25. Tucker
The highway stretched out ahead of us, miles of empty road and forests giving way to open fields as far as the eye could see. Colt sat in the passenger seat beside me, his gaze fixed on the horizon, while Austin was slumped in the back, glued to his phone like he’d been for the entire drive.
The kid had barely looked up in the two hours since we left Charlotte Oaks. Just occasional mutterings of "I’m fine" when we’d ask him if he was good. I wasn’t dumb. I knew who he was texting—Phoebe. The two of them had grown close in the last few weeks, and I couldn’t say I was surprised he was having a hard time letting go of that.
I could relate.
I gripped the steering wheel tighter, my knuckles white as we sped down the highway. The guilt over the mess I’d made of this case gnawed at me, worse than any of the wounds I’d ever gotten in the Marines or in my life as a PI. Even the ones that should’ve haunted me from that abusive relationship that I never did get around to telling Dakota the details of. Maybe I always thought we’d have more time, even though I’d also known it was limited.
Didn’t matter much now.
It wasn’t just the guilt over the case that had me in such a twisted headspace or that the case was so stupidly unresolved. It was guilt over Dakota. Her face kept flashing in my mind—those eyes full of hurt when we said goodbye, the way she clung to me during that final kiss.
I should’ve done better in a lot of ways. Syd Wharton was clearly unhinged considering how he’d played all of this, and that note he’d left her? The one that apparently wasn’t meant to scare her but to manipulate me? That was bad enough considering how scared she’d been, but what if he really would’ve had something violent attached to that ominous “or else”?
None of this would be happening if I’d kept my distance. If I’d treated her like the distraction I’d known she would be from the start and shut her out, I might not have missed the Barto/Syd weirdness. I might’ve figured everything out sooner, and man, maybe even solved the whole thing before he’d dropped me as his PI.
And obviously, if I hadn’t cared about her feelings or what she thought of me, I would’ve forced her and Hope out of that house in the beginning, not caring at all if it made me a controlling jerk in her eyes. In face, it might’ve helped me in a lot of ways. That wasn’t someone she’d want in a partner, so it probably would’ve kept her away from me, too.
But that wasn’t what I’d done. Instead, she’d been dragged into a situation that could’ve gotten her hurt by my client, and now she was hurt because of me, just in a different way.
My chest tightened just thinking about it, but I’d rather her be hurt because I left than hurt in a more permanent way, thanks to my bad judgment on a case.
She’d get over me, I told myself. She was strong. She’d find someone else, someone who wouldn’t make bad calls that dragged her into danger.
Or… run when he was scared he’d do it again.
Yeah, it wasn’t lost on me that this was a move a better man might not make. But I didn’t trust myself to be that man, so here I was.
“Pull over!” Austin said suddenly, pointing at the exit with the rest stop. “I really gotta pee.”
Shaking my head at his dramatics, I took the exit, pulling into the rest stop’s parking lot and finding a spot in front of the public bathrooms. “Hurry up, and don’t talk to strangers.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said as he hopped from the truck and headed through the dark blue door of the bathroom.
Exhausted, I put my seat all the way back, throwing my arm over my eyes. “Lemme know when he’s back.”
“You sure you’re okay with this?” Colt asked.
“Huh?” I glanced over at him, blinking as the truck’s cabin came back into focus.
“Leaving. You good with it?”
I let out a slow breath, eyes on the ceiling now. “What kind of question is that? Our business is in Colorado. This was always the plan.”
Colt didn’t respond right away, but I could hear his fingers tapping idly on the armrest. After a long stretch of silence, he finally spoke. “It wasn’t that hard to start our business, you know. We’ve been through a lot worse.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is,” Colt continued, “I like Charlotte Oaks. Austin does, too. You telling me you didn’t like it there?”
I frowned. “Are you kidding? I hated it. Everywhere I went, someone knew me or my business, and don’t even get me started on the sheer number of events they host in that town square. What is their event budget in that town, anyway? Maybe that’s what happened to the freaking treasure.”
“Right… so, you did like it, you’re just pretending you didn’t.”
“It doesn’t matter if I did,” I said wearily.
“Why not?” Colt shrugged, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “It’s a good town. People are nice. We could run the business from there just as easily as we do from Colorado.”
I shot him a look, not sure if he was messing with me. But Colt’s expression was calm—level, even.
“You’re serious?” I asked, my brow furrowing. “You really think it’s that simple?”
Colt shrugged again. “Why not? What’s really stopping us?”
