Chapter 40 Pine Shallows
PINE SHALLOWS
Ember
The night at the club with Wyatt had been exactly what I needed. Time to turn off my brain and process something aside from anger and grief. I felt like an old computer that had just been rebooted after being on constantly for the last twenty years, never even winning a wipe down.
Lying across that bench with him while he smacked my ass until it was red and then fucked me until I came all over him? That was my reboot. Time to get out of my head and exist where just the two of us existed.
So now, three days later, sitting at Wyatt’s dining room table and staring at my phone, I was pondering if someone else could make this call for me.
“It won’t ring itself, little flame,” Wyatt muttered from behind me. I ignored him. He wasn’t even supposed to be here. He was supposed to be up in his office working—something he’d been ignoring lately because he’d been so worried about taking care of me.
“Don’t you have some sort of virus to get rid of or nosy competitor to knock out?” I grumbled, but instead of falling into my trap of distracting me, he just chuckled, kissed my cheek, and grabbed my phone. “What are you doing?”
“Helping,” he replied.
My eyes widened as he set the phone back on the table in front of me, but it was now ringing on speaker phone, Evan’s name across the top of the screen.
I glared at him. “Traitor!”
He chuckled and ran up the stairs. “Good luck!”
“Hello?” Evan said, answering the phone. The nerves were clear in his voice. I never called him first; it was always him reaching out. I should feel guilty over that, and I did, but at the same time, I didn’t know who I could trust right now.
“Hey Evan. How’s life?” I asked, trying to imbue some positivity in my life.
“Oh, um, hey Em!! Good. Still working on the ranch with Uncle Howie. Even Elliot loves it, and we all know how he is with jobs,” he chuckled.
“Yeah, we definitely do. I’m glad it’s going well.
Is he treating you okay? Uncle Howie, I mean.
” I started tracing small shapes on my thigh while he talked.
I couldn’t remember the last time we’d talked like this.
He told me about what he did on the ranch—how he loved the horses and barrel racing was becoming his new favorite sport.
“I’m glad you’re having a good time. You deserve it.” I cleared my throat and glanced out the window at the cloudy sky. “Listen, are you coming to the dinner at Mom’s tomorrow?”
Evan scoffed. “And miss you bringing home a man? Absolutely I’ll be there. El and I wouldn’t miss it.”
I smiled despite the feelings rumbling around in my chest right now. “Okay good. So I’ll see you soon?”
“I’ll see you soon, big sis,” he replied.
We said our goodbyes and hung up a few minutes later.
I found myself staring at my phone, contemplating whether this was the right course of action or if I was going to make a bad thing even worse.
They didn’t know about the fire yet—Wyatt had talked to a couple of his friends at the police station who’d kept it under wraps for me.
The bakery had dark tarps over the windows and a sign on the door saying we were closed temporarily.
It all felt so dramatic, so secret agent and covert ops of us. But we wanted to ensure he didn’t know until we were ready for him to know.
So tomorrow, Wyatt and I would show up, and we’d hope for the best.
“How’d it go?” Wyatt asked as he came down the steps.
I scoffed. “As if you weren’t listening the whole time. Don’t play with me.”
He smirked, his dimple showing off as he plopped down next to me in a chair. “I was listening the entire time. This is good, right? All three of them will be there to question?”
I nodded, back to drawing random shapes on my thigh with my finger.
“Yeah, I know you’re right. Doesn’t mean I have to enjoy the fact that any one of them could be helping him, or worse, all of them could know.”
He leaned over and kissed my forehead, his arm wrapping around my shoulders.
“I know you don’t want to believe it, trust me.
But I can’t find him anywhere, and I’ve been looking for over a month.
Which means someone in your life is hiding him.
I don’t think it’s your brothers unless they’ve got him out on your uncle’s ranch somewhere, so that leaves your mother.
The records Julian was able to track down have his mail being sent to the same address your Mom’s is sent to. ”
I sighed, dropping my head back. “I know, I know. Honestly, she’d make the most sense. She’s never been able to tell the man no for anything, but what if she’s in on it with him? What if she knows about the loan shark psychos and shit?”
Wyatt was quiet for a moment, but eventually his arm squeezed my shoulder before he shrugged. “We’ll deal with it when it happens. Don’t worry.”
