The holstered gun is heavy on my belt.

With every step, I feel it yank and drag downward, pulling my pants with it even though I buckled the worn leather even tighter than normal.

“You all right, man?” Dane asks softly, arching one dark eyebrow.

“Yeah, Cord, you got, like, massive wedgie or what?” Piotr chimes in with his deep, Russian accent. He cracks a playful grin and chuckles.

The blue-eyed bear of a man has been in America for ten years and somehow only just learned the word “wedgie.” He’s used it twelve times in the last hour.

I roll my eyes, ignoring the curious look from Jameson.

“He’s got a gun this time,” Jameson offers quietly, gesturing at my hip as he secures a fence post in the ground and wipes a bead of sweat from his brow. “But he’s not carrying it right.”

Piotr gives a deep belly laugh, reaching over to grab at me as he lifts up my shirt and adjusts the gun and holster before clapping my shoulder with a tsk of his tongue. Though he’s a few years older than me, he’s so playful and warm it’s hard to remember the age difference sometimes.

“Are we going to work or talk shit, boys?” Tucker pipes up from beside Dane, throwing his shovel over his shoulder as he straightens up.

Despite his height and strength, Tucker is the youngest ranch hand here—and we never let him forget it.

“Who do you call boy, boy?” Piotr asks gruffly, narrowing his eyes.

Tucker blanches, bending his face back down toward the fence. A tense moment passes, then Piotr breaks into a grin and prods at Tucker with a playful elbow.

Dane guffaws. The rest of us know better than to fall for Piotr’s games, but sometimes Tucker is a little too easy to mess with.

“So why did you bring that along?” Jameson asks, leaning his elbow on the new, firmly placed fence post and shielding his eyes from the overwhelming sun. “You don’t normally come out here packin’.”

I shrug, pretending to focus on carefully winding barbed wire over the sturdy wooden fence. “Most of you guys bring a gun. So does Daniel. Why is it a big deal?”

Dane purses his lips, and I don’t miss the quick look he exchanges with Jameson.

“What is it?” I frown, straightening and crossing my arms over my chest.

The sun is so bright and hot that it’s hard to see the faces of the other men. I can’t read their expressions, but I know they’re critical.

I swipe sweat from my brow, and I can feel the smudge of dirt my worn glove leaves on my forehead.

“We hear you almost got in a fight in town yesterday,” Piotr sighs. “Now you show up with this gun. It is cause for concern.”

My fingers brush over the sun-warmed metal of the gun grip. It’s a foreign feeling under my hand. Even though we live surrounded by beasts and these thieves, I’ve never been a fan of guns. I don’t even hunt for sport like most of the other men here do. It’s just never been my thing.

“I’m worried about safety,” I finally murmur, glancing around at the men who regard me quietly. “Ours. The animals. Those thieves are coming for us. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but I can feel it. We’re a target.”

For a second, I think the others are going to argue with me, but Tucker nods his head. “I think so too. Things feel different around here . . .” He trails off and shakes his head. “It’s silly to think we could go on forever not being hit.”

The others give a quiet rumble of agreement, and we return to work with dread churning in the backs of our minds.

I’d almost been hoping that the men would argue with me, that they would prove my worry wrong. The unease drifting around us, however, tells an entirely different tale.

We should be worried. Very worried.

I push myself hard as I can the rest of the afternoon. Maybe if I work myself to the bone, I’ll actually be able to sleep tonight instead of lying awake staring at the ceiling like I’ve been doing lately.

With the fence finished, we pack up our supplies and head back across the field. At the main house, a feminine figure leans against the doorway. My heart and dick throb in almost painful synchronicity.

Sloane’s illuminated from the back, thanks to the house’s light. It’s hard to see her features in the burgeoning dark, but as we get closer I see her arms are wrapped lazily in front of her. A slim strip of her stomach peeks out from beneath her cropped blouse, and it’s like everything in me is tightening up all at once.

Dane nudges me as he passes, winking and doing a bad job of suppressing a smirk. The other men greet Sloane and slip past her into the house. All the regular noises are going on in there: dishes clanking and Miranda talking a mile a minute about some new kind of pie she’s made us.

“Hey,” I say simply, running a hand through my sweat-damp hair.

“Hey,” Sloane replies quietly, sidling off the steps with the grace of an angel.

My angel. The thought springs to my mind before I can stop it, and though it’s corny, I can’t help but smile.

She stands in front of me, her face tipping back to greet me and the moon. The light scent of strawberries wafts off of her, and my mouth starts watering.

“I’ve been thinking about you all day,” she says softly, words almost drowned out by the crickets and the loud talking in the dining room.

I bite my lip, whole body going electric. Her words have zapped me like a defibrillator. Every syllable that’s left her tongue strikes me right in the heart. Everything she’s said has seemed to do that, even when she was nagging me for more sugar cubes for the horses.

She inches closer, her fingers blazing a trail over my cheek as a quiet moan parts my lips. I lean into her touch, grabbing her hand and turning my face to press my mouth against her palm.

I’ve been thinking about her too, every single damn second. I can’t seem to convince those words to come up my throat, however. It’s like they’re trapped inside of me, locked in a cage I never realized I’d built.

She’s leaving soon. There’s nothing I can do about that, and it weighs on me like a ton of bricks. Every second with this girl is so bittersweet it almost hurts.

Sloane’s other hand slides down my chest, over the ripples of my muscles until her warm fingertips graze my belt.

She steps forward so that her tiny, sexy body is pressed up against me, her arm wrapping around my hips as she leans up into her toes.

Greedily, I jerk downward, eager to taste her, but she gives a startled yelp and steps back.

“What is that?” she gasps, moving quick as lightning to inspect the holster at my side.

I’m too dazed, drunk off her body, to even realize what she’s looking at. I can barely manage a quiet, “What?”

“Is that . . . is that a gun?” Sloane asks, stepping back and staring at me in confusion. “Why?”