“Well, for starters, I called Mom on Dakota’s porch earlier trying for a Hail Mary,” I told him bitterly, even though I’d known when I did it that I probably didn’t deserve it.
“Called her about what?”
“I wanted to see what she thought of me keeping Austin with me for a while. In Charlotte Oaks. He stays with me half the time anyway, so I figured she wouldn’t mind.”
“What’d she say?” he asked. His tone told me he already knew the answer.
I snorted, effectively telling him he was right.
But before I could go into the specifics, there was a sudden knock on my window.
My heart jumped into my throat, and I sat up sharply, my hand instinctively reaching for the door handle. A shadowy figure in a cowboy hat loomed just outside the truck, and for a split second, my pulse spiked, thinking it was trouble. Then I blinked, focusing through the glass.
Riley Conrad’s grinning face stared back at me through the window.
“What the—” I muttered, rolling down the window.
“Surprise!” Riley’s voice boomed as he leaned in, that familiar cocky smile plastered on his face.
Before I could even process what was happening, I heard footsteps—heavy ones—coming from behind the truck. I glanced in the rearview mirror again, my jaw dropping slightly as I saw not just Riley but all four of the Wilson brothers walking toward us, flanked by Phoebe and... Austin?
“What’s going on?” I muttered, my brain scrambling to catch up. Wasn’t Austin supposed to be in the bathroom?
Instead, Austin stood with them, sheepishly grinning, his hands shoved in his pockets as Phoebe nudged him with her elbow. It didn’t take long for it to click. He wasn’t just texting Phoebe this whole ride.
He was plotting this .
I cut the engine, throwing the door open as I stepped out, still half in disbelief. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“Nope. We’re really here, and we’re here to help,” Riley said, slapping me on the back like this was some kind of team-building exercise. “Turns out, you’re a hot commodity in Charlotte Oaks. Couldn’t let you skip town without havin’ a little chat first.”
I blinked, still trying to process this bizarre ambush. “What kind of chat?”
Everett took a step forward, rubbing a hand over his chin. “See, the thing is, Charlotte Oaks likes you, Tucker. All three of you,” he said, nodding toward Colt and Austin.
“And Dakota likes you,” Adam added, his voice gruff. “Which means we’ve all got a vested interest in keepin’ you around.”
My chest tightened at the mention of Dakota, the memory of our goodbye kiss still fresh in my mind. I’d convinced myself that leaving was the right call—clean break, no mess. But hearing her name, hearing them say it like she was still a part of this conversation like I was still a part of her world... It made me hesitate.
“She does like you,” Phoebe said, her voice softer than usual. “And so does everyone else in town. We had a meeting.”
I blinked. “A meeting?”
“A town meetin’,” Travis added, his face serious, though I could tell he was trying not to laugh. “You know, we do those sometimes.”
I ran a hand over my face, still trying to wrap my head around this. “You’re telling me the town had a meeting... about me?”
“And Colt. And Austin,” Phoebe chimed in.
Colt raised an eyebrow, glancing over at me.
Everett shrugged. “The town decided you should stay. Become official residents of Charlotte Oaks.”
“AKA Charlotte Oakians,” Phoebe said. “Did you know it was my mom who made that a thing?”
I shook my head at her, bemused, then stared at Everett, my mind still spinning. “What, like... your town decided they can make us come back and become permanent residents?”
Riley grinned, folding his arms. “That town does whatever it wants, trust me. Y’all belong here, Tucker.”
Belong . That word hit different after the last few weeks.
Austin, who had been suspiciously quiet during all of this, finally spoke up. “I like it there, Tuck,” he said, his voice surprisingly soft. “I don’t want to leave. I don’t wanna go back to Mom’s. Not if we don’t have to.”
My chest tightened again, but this time for a different reason. The kid had been through enough in his life. Our mom wasn’t a bad mom, but she had some mental health issues that she was getting treatment for, thanks to me, but it wasn’t easy on him. The last thing I wanted was to make things harder, especially after he’d finally started to settle in somewhere when he never seemed very settled before.
Colt, standing beside me, gave a small nod, his face unreadable, but I knew what that nod meant. He liked it there too. He wouldn’t admit it out loud—not yet because he was still my boy—but he did.
“And we’ve been thinkin’,” Jackson said, finally speaking up, his voice quieter than the others. “If you and Dakota are gonna make a go of it... it’d be easier if you were there and not in Colorado.”
“Look,” I said, my voice rougher than I intended, “it’s not that simple. We’ve got the business in Colorado. Our lives are there. It’s...”
