Page 3 of Don't Burn Bridges
Scowling, he pointed at the other man. “You really are an asshole sometimes.”
“So Lou keeps telling me.”
Betty Lou Davidson owned Bar None, a combination restaurant, bar, and dance hall in Hazard. She and Lane had dated in high school. But they got into a fight, and he left town to join the Marines after graduating. When he returned home several years later and took a job with the police department, she’d made her hostility toward him known to everyone. Ever since, unbeknownst to her, people around town had bet on when the two of them would fall into bed together. It was clearly a case of love/hate, and Lane was determined to win her back one of these days.
Shaking his head, Seth leaned back. “See you at Bar None tomorrow?”
“For Shane’s birthday? Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Sounds good. See you then.” Turning toward his own truck, he tapped the SUV’s roof as Lane pulled away.
After retrieving the LED flares, he tossed them back into the toolbox and climbed into the driver’s seat. Before putting the truck in gear, he stared ahead, but Lane’s vehicle and the beat-up Ford Ranger were both long gone. He really wished he could’ve gotten a date with the woman, or at the very least, her cell phone number. Maybe he’d get lucky and run into her again.
Chapter 2
Opening the motel room door, Shylo flipped on the light switch and surveyed the room before stepping inside. Though the furniture and décor were dated, it looked clean enough, and no funky odors assaulted her, so she entered. The Moody Moon Motel was the only place to stay in Hazard Falls besides the B&Bs Seth had mentioned, which weren’t in her budget.
After closing the door behind her, she wheeled her five-dollar thrift-store suitcase over to a small table and chair, then set her duffel bag on top. She spent the next few minutes inspecting the bed for bugs, the bathroom for mold, and the rest of the room for anything else nasty. It was a relief when she found none of the above. Her mother had been a bit of a clean freak, and Shylo turned into one, too, as she grew older.
She'd been wary of every motel she'd stopped at during the three-day drive from Brimley Flats. Until this trip, she'd never stayed in one before. The drive had taken over twenty-five hours, longer than her GPS had calculated because of traffic from accidents, construction, and rush hours, so making stops had been necessary.
She only had a problem getting a motel the night she stopped in Kentucky after driving for nine hours. At the first place, she’d barely gotten out of the truck when the smell of meth, trash, and piss hit her. With a “hell no,” she left and tried a second motel farther down the road but stopped outside the office when three police cars pulled into the lot, with lights on and sirens screaming. She froze when the officers jumped out and drew their weapons. One of the uniformed men told her to get the hell out of there as the others approached a room at the far end of the motel. Without stopping for questions or out of curiosity, she rushed back to her truck and peeled out of the lot without a second glance.
The next morning, while watching the local news in her room at a third motel, she learned the police response was for a domestic violence incident that resulted in a murder/suicide. A man called 9-1-1 after killing his wife, then turned the gun on himself.
Thankfully, after that, the string of bad luck only included her truck overheating twice—once in Missouri and again just outside Hazard Falls. She hadn’t bothered buying coolant when she could refill the water jugs for free. The radiator had a small leak, and fixing it would cost a few hundred dollars—money she wasn’t about to waste.
Not with what she was owed.
Soon, she’d have more than enough for a brand-new truck. For now, she needed her measly savings to last until she got her hands on it.
Declaring the room fit to stay in, she carried the five gray totes from the truck bed inside. They held everything she'd wanted to save from the apartment she'd shared with her mother—extra clothes, photographs, important paperwork, and a handful of keepsakes she couldn't bear to leave behind. She worried that someone would steal the totes from the uncovered truck bed during the night.
While stacking the last one on the far side of the bed, she wondered if she’d made a mistake earlier, giving Seth her real name. Caught off guard, her response had been automatic when he introduced himself. She wasn’t wanted by the police or anything like that, and as far as she knew, her last name wouldn’t mean anything to any of the small town’s residents. But she didn't want to tip her hand before she'd had a chance to do a little research.
She grabbed her purse, phone, and keys and headed out to explore Hazard Falls, pick up supplies, and learn everything she could about her newly discovered half-brother—Shane Wilson.
Seth had just finished unloading the supplies from his truck and putting them in their proper places when Shane rode up on his horse, Rufus. Thankfully, his boss hadn’t shown up any sooner. Paige had sent Seth into Wexler for supplies for Shane’s birthday party tomorrow. The party itself wasn’t a surprise, but a few of the gifts were. Seth was the only other person who knew about one particular present, and he’d been sworn to secrecy.
The Red River Ranch spanned twenty-seven hundred acres and had belonged to the Wilson family for five generations. With over fifteen hundred head of cattle, dozens of horses and sheep, and enough other animals to keep everyone busy, it was one of Hazard's biggest employers. Seth’s job was to maintain the owners’ house, the bunkhouses, and the surrounding areas, tending to the landscape and making repairs when needed. Occasionally, he ran errands into town or, like earlier, to Wexler or Garden City. He always said he was a jack-of-all-trades, master of none, but loved his job.
Like some of the Triple-R’s single employees, he lived on the ranch. His apartment was in one of the bunkhouses—formerly Tucker's before he'd fallen in love with Shane and their first wife, Sarah, and moved into the main house. Two years after Sarah died of cancer, Paige came to work as their housekeeper and nanny for Arianna. Somewhere along the way, the two men fell hard for her, and vice versa.
While Shane, Tucker, Sarah, and then Paige faced scorn and ridicule from some residents of Hazard Falls, not everyone turned against them. Their friends, family, and employees stood by them, and as time went by, more people seemed to accept their unconventional marriage, especially since the Hadley brothers, Grant and Drake, now shared their wife, Blair. However, both trios took the high road and, mostly, ignored those who still hurled insults toward them and damned them to hell. That didn’t mean the men weren’t overly protective of their women, and the Triple-R’s ranch hands had Shane’s and Tucker’s backs every time. The Wilsons treated their employees like family, earning their respect and loyalty in return.
Shane dismounted his horse and wrapped the reins around a hitching post. “Did you get that stuff for me?”
“No, I drove all the way to Wexler, fucked around for a bit, then came back empty-handed.” He rolled his eyes, then tossed a small package to his boss. “Of course, I got it.”
“Wise-ass.”
The back door to the house swung open. “Seth? I forgot—oh, hi, Shane. I thought you were still in the north pasture with Tuck,” Paige said. On her hip was twenty-month-old Ashley Sarah, with a fist in her mouth and drool all over her chin and shirt. Arianna was still at school, but would be home soon.
Shane held up the box. “Just needed this. I’m heading right back out.” His brow creased in concern. “Everything okay?”
“Um, yeah. I forgot to ask Seth to pick up some... um... some more Anbesol for Ashley while he was out.” She bounced the little girl, who giggled around her fist. “We’re down to the last bottle, and it’s almost empty.”
Grinning, Shane stepped onto the porch and blew a loud raspberry against his daughter’s chubby cheek, making her giggle even harder. “We can’t do without that stuff, can we? Don’t want my baby girl’s teeth hurting.” He kissed Paige on the lips. “Or her momma’s ears hurting from all the crying.”
