3. NIXIE
THREE
NIXIE
It takes my brain a minute to catch up with the facts.
Like that it was Beauden’s number Breigh gave me.
And she knew it.
So, yeah, she’s dead to me now.
But even worse, Beauden didn’t tell me who he was on the phone. He just… ambushed me. What kind of person does that?
The same kind who drops everything when you call.
I slam the door on the voice of reason in my head. I am not emotionally stable enough for reason right now. I’m angry. I feel manipulated. And I am worried so freaking sick that it’s manifesting physically. An army of butterflies is at war in my stomach, and I hunch over to keep from throwing up.
Not that there’s anything in my stomach to lose. I skipped breakfast and lunch thanks to my hangover, and I have yet to figure out where my water bottle landed when I did my best impression of Superwoman trying to grab Tiberius’s leash.
And all I can think is that this cannot be happening.
Not this guy. Not now.
“Nixie?” The concern in Beauden’s smooth voice makes it all so much worse. “Are you okay?”
No, no I’m not.
I’m so far from okay that I’m tempted to haul myself upright and tell him to fuck right off and go away.
The words are right there, burning the tip of my tongue as I straighten my back and roll my shoulders.
But instead of unleashing my fury on him, I just stand there, panting against the nausea, trying to find my voice.
Hot tears singe my eyelids and I blink them back.
I had imagined how a reunion with Beauden would go a thousand times, but it was never like this.
Because in those daydreams, I always had the upper hand. The moral high ground. I was the one in control.
And I’m definitely not in control right now.
I turn my back to him and stare out into the woods, my gaze following the trail. “Tiberius went that way,” I grind out. I check my phone for the hundredth time. “About four and a half hours ago,” I add, trying not to let that massive time lapse deflate me.
I don’t know what I expect Beauden to say or do. A better woman would probably thank him for coming out here, but I don’t have it in me. I just want to find my dog, leave this town, and never, ever come back.
Beauden comes up beside me, keeping a respectable distance that’s still way too close for how volatile I am, and holds out an olive-green canteen.
“Drink,” he orders, with a note of softness that twists the knife piercing my heart.
“I’m fine. Can we just?—”
“If you want my help, we’re going to do this my way, and it starts with water,” he says. He’s calm. Collected. And for some reason that ratchets up my frustration.
But I bite my tongue, because guess what? He’s the only one out here with me. The only help I have. I might be a whirlwind of volcanic emotions, but I understand that much. And as much as I hate to admit it, I do need his help.
Snatching the canteen out of his hand, I glare at it for a minute. “Did you get this in the Army?”
He doesn’t respond. Nope, he just stands there, waiting for me to take a drink. So, I unscrew the lid and down a gulp. It’s blissfully cold, and my eyelids flutter shut as that coolness works its way through my body. When I open them, I feel the tiniest bit better, physically.
Mentally and emotionally, I’m still a hot frickin’ mess.
I take another small sip, screw the lid on, and hold the canteen back out to him. “Thanks.” I bite out the word. “Can we go now?”
He takes the bottle from me, careful not to let our hands touch. A tiny twinge of regret tweaks something in me, but I don’t have the time or the bandwidth to suss it out before he speaks.
“You said he took off.” He studies me carefully as he asks, “Did you see what he was after?”
I shake my head.
“But he’s friendly?”
“He failed out of service dog training because he wanted to play with everyone he saw,” I say grudgingly.
Beauden’s lips twitch. “So, he probably saw a deer or a rabbit and decided to make friends.”
I roll my eyes, because yeah, that’s pretty much the conclusion I came to as well.
“Do you have any extra clothes in your bag? Something that smells like you?”
I wrinkle my nose. “How will that help?”
Instead of answering, he kneels in front of my bag and starts digging through it. I should probably tell him to stay out of my things, but instead, I stand there. Waiting. Feeling utterly useless.
He pulls out my pink bandana and holds it up. “Do you wear this?”
I nod, confused.
“Good.” He sets the bandana on the ground in the middle of the trail, then zips up my bag and hands it to me. “We’ll leave the bandana here. A lot of lost dogs will eventually find their way back to where they lost their owners, especially if they’ve got a scent to follow.
It sounds reasonable enough.
So, I sling my bag over my head. “What now?”
He watches me for another charged minute, then turns his attention to the trail. “Stay behind me and keep an eye out for any game trails.”
“I’ve already been up and down this trail. He’s not anywhere on it.” The weight of those words sits like a stone in my middle.
Beauden looks back at me with determination burning in his deep brown eyes. “He’s up here somewhere. We’ll find him.”
He has no idea how much I want to believe that. Hell, I need to believe it. But coming from him? It feels a lot like another empty promise he made me.
I love you, Nixie. And I promise, I’ll call you the first chance I get.
He didn’t.
The month I waited to hear from him felt like a lifetime. Then I found out he did call— his mom, his brother, even his best friend. Everyone but me.
“Just…” I shake my head and motion impatiently to the trail. The sun is sinking behind the mountains, and though the sky is still light, the temperature is already dropping.
With a curt nod, he marches down the trail at a pace that has me jogging every other step to keep up. After a couple of minutes, he pauses to look at a small path branching off the main trail that I didn’t even notice the first time I ran down this way in a panic.
It gives me one breathless moment of hope before reality steals it away. There could be a dozen game trails out here. A hundred. And Tiberius could have run his happy butt down any one of them. Or none of them.
I bend over and put my hands on my knees as I fight for air, sanity, and anything else inside me that might help me stay on my feet. Especially when it would be so much easier to just curl up in the dirt and bawl my eyes out.
Beauden doesn’t say anything. Not a single fucking word. And when I dare a glance at him, he turns away.
It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t ache. But it does piss me off, and it’s the anger that puts the starch back in my spine.
“Should we split up?” I ask coldly, my eyes on the game trail.
“No,” Beauden snaps, turning to face me. “He didn’t go that way. There’s no paw prints in the dirt, just hooves.”
I refuse to let my shoulders slump. “Then why the hell are we still standing here?”
The weight of his gaze on me is like a physical presence all its own, but I don’t look at him.
My attention is where it needs to be, out in the woods, looking for Tiberius.
And that’s where it’ll stay.