Steal Her Heart (Kaid Ranch Shifters #1)(18)

“We got a problem?” Bryson murmured.

“I don’t know. Do we?” Wes asked. “Where you been?”

“You know where.”

“This for a girl? Leaving at nights now for a girl? Letting us down for a girl?”

“Letting you down? Last I figured, I wasn’t chained to this place twenty-four seven. This is a job, Wes. It ain’t my whole life.”

“It should be.”

“Why?”

“Because I fuckin’ trusted you with this place!” he yelled. Shaking his head hard, he strode off toward the fence line, then back when Bryson got out. Time for a fight because no one talked to him like this without an ass-whoopin’.

“You keep saying that. Just a job, just a job. Look around here, Bryson.” He gestured to the wide open pastures. “This is paradise. He pointed to Hunter, who was jogging their way, kicking gravel with the toes of his boots as he did. “We found paradise, and we gave it to you to protect.”

“What are you talking about, man?” Bryson asked baffled. “Spell it out! Because I’ve been up all night fighting you’re fuckin’ kind to keep a human safe.” He pulled his shirt open, exposing the healing claw and teeth marks.

“Oh, shit,” Hunter murmured, eyes on Bryson’s wrecked skin.

“Yeah, well, while you were protecting that human, you left us unprotected. After you fought them, where do you think they went for revenge?”

Bryson shook his head. “Wes, I’m so tired, man. Just tell me what you—”

“Here, Bryson! They killed eighteen head of cattle before we could even Change. Not to eat, just to kill them for vengeance. And you think it’ll stop there? You’re so fuckin’ wrong! You don’t know what you’re into!”

Bryson stood there, dumbfounded. “Eighteen,” he whispered.

Hunter was hanging his head, scratching the back of his neck. “With motivation, a pack could annihilate our entire way of life here. We’re just two. We don’t have the strength of a pack behind us.”

“Why not?” Bryson asked.

“Fuck off, Bear.” Wes spat on the ground near Bryson’s muddy boot. “We don’t owe you our life story.”

“Wes,” Hunter murmured.

“No! He made his choice. Picked a girl. You can go now, Bryson.” He strode forward and got in his face. “Fuck off to anywhere but here.”

“You’re firing me? For missing one night on the ranch?”

“No, I’m firing you because you never figured it out!” Wes yelled so loud it echoed through the ranch.

“Figured what out?” Bryson screamed back.

Wes shoved him hard, and Bryson stumbled back. Anger exploded through his veins, and he stepped up and socked Wes right across the jaw. Wes went down hard and painted the gravel with his busted lip. He laughed. Laughed! The fuckin’ psycho.

“Making this easier and easier,” Wes said, standing and wiping his jaw with the back of his hand. Bryson had never witnessed such hatred in a man’s face before. He didn’t understand.

Wes gave him his back and made his way up the road toward the big house.

Hunter watched him go and sighed. “I don’t want you to go,” he said without even looking at Bryson.

“I don’t understand. Is he mad about the pack? That don’t have nothin’ to do with me. I didn’t draw them here. Did you?”

Hunter popped the top two buttons of his shirt, exposing a scar.

A burn. No… Bryson stepped closer and studied the capital K attached to an X. It was a brand.

“Every pack has a brand. That pack killing our cattle? They ain’t our brand. They ain’t got nothin’ to do with us.” He pointed to his scar. “K for Kaid. We got a long bloodline of us,” Hunter murmured. “The X we added after our older brother died.”

“Aw, shhhhit,” Bryson said, casting his attention to Wes’s receding back.

“We don’t fit in packs. We tried, and it got Sam killed.” Hunter jerked his head toward Wes. “He don’t know how to work in a pair. We were always used to three of us. I am what I am. I ain’t a smart man, so Wes got the short end of the stick.” Hunter shrugged up one shoulder. “You remind him of Sam. He ain’t said that, but I can tell. You remind me of him sometimes, too. I know you think you just answered an ad for help on this ranch, but we checked you out the second you called us. Remember that day you were sitting in Tap’s in town? Circling jobs in a newspaper? Making calls from that table in the back corner?”

Bryson nodded. “I had about twelve dollars to my name back then. I needed something good to happen.”

“So did we. Wes watched you from the bar, and then he looked at me and said, ‘He’s the one.’ And that was that. We knew you were a shifter, but that ain’t why we hired you. You look like him. Like Sam. He had dark hair, wore it short like you, brown eyes, dark beard. No tattoos, but when you’re all covered in a shirt, sometimes I catch Wes lookin’ at you workin’. Sam was his right-hand man. He was the good brother He was the oldest, and the responsible one who kept me and Wes in line. And now all Wes got left is me, and there’s a hole in him that got a little bit filled when you came along. I know Wes acts like he hates you. But that ain’t how my brother shows hate. If he ignored you altogether, that’s hate for him. If he gives you shit, he believes in your potential.”