“Take it from me,” Everett cut in, his voice calm but firm. “No business is worth losin’ someone you love, no matter how much you think you’re doin’ the right thing. Besides, you’re smart. You’ve got the skills. This town needs people like you. And if you stay, you won’t be doing it alone. You’ve already got people here who care about all of you.”
I swallowed hard, feeling the weight of their words settling over me. This whole time, I’d been fighting it—fighting the pull of this town, of Dakota, of the life I hadn’t wanted to admit I wanted. But now... standing here, hearing it from them, hearing it from Austin…
Maybe I’d been wrong. And maybe I’d have help keeping her away from the dangers of my job if I actually felt like there was a community at my back. In fact, maybe if my relationship with Dakota wasn’t something I was trying to soak up before I inevitably lost it—something that was permanent and real—I wouldn’t let it distract me in ways that put her in danger in the first place.
My throat tightened. They were making it sound so easy. Just pack up and move to a place I barely knew. But... wasn’t a better way to face uncertainty than what I’d first suggested to Dakota?
I looked at Colt, who gave me another nod, this one more definitive than the last. “It wouldn’t be the worst idea,” he said quietly. “And I wouldn’t mind the slow pace of things in Charlotte Oaks compared to what we deal with back in Colorado.”
I glanced back at Austin, who was still watching me with that hopeful look in his eyes. Phoebe stood next to him, nudging him with a grin.
And then there was a noise, and it sounded like it was coming from the bed of my truck. We all looked at each other, each of us trying to figure out if the noise was our imagination or if others heard it, too.
Travis went to the tailgate while I looked over the side of the bed. I’d thrown a tarp over our stuff just in case it rained on our journey back, and when I helped Travis untie it as he let the tailgate drop, my eyes nearly burst out of my head.
“Gertie?”
Travis pulled back the tarp all the way, and there, nestled among my gear like she belonged, was Gertie the goat. She blinked up at me with her big eyes, looking as content as a goat could be, her little tail flicking as if she hadn’t just hitched a ride across state lines.
“Well, I’ll be,” Everett muttered, running a hand over his face.
“She’s kinda got a thing for stowin’ away,” Riley said with a smirk. “Ask me how I know.”
Travis let out a low chuckle, leaning against the tailgate with his arms crossed. “Looks like if Austin and Phoebe’s plan didn’t work out, Gertie here had her own way of fixin’ things.” He raised an eyebrow, glancing between me and the goat. “Wait, you would’ve brought her back to us, right?”
I sighed. “Yeah, man, I would’ve brought her back.”
There was a collective sigh of relief, but really, what had they expected? That I’d keep her?
I stared down at the goat, unable to stop the laugh that bubbled up in my chest. This was the cherry on top—the icing on the fruitcake that was Charlotte Oaks.
Gertie let out a soft bleat, her head tilting to the side as if to say, “Well, what are you waiting for?”
I shook my head, a grin tugging at the corner of my mouth. But looking at Gertie, then back at the group—their hopeful faces, Austin’s wide grin, and Colt’s steady gaze—I realized I hadn’t made a decision yet. The answer had been staring me in the face, but I hadn’t said it out loud.
“Alright,” I said, my voice quieter now but filled with a certainty I hadn’t felt before. “Let’s do it.”
A collective cheer erupted from the group, and Austin’s grin practically split his face in two.
Riley clapped me on the back again, harder this time, nearly knocking me off balance. “Knew you’d come around, man.”
I shook my head, still feeling a little dazed, but... good. It felt right.
As the excitement buzzed around me, I couldn’t help but think about Dakota and what this all meant. I had no idea what was coming next, but I knew one thing: Charlotte Oaks, with its quirky charm, goat stowaways, and people who cared more than was always comfortable, had pulled me in.
And Dakota? Well, she was the one I wasn’t going to let go.
The ride back to Charlotte Oaks was a lot lighter than the drive away from it hours before, but as we rolled onto Main Street and a surprise storm hit the town in full force, I wondered if surprising Dakota would be better to do tomorrow instead of tonight.
I told Colt to send the guys a text, letting them know we probably shouldn’t crash the girls’ night this late, and then I pulled into the parking lot behind the B&B.
I expected the SUV that had brought the Wilson brothers and Phoebe to that truck stop to keep driving, but instead, they pulled in behind me.
And they didn’t just roll to a stop, either. They screeched to a halt.
I frowned, lowering the window to see what was going on.
Everett did the same, his face all seriousness as he called into the rain, “There’s trouble at Hope’s house.”