Page 35 of Desert Rain
Planted?
Regan scoffed. “You think she’s some cartel mole?”
“I don’t like it.”
A beat.
“I pulled her info.”
Of course he did.
“Regan—”
“I said don’t,” she snapped, voice low but fierce. “You don’t get to do that to people I bring in.”
Silence stretched for a second.
Then Mason again, quieter. “What kind of woman walks out of a random bar with people she doesn’t know?”
The answer came fast.
“Desperate,” Regan said.
Simple. Flat. True.
My throat tightened.
“Back off, Mase,” she added. “You know what it’s like to hit bottom. She needed somewhere to land for the night. That’s it.”
“She could still be trouble.”
“She’s not.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
Another pause. Then, softer, “She’s harmless. Except for that feral little demon she calls a cat.”
A weak laugh from Regan.
The conversation shifted, voices lowering again, but I didn’t hear the rest. Didn’t want to. I stepped back from the door, the glasses cold and hard in my hands.
Risk. Planted. Trouble.
The words stuck.
I should have known better. This wasn’t my world. These weren’t my people. They looked like safety from the outside—warm fire, easy laughter, drinks passed without asking—but underneath there were rules, lines, suspicions, men in the shadows running background checks on strangers because kindness apparently required surveillance.
And I didn’t belong anywhere in it.
Heat crept up my neck. Embarrassment first, then anger. That old familiar feeling followed close behind, the one I hated most: the sudden certainty that I had overstayed my welcome without realizing it.
I set the glasses down quietly on the counter. My nails dug into my palms, grounding me.
As soon as I sobered up, I was gone.
Me and Bandit. Back on the road. Five hours or not, overheating truck or not. It didn’t matter. Better that than sitting here wrapped in someone else’s blanket, smiling into someone else’s firelight, feeling like some undercover villain in a story I hadn’t meant to enter.
