Chapter 29
Wes walked toward the back door. “What makes you think that?”
“Our housekeeper found your door cracked open,” Maggie told him. “The inside looks . . . well, it looks messy. Not normal messy. Like . . . ransacked messy.”
“How?”
“Drawers are open. Clothes are everywhere. A pillow has been shredded. We can only assume you didn’t leave your room like that.”
“Of course not.”
“I just called the sheriff.”
Wes’s grip tightened on the phone. “Thanks for letting me know. Listen, don’t touch anything else. I’m on my way.”
He ended the call and turned back toward the Kings.
Rowan stared at him. “What happened?”
“I need to go into town.” Wes grabbed his keys from the counter. “Someone got into my room at the B&B last night.”
Caleb stepped back through the doorway just then. “Somebody what?”
Wes headed toward the mudroom. “Someone broke into my room.”
Behind him, a chair scraped sharply across the floor. “I’m coming with you.”
He turned. Rowan stood near the table now, her expression set.
“No,” he told her.
A defiant look flashed in her gaze. “I’m not staying here while this keeps happening.”
“This isn’t about proving something.”
“No,” she shot back. “It’s about the fact that everybody around me keeps cleaning up disasters I helped create.”
Wes held Rowan’s gaze. A million arguments were on his lips, but he had a feeling none of them would work.
“You think me staying isolated in this house is helping anything?” she continued. “Because it’s not.”
His jaw set. “That doesn’t mean going into town is smart.”
“Neither is pretending this goes away if I hide long enough.”
Wes stared at her. Part of him still wanted to refuse outright. Another part knew she was already close to bolting emotionally—and maybe even physically. He could see it in the tension sitting beneath her composure.
Keeping her locked down at Refuge Cove all day would only make that worse.
Finally, he exhaled once. “Hat and sunglasses.”
Rowan blinked.
“We go together,” he said. “We stay together. And if anything feels wrong, we leave right away.”
Rowan spent the drive into town watching for reporters.
Every passing vehicle made her glance twice. Every person standing outside a storefront felt like someone who might recognize her if they looked long enough.
Wes drove her Tesla in steady silence, one hand resting loosely on the wheel.
The farther they got from Refuge Cove, the tighter something wound inside her chest.
The mountains around town usually made her feel hidden.
Today they felt suffocating.
“You okay?”
She realized Wes had glanced at her. “I’m fine.”
The answer came too quickly.
He didn’t call her on it, but she could tell he didn’t believe her either. She really wished people would stop asking her that. But she knew it was only out of concern.
They turned onto Main Street a few minutes later.
Hollow House Bed and Breakfast sat halfway down the block, its white wraparound porch crowded with rocking chairs and hanging ferns that swayed gently in the breeze.
Micah’s SUV already sat near the curb.
A woman opened the front door before they even reached it. Her bouncy blonde curls greeted them with false enthusiasm. She introduced herself as Maggie Goodley, the owner.
The thirty-something woman looked relieved enough to sag when she saw Wes.
“Oh good. Sheriff Sutherland is checking it out.” Her eyes shifted to Rowan beneath the brim of her baseball cap but politely didn’t linger. “I told him I hadn’t touched anything after Clara found the room.”
“You did the right thing,” Wes said.
Maggie lowered her voice. “I don’t like that this happened here.”
That didn’t make Rowan feel better.
Micah appeared at the end of the hallway upstairs and motioned them toward him.
She braced herself for whatever they were about to find out.