“Just Make It Quick” She Whispered. Three Mountain Men Drew Her Into Silent Lodge, Kept Her Warm
Chapter 10
She cleared the doorway before Crane finished swearing.
The yard was wide and open — workers moving between the buildings in the early light, and every one of them turned to look at her. Two of Crane’s men were twenty feet to her left. She ran right, toward the main steps of the office building, and she got there before anyone caught her — because Crane had posted his men to watch for people coming in, not for someone already inside running out.
She took the steps and stopped on the top landing, high enough to be seen, loud enough to be heard.
“My name is Willa Hart,” she said.
The yard went quiet.
She recognized the moment. Crane was behind her, coming fast. His men were moving. She had about thirty seconds.
“Asher Crane owes you wages,” she said. “Every man here who has worked this camp and been told he’s in debt — that debt isn’t real. He invented it. He kept your money, and he told you that you owed it back.”
Someone near the equipment shed stopped walking.
“I saw the account book,” she said. “I know how he runs it. The rent he charges for housing you didn’t choose. The food prices at his store that nobody else can match. The debts that somehow never get smaller, no matter how long you work.”
Crane reached the bottom of the steps. “She’s lying,” he said, loud, controlled. “She’s been trying to steal from this operation for months. Ask yourselves why she ran.”
“Ask yourselves why I’m here,” Willa said. “Because he brought me here — at gunpoint — last night.”
A murmur moved through the yard.
Then Tate came through the east gate, the account book in his good hand. Elias was right behind him. And behind Elias came Gideon, moving in a wide arc toward the office side of the building.
Tate held up the book. “I’ve got wages in here. Real wages — what each man earned — and Crane’s numbers right next to them. You want to see the difference, come look.”
Two men walked toward him immediately. Then three more.
Crane said, “Those records are falsified. He broke into my freight house.”
“Your man shot me in the shoulder,” Tate said, cheerfully, “which is an interesting way to protect legitimate business records.”
Elias had moved to the far side of the yard. He’d found the workers being held in the bunkhouse for invented debts, and he was talking to them quietly, gesturing toward the gate. One by one, they came out into the yard.
An older man near the forge raised his hand. “Crane told us he’d have our families removed from housing if we left.” He said it like a fact, saying it out loud in front of people, which was different.
“He told me the same thing,” another man said.
Crane’s voice shifted — still controlled, but tighter. “Every one of you has a contract. You break it, you pay the penalty. That’s legal. That’s documented.”
Tate looked up from the book. “Show me where Willa Hart’s name appears in your payroll records, Crane. Show me the wages she was supposed to transfer.” He waited. “Because I’ve read every page. And her name isn’t in there once.”
Crane looked at the crowd. He was recalculating — she could see it. Then he moved fast.
He crossed the yard, grabbed her arm, and pulled her down from the landing, turning her in front of him like a shield. His hand locked around her wrist.
Gideon stopped. His hand dropped from his holster.
“Here’s what happens,” Crane said. He wasn’t shouting; he never shouted. “She signs the papers. We conclude the legal arrangement. And every one of you gets back to work, and this is over.”
He looked at Gideon. “Lower it.”
Gideon lowered his hand.
Crane’s grip on her wrist was hard. She could feel the bones pressing together. She looked at Gideon’s face, and she saw it — the same look as the night before. He was waiting for her.
So she did the thing she’d planned, the thing she’d been planning since she’d sat on the floor of that storage room testing hinges.
She stamped down on Crane’s foot with every bit of weight she had.
His grip broke for half a second.
Which was all she needed.