“So he decides who stays and who goes.”
“He decides the criteria. I make the judgment on the ground.” I take a drink. “That’s pretty specific for someone looking for ranch work.”
“I’ve moved around a lot. You learn to read how a place works before you decide if you want to stay.” She picks up her coffee. “Who belongs and who doesn’t. That’s the first thing you figure out.”
“That’s a polite way of putting it.”
“How would you put it?”
“We decide who stays and who goes based on what’s safe for the pack. It’s not about excluding anyone. It’s about protecting our own.”
“And the wolves who don’t make the cut? The ones who get moved along? Where do they end up?”
The question is a degree sharper than the ones before it. Still framed as academic interest, still wearing that careful neutrality. But the temperature dropped. I can feel the cold in her scent intensify for a half-second before she pulls it back.
“They’re connected with communities suited to their situation,” I say. The stock answer. The answer that used to sound like a wall and now sounds like a door with something behind it I don’t want to see.
“Connected by who?”
“A network. It’s not something we manage directly.”
She nods. Doesn’t push further. But I sense the slight shift in her expression as the information is stored. It tells me she’ll be back to this topic. Maybe not today. But soon.
She’s looking for something. And whatever she’s looking for, it’s connected to the coldness in her scent and the invisible barrier she’s erected between us.
“Anything else you want to know?” I ask, eyeing her.
“That’s plenty for today.” She smiles. The same smile she’s been giving me all morning: warm, engaged, technically perfect. Like a photograph of a smile. Same shape. No heat.
“I should get going,” she says. “Briar’s expecting me back.”
“Briar,” I say the name deliberately. Because here’s the thing: I’ve been so goddamn focused on Willow that I’ve barely done my job with the other one. Garrett asked me to watch both outsiders. I’ve spent two weeks watching one and ignoring the other, and that’s the kind of lapse that gets an enforcer killed. Or fired. “I’ve been meaning to ask about her. Your friend. The one in the hills.”
“What about her?”
“I’ve never met her. She doesn’t come into town much.”
“Briar’s not a people person. She’d rather be walking a ridge than sitting in a diner. I’m the sociable one.”
“She’s been spending a lot of time in the hills east of town.”
Something shifts in Willow’s posture. Tiny. A micro-adjustment in the set of her shoulders. If I weren’t watching for it, I’d have missed it.
“She likes the terrain out there,” she says. “She’s a walker. Always has been.”
“Our eastern hills.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Not necessarily. But those are ranch lands. Private property in some sections. If she’s going past the boundary markers, I should know about it.”
“I’ll tell her to be careful.” Willow holds my eyes. Steady. Unreadable. “We’re not looking to cause trouble, Conner. We’re just passing through.”
“I know.” And I do know… or I think I do. But the enforcer in me is awake now, and he’s looking at this woman with a different pair of eyes than the man who kissed her at the swimming hole.
She pays and then leaves.
I sit at the counter and don’t watch her go. Instead, I think. The enforcer thinks.