the hell out of my way, Rafe," I said. "Or I'll make you."
He finally let me go. "You go after him, Ransom, you don't come back. You hear me? You ride out that gate, you ain't my right hand anymore. You're his. And I don't know who that man is who's standing in front of me, but it ain't the boy I took in ten years ago."
The words went into me like he'd put a knife between my ribs.
I didn't have anything to give him back. The thing he wanted me to take back was the only true thing I'd said in ten years on his land, and I wasn't going to take it back to keep my place at his table.
Sierra put a hand on Rafe's shoulder. "Rafi, let him go."
"Sierra—"
"Querido. He just told you. In front of all of us. You heard him."
"I heard him."
"Then hear him. You're standing in front of a man who just said the word out loud, Rafi, and you're asking him to act like he didn't. He can't. He won't. You're asking him to be less than what he's become."
Rafe's jaw worked. "I need him here."
"You need him whole more than you need him here," Sierra said.
Rafe took a deep breath and removed his hat. In all the years I'd known him, I'd only ever seen him outside without his hat a handful of times. It felt wrong looking at the man without it, hisdark braided hair bare. There was more silver there than there used to be, and that felt wrong too.
"Go on then," Rafe said eventually. "Do what you've got to do."
He turned and walked toward the porch and didn't look back.
Sierra walked up to me and took my face in his bloody hands. "Go, aguijón," he said. "Bring him home."
"Sierra—"
"Bring him home, and we'll figure out the rest when you get back. Go save him."
I nodded, turned, and sprinted for Galahad. I untied him, swung up, and turned him toward the gate. Galahad went without me asking.
A horse came behind me before I made the gate.
"Hold up, lover boy," Coyote said, riding up on a paint mare.
