Steal Her Heart (Kaid Ranch Shifters #1)(8)

Well that shook Bryson out of his reverie, and when he ran a rough hand down his jaw, he found a clump of thick mud there. She’d thrown it, and now that pissed-off little hen was gathering another handful. Her words lost that muddled sound and came in clear. “My face is up here, you pervert!”

“Well, where am I supposed to look? Ain’t my fault you come onto our property, flaunting your tits!” he yelled.

“Our property?” Wes barked, unlooping the rope from the saddle horn. “Ain’t nothin’ here belong to you, asshole.” And then he nearly ran Bryson over with Rango as he bolted to rope the escaping calf.

He’d seen Wes rope a hundred cows so he wasn’t impressed, but Maris twisted where she stood, hand full of mud as she watched Wes race down the lane, a loop of rope swinging over his head. He threw it and pulled it tight around the calf’s neck.

“He can do that,” she muttered. “Just randomly, he can rope a cow.”

“We all can,” Hunter enlightened her. “Any cowboy worth his salt knows how to wrangle a cow. Look lady, you’re really pretty, but you ain’t got no brains if you come onto this ranch yelling. It’s safer for you on your side of the fence.”

“No threats,” Bryson growled before he could stop himself. And his damn boots were taking him right for Hunter.

“No!” Hunter said, backing up quick and throwing his hands up. “I ain’t fighting today! Go throttle Wes. He’s the one who pissed you off!”

He couldn’t stop, though. He’d never felt rage like he did right now. He didn’t like Hunter telling Maris she wasn’t safe, didn’t like that at all.

“Bryson? Bryson!”

Hunter’s words didn’t stop him charging faster, and neither did the sound of Hunter cocking his pistol as he aimed it at him. “She can’t see you like this!” Hunter bellowed. “Bryson, stop!” Looking panicked, he aimed at the ground and pulled the trigger. Boom!

Searing pain zinged through Bryson’s calf, and he pitched forward, barely caught himself before he went down hard. He looked down at the growing red stain on the outside of his left calf. “Dammit, Hunter! These are my favorite Wranglers!”

Plop. The sound of the mud falling from Maris’s hand and hitting the wet ground was loud in this moment. Crap, there was a human here. A human woman not used to this rough lifestyle. This probably looked really bad.

“You’re worried about your favorite jeans being torn up?” she asked incredulously. “He just shot you.”

“Well, it was like a little shot,” Hunter said defensively. “Like a love shot. Like I aimed it at the ground to scare him off killing me, but it ricocheted and got him in the leg…a little. No arteries or nothin’.”

Maris was standing there with her muddy hands at her sides, her pretty mouth hanging open.

He would be healed from the flesh wound in an hour, but she didn’t know anything about bear shifter healing. All she knew was he’d been shot, and that was shocking to humans.

“Um.” He cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders. “Everything’s fine. It barely even got me.”

She stared in horror at his leg. “Blood is dripping down your boot.”

Oh shit, it did look kind of bad.

“Did you shoot him again?” Wes yelled, trotting up on Rango and dragging a very stubborn, head-tossing calf on the rope behind him.

“Again?” Maris asked, wiping her hands on her jeans and making muddy smears on the denim. “How many times have you shot him?”

Hunter rolled his eyes heavenward and looked like he was thinking real hard. “Six times four, carry the two—”

“Not important,” Bryson interrupted loudly, because Hunter was actually dumb enough to say the number of times he’d pulled a trigger on him, and it was a lot. Usually it was when Bryson was on a murdering spree as a massive grizzly bear and he deserved it, but whatever. “Can I talk to you alone?” he asked Maris.

“So you can murder me?” she asked. “No thanks, I like living.”

Okay, her sarcasm was a little much. “Fine,” he muttered. “It’s been a long day.” He limped past her toward the cattleman’s cabin. “Go back to your side of the fence, and we’ll figure out the business side of things later.”

“The business side of things?” Curiosity tainted her voice.

Bryson smiled to himself. Brave little hen. And sassy. His face still tingled from where she’d slapped him earlier. He liked her grit. “If you’re scared, you can go. I’ll just call you later.”

“You don’t have my number.”

Wrong, little hen. He’d already called her bank, found out how much she owed on her ranch, figured out her debts, tracked down her number, and trolled her idiot ex, Dallas Farrel’s, social media pages to try to figure out just how bad that jackass had screwed her. A woman like Maris didn’t break without good reason, and this morning, she’d been pretty damn close. He could tell losing her cows hadn’t been the first blow she’d been dealt.

He kept walking.

“I’m not scared of anything,” she called behind him. But she’d lied. It was there, etched into her voice. She was scared of something, and now the animal in him wanted to figure her out. Snuff out that fear and reassure her that she was safe. What are you scared of, little duck?