Page 24 of Branded Mine

Ryder pulled me against him, and I went willingly, settling against his chest as his arms closed around me. His hand moved slowly down my back in soothing passes while the other wrapped around my waist, holding me securely against him.

Neither of us spoke for a while, and I listened to the steady beat of his heart beneath my cheek as our breathing gradually returned to normal. There should have been awkwardness after everything that had just happened. Questions. Maybe even regret.

But there was none. It all felt so right and… natural.

Ryder pressed his lips to the top of my head and left them there for a long moment. “Been wanting you my whole damn life,” he murmured.

My throat tightened, and I closed my eyes, curling closer to him, soaking up his warmth with my body.

For the first time in years, I didn’t feel alone.

12

Ispent the entire day alone on the ranch. Not working like I should have but lost in my mind as I walked the property. I did a loop from the house to the barn, out along the eastern fence line, then back again. The land felt different now that I knew what Ryder had done for the property… for me.

The quiet felt heavier than it should have. Every time I stopped, my mind circled the same questions I hadn’t asked yet.

By late afternoon I found myself in my father’s office again, staring at the empty desk. The drawers had already been cleaned out, the walls now bare, and still, the room smelled like him. I hated the scent of stale tobacco and the ghost of his anger that still lingered in the air.

I sat in the chair he used to claim and tried to remember the last time I had felt safe in this house. I couldn’t because small things kept turning over in my head.

The way Ryder’s face went carefully blank whenever my father’s name came up had started making me question things. So did the way people in town spoke about him.

I’d gone into Rootstown Creek twice that week for estate paperwork and supplies. Both times, I’d heard and seen it. Atthe grocery store, a woman lowered her voice when she thought I was out of earshot.

“Shame about Dwayne, but maybe now the girl can finally breathe.”

At the hardware store, the clerk glanced at me then looked away, like he was relieved he didn’t have to pretend anymore. No one asked how the crash happened. No one wondered out loud. They just accepted it. Quiet relief. No questions. He'd been an alcoholic, had gotten into countless bar fights, had plenty of DUIs, and hadn’t been liked by most in town.

Ryder had been working the west pasture all day. He’d texted twice—once mid-morning to say he’d be late checking the fence line, and another time around three just to ask if I needed anything from town. Both messages were short, practical, and exactly like him. Still, by the time the sun started dropping in the sky, I couldn’t sit with the questions any longer. And honestly… I wanted to see him.

I got in the car and drove next door.

Ryder was in the barn under the bare bulb, wrapping a clean bandage around a mare’s front leg. The horse stood still for him, head low. He finished the wrap, checked the tension, then gave her a quiet pat on the shoulder before unclipping the ties. Only then did he look up.

His gaze moved over me slowly, starting at my boots, up my jeans, along the black shirt I’d thrown on, and finally settling on my mouth. Something dark and hungry shifted in his expression, but he didn’t speak. He just watched me walk closer, that quiet intensity settling over him the way it always did when I was near.

I stopped a few feet away and my entire body heated just being close to him.The air between us charged with electricity, the way it always did now that we’d crossed that line. Ryder’sgaze stayed on me, dark and steady, like he was already bracing for whatever I was about to say.

I didn’t jump straight in, but I did glance back at him. “You never talk about him,” I said finally. “My father. Not once since I came back.”

Ryder wiped his hands on a rag, slow and deliberate, and didn’t deny it.

“I’ve only gone in town a few times since being back, but people in town talk like they’re glad he’s gone,” I continued. “Like the crash was some kind of relief. No one asks questions or even pretends to be surprised he died.”

He tossed the rag onto the workbench and leaned against it, arms crossed. The bare bulb above him cast hard shadows across his face. “They are glad,” he said. The words were simple. Flat and final.

“What happened after I left?”

Ryder’s jaw flexed once, and he looked past me for a second, then his attention slowly moved back to me. “He got worse, if you can believe that,” he said quietly. “Meaner. Started tearin’ the place up when he drank, smashed things, took his gun out and shot holes in the walls. Started runnin’ the tractor into the fence just because he could. Destroyed shit. Authorities came around a lot, and he got locked up plenty. But people stopped showing up. Stopped callin’ the sheriff because it never changed a damn thing.” His voice stayed low and even, but something hard sat underneath it. “He wasn’t just drinkin’ anymore,” Ryder said. “He was doing drugs, would lay lay low for a week, and then start all over again.”

The quiet that followed felt thick enough to choke on, and I held his gaze. “Why does this whole town act like they’re relieved he’s dead?” I understood. God, I understood, but some twisted part of me still carried this strange attachment to him simply because he was my father… even after everything he’d done.

Ryder lookedpast me toward the open barn doors and the darkening pasture. His voice, when he finally spoke, was ominous and gruff. “Some men don’t stop til’ someone makes them.”

I stared at him, heart beating too hard against my ribs. I heard what he said… and what he didn’t. He met my eyes without flinching, and what was reflected back at me was a quiet, unshakable certainty that had always made him feel like the most dangerous man I’d ever known.

“What happened, Ryder?” I whispered, not realizing I’d said the words out loud.