“My family is inside that gate and in this truck,” I said.
His jaw tightened.
In hindsight, I was stupid not to have locked the door—but I hadn’t thought they would touch me, not on our land, not like this. I was taken offguard when the passenger door swung open, and big, strong hands grabbed me so hard it hurt. I screamed, twisting to get away, kicking my feet and making contact with someone’s chest, making him huff a pained breath. It just made him hold me tighter, meaner, it hurt?—
Forrest wasn’t in the car anymore.
Before I knew it, Forrest’s fist was flying into the man’s face, forcing him to let me go. The man went hard to the ground, but two others were on Forrest from behind—one hooking his arm around his neck, the other punching him in the stomach.
“Leave him alone!” I screamed, launching myself forward to claw at their eyes. “Stop!”
“Don’t have to be like this, Willa,” Daley was saying from the fringes. “You need to come home.”
Forrest got his arm free and put the man choking him into the truck's side panel headfirst. The sound was loud and final.The third man came at him and Forrest caught him by the shirt and drove him back into the dirt and didn't let up.
I got my nails across the face of the man who'd grabbed me and felt him recoil. I didn't wait. I put my knee into him the way Haven had shown me three weeks ago in the kitchen, laughing, sayingjust in case—and he folded.
But Forrest…they were still going after him, getting up to attack him.
And Shepherd Daley was behind me now, grabbing me.
“You need to come home, you stupid girl,” he snarled. “Get in the goddamn truck.”
I whipped around and slashed my nails across his face, drawing blood. “I amnot going back!”
Daley’s hand shot out and twisted in my hair, and I screamed and fought. He was stronger than he looked, or maybe just meaner, and his grip tightened when I fought back.
“Stop fighting me,” he growled.
“Get your hands off her!”
Forrest was on Daley now, shoving him away from me, but the other three men were on him again, just…hitting him. Hitting him over and over, like they didn’t care if they killed him. I let out something between a sob and a scream, trying to move toward him?—
A cloud of dust was coming down the drive from the Holt property, Gage’s truck racing toward us. A couple of the men balked, letting go of Forrest—and Forrest came straight to me, pulling me away from Daley, wrapping me up in his arms. I looked over his shoulder to see the truck skid to a stop at the gate, then I watched as Gage jumped out, shotgun in his hand; Wyatt and Stetson getting out next, Stetson jumping the fence in a heartbeat.
“You need to get the fuck off my land, you son of a bitch,” Gage snarled, cocking the shotgun.
I was breathing hard. Forrest’s hands were on my back, his arms so tight around me that I knew no one else could touch me. “Are you okay?” he was whispering, frantic. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I said. “It’s okay?—”
“You told me you hadn’t seen my girl, but she’s standing right here with your cousin’s hands all over her, Holt!” Daley shouted from behind me. “Ain’t very neighborly of you!”
“Sheriff’s on his way out,” Gage said. “You wanna take it up with him? Why you just assaulted a grown woman and our cousinon our land? Why she needed to run away from you in the first place?”
Stetson cracked his knuckles, just a couple feet away from some of the guys who’d already taken a beating from Forrest. This was over…we all knew it.
But I didn’t know if they would actually let me go.
Daley looked at Gage’s shogun; at Wyatt, just on the other side of the gate…at Stetson, ready to come in swinging.
Then he looked to me, and I pulled away from Forrest to make myself hold his gaze. I’d spent four years looking away from him…I wasn’t doing it anymore.
“This isn’t over,” he said quietly.
“Actually,” I said. “It is. Now get thefuckoff of our land.”
I’d never used that word before.