He stops in front of me, ignoring my sarcasm. Concern bleeds through the professional mask. “What happened?”
I take a deep breath. I shouldn’t be surprised that he cuts to the chase. I never contact him through the ghost email account to say I need to see him ASAP. Even if I didn’t look like I’d spent the night tossing and turning—which I did—he’d be predisposed to seeing my cracks. “I saw him.”
“Who?” Wes asks, his voice low.
“The man who killed Mandy. The man who took us.” The words taste like ash. I rub my hand over my wrist. I swear sometimes I can still feel him branding me. “He walked into the Rusty Spur last night.”
Wes goes still. I know from experience that means his brain is already running scenarios, calculating risk, assessing threat level. “You're sure?”
“I'm sure.” I cross my arms, partly against the cold, partly to keep my hands from shaking. “I'd know his face anywhere. He's older now, but it's him.”
He pulls out a small notebook and flips it open. “Name?”
“I don't know his name.” The admission burns. It seems wrong not to know who wanted to hurt you. “But he's connected to the Turner Ranch. He’s the new foreman.”
“Description,” he says as he jots down his notes.
I give him everything I noticed last night in clinical detail: height, weight, build, distinguishing features. The scar above his left eyebrow. The way he holds his right shoulder slightly higher than his left, like an old injury that never healed right. The silver ring on his middle finger.
Wes writes it all down, his pen moving in quick, efficient strokes. “He didn't see you?”
“Not really.”
He stops writing and looks at me. “Either he saw you or he didn’t, Lily.”
Thinking about the way his gaze passed over me before moving on, I shiver. “I don’t think he recognized me.”
“You’d stand out, a pretty woman in a bar alone,” he points out.
“I was—” I hesitate, because this is where it gets complicated. “I wasn’t alone.”
Studying me, he puts his notepad away. “Who were you with?”
“You sound like a big brother,” I try to joke.
“I’m like a big brother with a gun.” He crosses his arms and stares me down. “Who were you with?”
I rip the Band-Aid off. “Mason Rivera.”
“Fucking hell, Lily.” He rubs a hand over his head. “Why don’t you just pick the most dangerous man in Iron Ridge and flirt with him? Oh wait, you did.”
Mason’s not the most dangerous man in Iron Ridge—Cole Turner’s foreman is. I shake my head. “He’s not that bad.”
Wes scowls. “Yeah, he is, or didn’t you read what I sent you on the Blackthorn gang?”
“You make them sound like some sort of Wild West outlaws,” I say, hugging myself.
“Aren’t they?” Wes steps in, lowering his voice. “I know on paper they look like heroes, but men don’t get distinctions like that without learning how to kill efficiently.”
A chill slides through me. “But they’re on the right side,” I argue weakly.
Wes gives me a long look. “That line gets blurry for guys like them.”
My stomach tightens, but then I see Mason giving me his seat. Mason standing between me and Mandy’s killer at the bar. Mason looking at me like I was something worth protecting instead of using.
Maybe that’s naïve. Maybe dangerous men are still dangerous no matter who they protect.
Wes looks at me like he can hear everything I’m thinking. He sighs. “What else haven’t you told me?”