Knowing that Rhett could be in surgery for hours, and with hours to go before their dinner, Nat walked out to the stables and saddled up Goliath. She was in full avoidance mode when it came to her father—at least for now. Big Stan seemed to find it way too amusing that she had gotten married. There was a gleam in her father’s eyes when he looked at her and Rhett together that made her suspicious—and worried. Her father knew her incredibly well, they had always been so close, and if he figured out her true feelings for Rhett, he would meddle. Out of love, but still. She didn’t need her father meddling.

Is how I really feel showing on my face? she worried as she rode Goliath along one of the horse trails up along the north end of the property. She loved the sheltering cool of the woods, the many ferns that blanketed the ground, the fallen trees that Goliath cleared like they were twigs. He was truly a magnificent horse, and she felt lucky to be able to ride him.

The sun was starting to sink when she finally turned around to head back. As she passed a clearing in the trees, she looked out into the valley, and her stomach dropping at what she saw.

“Whoa, boy,” she said, pulling on the reins. “What in the world?” She squinted, wondering if her eyes were playing tricks on her. But no…

Right there, in the middle of the dense woods on Timothy Durbin’s property, a giant patch of trees had been cleared completely—this far away she could even see that the stumps had been blasted out of the ground.

That’s what he was doing with the dynamite he picked up? Blasting up tree stumps, not looking for gold?

Nat urged Goliath forward, off the trail and through the forest, heading toward the line that divided Durbin’s property from Rhett’s. She stayed behind the trees so she couldn’t be seen, but after about fifteen minutes of picking through the forest, she finally reached the edge of the clearing that spread out before the sheltering woods… and that acted as a type of Trojan horse for whatever Durbin was up to.

What was he up to? Nat craned her neck, peering through the trees. There were a few trucks parked in the clearing, but no one in sight. Was he starting a logging operation? Was that what this was all about? Did he need water access because he wanted to build a mill or something?

She was about to slip off Goliath’s back to get a better look when a loud boom shattered the silence of the forest. Her foot, already slightly slack in the stirrup, twisted as Goliath reared up, startled by the sudden noise. She tried to hang onto the horse, but it was too late, she was falling, and then, everything was black.

* * *

Oh God, my head, was her first thought as she blinked in the sudden, bright light.

“She’s awake,” said a voice.

Who was that?

“Go get him,” said another voice, and then she heard footsteps in the muddle as she struggled to sit up. Spots cleared from her vision and as she took in her surroundings, a slow jolt of fear filled her.

She was in a shed, one of those prefab metal ones. There was fertilizer stacked against one side of it, and to her right, were shelves and shelves of seed trays, lights shining above them, a fan whirring in the back for ventilation.

The seed trays were filled with poppies. Not pot… freaking poppies.

Durbin was a drug dealer. Her head—there was a big lump on the back—spun at the realization. He made opium or heroin or whatever you made with poppies. She wasn’t really hip to the process.

Oh, crap! Her thoughts were skipping all around as the severity of this situation finally hit her. She licked her lips, wincing at how dry and cracked they were as the shed door swung open and Durbin stepped inside.

“And you said you weren’t spying on me,” he said.

She tilted her chin up, trying not to shake too much. Was he going to kill her? She needed a weapon. She needed to at least go down fighting. “Well, considering how fucking suspicious you kept acting, you really can’t blame me,” she snapped back, with so much bravado she surprised herself. You can do this, Nat. You can get out of this. Just concentrate. Be the fucking ball-buster that every man who hates you has called you.

Durbin shook his head. “You should’ve kept your nose out all of this. If you hadn’t married him, everything would’ve been fine.”

“Are you kidding me?” she spat, desperate to keep him on edge as she glanced around the room, trying to find something, anything to use as a weapon. The fear was hot and thick inside her body, but she couldn’t let it control her. She had to just embrace the ride—the dangerous, incredibly bad ride—and hold on. “Your plan totally sucked from the start. You didn’t want him on your land for the water tank inspection, right?” she asked. “That’s what this is really all about. The tanks. You didn’t actually care about the rights. You were just going to illegally siphon the water from the tanks to your little poppy field out there in the forest, and you couldn’t do that if Rhett kept sticking to the easement and maintaining them. He’d get suspicious, and as soon as he tallied up the water use, he’d know. So your solution was to cut him off completely and destroy his business?”

Durbin’s lip curled. “I’ll have my way,” he said. “There’s nothing in those by-laws about widowers.”

Nat fingers curled into her palms, her nails biting into her flesh.

“You’re such a fucking moron,” she sneered. “He’ll catch you. He’s won. No matter what you do, you’ll never get that water. You won’t pollute this county with your drugs. Let me guess: that house they busted, the one with the bear cubs, that was part of your operation, wasn’t it?’

Durbin flushed.

She smiled. “That must’ve been quite the blow to your business,” she said. “Have your cronies turned snitch yet?”

“They won’t,” Durbin snapped, his composure finally rippling. She was getting to him. Good.

She leaned forward, her face intense. “You sure about that?” she asked.