Chapter 20: Chapter 20

LANCE

Wren and I wake up on Sunday and shower together. She complains of being sore, which is why I gave her the Tylenol the night before.

In the shower, I rub her down with oil under the hot water and she melts under my touch.

I find her pleasure completely addicting. I want to do anything and everything to make her happy or feeling good.

After multiple attempts to convince her to get back in my bed, she decides to go home to rest before family dinner that evening.

I would gladly stay in bed with her 'til then, but I think she wants some time alone, which I fully respect.

After she leaves, I get dressed and head into the main house.

“Ma? Hello?”

“In the office!”

I walk through the living room and into the office off the side of the kitchen. Mom has her glasses on and is reading through a stack of bills on her desk.

“Hello, son, how are you today?”

“Good,” I say, and mean it.

“I saw Miss Wren leaving your place a little bit ago,” she says as she crosses her arms.

I laugh. “Are you spying on me?”

“Just an observation,” she says with a shrug. “Be careful—your heart’s already been broken enough.”

“So has hers,” I say.

“Oh yeah?” she asks.

“Yes, but listen, I came by for a specific reason. I was up late two nights ago and noticed a car leaving here pretty late. Can you look it up on the security cameras?”

“I already did. It came up as a motion detection alert.”

“Can you see the plates? Or make and model?”

“No on the plates, but it looks like a black Ford Explorer.”

“So it wasn’t Emma’s car,” I mutter, more to myself.

“No, I already checked that. And I went back through the disgruntled employee file and didn’t see any Ford Explorers there either,” she says. “Why would Emma be snooping around the farm?”

“She’s pissed that we aren’t getting back together. I don’t know what she would have to gain from that little stunt, it was just a suspicion.”

Mom leans back in her chair and sighs.

“So who else could it be? There’s the livestock trader who swears we poisoned his product—as if I have the time to go poison someone else’s cows.

“And there’s the hotel mogul who keeps offering to purchase the south pasture so he can put up a new condo development.”

“Or it was an uninvited guest in the bunkhouse,” I say.

“Of course that’s always my first assumption, especially if they didn’t take or destroy anything.” She pauses. “What about your sparring partner, Tad? Think he’s capable of revenge?

“I heard he walked out of Northwest Ranch Supply after he was put back on the loading dock. Caused a big scene on the way out.”

“That’s why I told you it was a bad idea to complain about him,” I say.

“Sorry, but I can never be too careful with my family, Lance, you know that.”

“I feel like he’s way too dumb to try to fuck up something on the farm. If anything he’s waiting to ambush me when I’m alone,” I say.

“Although, another weird thing’s happening. I’ve been getting a ton of spam calls lately.”

“I get those once in a while,” she says.

“But do you get ten a day at all hours from an unknown number?” I ask.

She squints at me. “No, that is a little weird.”

“Well, we’ll just keep an eye out for now. I think I’m just on edge with all this Emma stuff and want to play it safe.”

“Cameras are always rolling,” she says.

“Good.” I round the desk and kiss her cheek. “See you later.”

I spend the afternoon working out with Chris and Devin in the garage while Jeremy plays with a Nintendo Switch on one of the couches.

Halfway through he claims he’s bored and going to go ask Wren if he can walk Puck. My heart skips a beat.

I desperately want to go with him but decide against it. Plus I need to continue working out if I’m going to keep getting back to my old self.

A few minutes later, I see Jeremy and Puck heading into the woods by the pasture, along the same trail I took Wren a few weeks ago.

Shit, was that only a few weeks ago? Feels like a month or more.

The rest of our workout is intense. Chris is competitive and constantly trying to beat me at everything, but we both enjoy watching Devin learn how to lift too.

We’re all sitting on the couches drinking water as the breeze blows in through the open garage door.

Suddenly, Wren’s screams pierce through the air.

“Lance! Lance! Where are you?!”

We all jump to our feet and run through the open garage door.

Wren comes sprinting up to me.

“What’s wrong?!” I ask.

“Jeremy! He took Puck on a walk a bit ago and Puck just came back without him and he’s alerting me. I think something’s happened!”

I immediately turn to my other brothers.

“Devin, go call 911 and tell Mom and Dad what’s going on. Chris, grab a four-wheeler from the barn and a first aid kit from the office and meet us down the trail by the river.”

I turn back to Wren. “Let’s go.”

Wren and I race across the gravel, hop the fence, and start charging down the path. My limp is still pretty pronounced so Wren is ahead of me, talking to Puck.

“Where is he, Puck? Take us to Jeremy!”

We get twenty yards or so into the woods when Puck dives down an embankment to the river.

“There he is!” Wren yells.

We go charging down the embankment and find Jeremy cradling his leg, which is stuck in an old-looking bear trap.

“Wren! Lance!”

“Jeremy! Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. But my leg’s stuck!”

The trap is closed on Jeremy’s upper calf, the teeth on the sides of his leg. Wren immediately kneels next to him and slips his shoe and sock off while reassuring him.

“I’m just going to check your circulation, okay? Then we’ll get you outta there.”

I start examining the trap and try to work out the best way to loosen it while Wren asks Jeremy to move his toes and ankle.

“He has movement in his toes but his foot is purple so circulation is being cut off somewhere. We need to hurry,” she says to me quietly.

“His leg is small. If we put enough pressure on the springs, we may be able to loosen it enough to free him without a pry bar.”

Wren and I get on either side of the trap and attempt to put enough pressure on the springs. I can get my side loose, but Wren doesn’t have enough leverage to get hers.

Suddenly, I hear Chris on the four-wheeler.

“Down here!” we start yelling at the same time.

Chris appears at the top of the trail. He hops off and comes barreling down the embankment.

“Chris, get on Wren’s side and push down on the spring!”

Wren points to where Chris needs to push, then she positions himself above Jeremy’s leg with a large stick in her hands.

“On three: one, two, three!” Wren yells. Chris and I push hard, and the rusty springs finally start to move.

As soon as Wren gets the teeth open enough, she shoves the stick in and uses the leverage to pry them open further. Jeremy pulls his leg out just as the stick gives out, and the teeth clamp back together.

Jeremy scoots away from the trap on his butt. Wren and Chris help him up the embankment onto the back of the four-wheeler. Wren lifts his pant leg to survey the damage.

“I don’t think it’s broken, and the teeth didn’t break the skin, but you should still get checked out at the hospital,” she says.

“I’ll get him back to the house. I’m sure an ambulance is already on the way,” Chris says. He jumps on the four-wheeler and he and Jeremy take off toward the house.

Wren walks back down the embankment to where Puck and I are. I’m kneeling near the trap, trying to figure out why it’s here.

“How’d you know what to do?” I ask her.

“The fire camp I worked at was in Northern California in the Sierras. They trained us on bear traps in case a firefighter accidentally stepped in one,” she says.

She kneels next to the trap. “This one is old, and rusty. And it wasn’t fastened to the ground,” she says, then looks at me. “Why would someone be setting bear traps around here?”

“They wouldn’t,” I say. “No one should be setting traps on our land, especially this close to the house.”

An eerie silence falls between us.

“We need to call the police.”