“Let’s just eat and try to get some sleep tonight,” I muttered, but he agreed and hopped up to start making dinner. Tomorrow was going to be a long fucking day, and I was already ready for it to be over with.
I let Wyatt drive, and as I stared out the windshield of his dark SUV, my gaze glaring at the house my mother lived in, I was happy I chose to do so.
“I don’t want to go in there,” I grumbled.
His hand reached over, grasping my own, but he didn’t speak.
“What are you worried about?” he finally said, breaking the momentary silence.
We hadn’t talked on the way over. He’d taken my hand into his and a manila folder in the other as we walked out. The ride had been filled with the low sounds of the radio station, and that was the sum of it.
“What if he’s in there?” My throat felt thick with emotion—emotions I’d done my best not to fully look at or sift through.
“What if he knew they were coming after me to get to him, and he did nothing? What if he knows it all and chose to lay low because he doesn’t give a shit about me and would rather save his own skin? ”
“Then I’ll kill him,” Wyatt stated plainly.
My gaze ripped from the house and to the man beside me. “Be so serious right now.”
He shrugged. “I was. Quite serious, actually. We can make him disappear, wait a few months, take this all to the cops, and hopefully sort out your identity issues. By the time they come looking for him, the pigs will have taken care of it all for us.”
My mouth went dry, and I shifted uncomfortably in the seat next to him.
His words were doing things to me—things I shouldn’t be forced to think about when I was about to walk into my mother’s house.
He spoke with such confidence, and I knew why he did, and I knew I shouldn’t be this turned on right now by my boyfriend threatening to take out my father, but here we were.
Obviously, I was in desperate need of therapy.
“Ember?” he muttered, his voice now soft and full of understanding. I dragged my gaze from the ugly brown siding and back to his deep blue eyes. “I’m here, little flame. You aren’t doing this alone, alright? We’ll do this however you want to.”
I felt myself nod.
“You’d really make him disappear?” The corner of my mouth twitched as I tried to suppress a smile as he smirked.
“All you’d have to do is say the words, Ember Rae.”
I shook my head as a full smile hit my face. “Let’s get this shit over with, Carragan.”
We climbed out of the SUV, and I stared at the house my mother now called home. It was a double-wide trailer with brown siding and white trim around the windows. It was cute, or it would be cute if something about it didn’t set me on edge.
“How much money did she get when she sold your grandfather’s house?” Wyatt questioned from next to me.
I arched a brow. “You didn’t look into that, Mr. Know-It-All?”
He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “No, brat, I didn’t.
I was more worried about you and your father.
Didn’t do much diving into your mother. Plus, that’s a lot coming from you, Ms. Didn’t-Even-Open-The-File.
” He looked around us. “I mean, it’s a nice neighborhood, don’t get me wrong.
But his house should’ve sold for enough to have her set for a while anywhere, especially with the land tied to it. Why here?”
Pine Shallows was on one side of Raven Creek, further in and closer to the city.
Sapphire Cove was on the opposite side of Raven Creek, closer to the lakes of the Rocky Mountains.
There was nothing wrong with the town Mom had picked, it was just small and it felt…
random. Something my mother had never been interested in.
Lori was a city girl. She wanted to be able to get coffee, get her nails and hair done, while also grabbing a five-star meal within two blocks of each other. Theoretically, with the money she’d gotten from my grandfather’s house, she could’ve moved somewhere all of that was possible—an actual city.
“I’ve never given it much thought past the idea that this place isn’t my mother at all.
She’s very…glitz and glam.” I looked over at him and started chewing on my bottom lip.
“You have a theory, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question; I knew he did.
The question was what that theory was and how much I was going to fucking hate it.
Wyatt nodded. “I do, but let’s go have some dinner. We can talk about it later after we see how all of this goes down.”
He slid his hand along my back and guided me up the few steps to my mother’s front door. I knocked, but before the second hit could touch the metal, the door swung open, my brother’s smiling face there to greet us.
Evan was the tallest out of the three of us kids, at just over six feet. His shaggy auburn hair was brushed back today, and his skin tanner than normal, making his freckles pop even more.
“Ember!” he yelled, the excitement clear in his voice as he pulled me into a hug. He let me go after a brief squeeze and turned to Wyatt. “You must be the new guy.”
Wyatt chuckled. “That’s me. Wyatt,” he said, holding out his hand for Evan to shake. “You must be Evan.”