“I know, you’re right.” Erin sipped from her teacup.

Terra moved to the fridge and looked inside. “Do you want some tea or coffee? Or something for lunch?”

“I’m having lunch with Mom,” he said. He directed his next words at Erin. “I’m thinking of moving Mackenzie out here for a few days. You’re staying in one of the small guest cabins, right?”

Terra’s brother, Owen, and their grandfather added the cabins as a convenience for Owen’s equestrian therapy guests who had to travel long distances. Alex could see this ranch being completely transformed in the future, moving completely away from growing crops.

“Sure. It would be nice to have another neighbor.” Erin stared at him over the rim of her cup, one brow arched.

Terra studied them both, then settled on Alex. “What’s going on? I thought you brought her to the ranch on a date. It’s easy to see you like her. But there’s more, isn’t there?”

He nodded. “I don’t know how much more yet.”

“Someone shot at her on the mountain biking trail,” Erin said. “I was at the county offices and heard Nathan, Jack, and Trevor talking. Someone had followed her with a drone.”

Maybe Alex was making a mistake, but he didn’t have many options. “I don’t want to bring danger to the ranch.”

“I think it’s a great idea for her to stay here.” Terra smiled. “We practically have a detachment of law enforcement here on most days.”

“My thinking exactly,” Alex said.

“We could add someone official, though,” Terra said. “Oh, wait. You’re her protection, aren’t you?”

“Not officially, no.”

“Do you know who or why someone would try to shoot her?” Terra asked.

And stalk us at the cabin last night.

“Not yet.” Alex crossed his arms. “But keep your eyes out for anything suspicious.”

Terra lifted a finger. “I might have something already.”

He followed her outside and back around to the barn. She opened the old barn door and gestured. “Owen shot it out of the sky the day of the party. You guys had just left.”

A mangled drone with a camera lay in the hay.

EIGHTEEN

Mackenzie had feared she would struggle to stay awake after the night she’d had.

She remembered now. In the dream, Alex told her they would die if she didn’t use her magic, which she translated to mean special skills. It was only a dream, after all, but she was using her special skills right now, searching for anomalies in the data, weird log-in times for users, IP addresses, and open ports. Sniffing data packets. Malicious code injected into a good vulnerability patch that had come from a known and trusted source.

All of it.

And coming up empty.