Chapter Seventeen
Even though he had leads to follow, Copeland didn’t insist she stay put, like Audra expected. After they ate lunch, he insisted on doing her chores with her. Well, after she’d ripped off the Band-Aid and called Franny too.
No doubt by tomorrow she’d have a full house again. Would Copeland stay? Did she want him to?
Questions she didn’t want to ponder right now. They had stalls to muck, and she really wanted to tell him he didn’t need to help. She really wanted to tell him she could handle this. She just had to find a way to explain it to him in a way that didn’t sound like martyring herself.
“If something comes up that you need to handle—”
“Relax, Audra. Laurel will handle it,” he told her as they shrugged their jackets on. She’d scrounged up some very old work boots of her dad’s in the stables and he was using those when they were out on the ranch.
“She’s got Austin’s information, the name Isaac and your mother’s whereabouts to go off of,” he continued, stepping outside with her. “I’ll look in to what I can later, once we’re done with this, but if we’re going through all the work of staying put, you might as well get your work done.”
Audra didn’t know what to say to that, because it made her feel guilty, but she also realized Copeland wasn’t trying to. Which meant the guilt was her own doing, and she didn’t love that realization.
They walked over to the stables in quiet. If she kept taking the ibuprofen at the correct intervals, her ankle mostly didn’t bother her, which was a relief. Copeland barely even bugged her about it now.
Audra knew Copeland wore a gun, knew the way he walked, looked around, was all in that cop manner.
Looking for threats. Looking for clues. But when they came to a stop at the stables, and she unlocked the padlock that kept the doors shut, she turned back to see him gazing out at the horizon.
It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him look out at it like that.
Not coplike. Not detached. Not seeking out a threat. But just…a soft kind of appreciation of the beauty all around them. Like he enjoyed it here. Could find some kind of belonging here.
Which was ridiculous, of course, and her fairy-tale heart complicating things just like it always did. Best to nip that in the bud.
She opened the doors, gestured him inside and went to gather the tools. She handed him his shovel, met his gaze with clear, determined eyes of her own.
“I’m sure Rosalie and Duncan will insist on staying here once they’re back, even though they shouldn’t. Add Franny and it’s a full house. You won’t have to stay here. I’ll have help and constant babysitting.”
He didn’t say anything at first, just took the tool and turned to the first stall. After a few stretched-out moments, all he said was “We’ll see.”
Audra didn’t know what the hell to do with that. So they worked in silence, cleaning up the stalls, brushing down the horses.
With her truck still out of commission—something she wished she’d taken care of or could get taken care of before Rosalie got back, but too late now—she’d need to take the horses to go back on a windbreak on the far corner of the property.
It looked a little weak the last time she’d been up that way.
She also needed to check on a few of the cows and make sure they weren’t getting too thin with all this bitter cold.
She’d need to do some separating soon if there wasn’t a change there.
Lots to do, always, but the stall cleaning went quickly with Copeland’s help. Once they were done, Audra surveyed his work. “You’re not so bad at mucking stalls.”
He grinned at her. “It’s not such a bad chore. Kinda nice to do something physical outside of a gym. The horses might even be growing on me.”
“Well, good, because we’re going for a little ride to check on some things.”
He agreed easily, helped her with saddling them up. He seemed interested to learn, not just help, which Audra didn’t know what to do with. Rosalie helped with the ranch a lot, didn’t require any teaching, but there was no love there. No interest. It was a duty and duty only for her.
Franny offered to help, but her head was in the clouds and it was usually easier for Audra to handle it herself and let Franny tackle any household tasks she felt necessary.
Sometimes Norman or a hand from the Kirk Ranch came over and helped, but Audra always made sure she returned the favor. She wouldn’t let herself grow debts that made people resentful, like her parents had.
So she didn’t know what to do with Copeland’s interest, pleasant attitude, or aptitude for the chores and the riding. Except take things one step at a time.
They rode out to the windbreak, and as Audra suspected, part of it had fallen over. She’d need to nail some boards back into place. She gave Copeland a few instructions, hauled her tools out of her saddlebag and then got to work.
It would have been nearly impossible to do on her own. She probably would have been forced to call Norman. Then she’d have felt she owed him a favor, and that would have sat like an uncomfortable debt there in her brain.
Almost like you’re your own problem, Audra.
But what if she couldn’t handle it all? Everything would fall apart. She’d been holding everything together for as long as she could remember. She was the glue, the foundation. Without her…
She rubbed at her chest. It was getting tight, and while she wasn’t prone to them, sometimes when things were especially stressful, she suffered a panic attack or two. But she handled it. She always handled it. And no one knew, because she handled it.
But Copeland was right there, and she knew he sensed something was wrong when his arm came around her shoulders.
She breathed carefully, kept her expression as neutral as possible. When she trusted her voice, she gestured at the windbreak. “We do good work.”
“Yeah. And this really helps the cows stay warm?”
She nodded, some of the tightness in her chest easing. “Yep. Next up, we’ve got to check on a few of them. If they get too thin, they’ll have to be separated so I can ensure they’re eating and can give them some winter supplements.”
“And if this was some random winter, with no threats, you’d just be handling all of this on your own.”
“I have help.”
“When and if you take it. Big whens. Big ifs.”
She wanted to get away from him, but his arm was holding her in place. She squinted at the mountains in the distance. She couldn’t put into words the need to do all that. It came from a place too deep to fully verbalize.
And if she tried to tell him, it felt like it would uproot the strength of purpose that kept her going.
“I have no doubt a lot of people around you know this, that maybe even tell you this, and you probably don’t listen to them, and you probably won’t listen to me, but it’s impressive what you do, what you handle. All on your own.”
It was just the kind of compliment that should have touched her. Instead, it made her want to shrug away the words. Pushing every boundary, just like she’d accused him of earlier.
“Would it kill you to take a compliment, Audra?”
God, sometimes it felt like it might.
“I know they did a number on you, but it doesn’t have to keep doing the same number.”
“He says, from experience,” she grumbled, only half-irritated. Because it was true. Both what he said, and where he’d come up with it. They weren’t trite words. It was his own experience.
Someone had done a number on him, and he’d changed his whole life rather than live in the bowels of that.
“I’m getting there, I think.” His arm stayed around her, that comforting warmth, this unknown glow of being able to let go, let someone else handle something when none of her usual get-arounds worked.
Because Rosalie was tenacious and demanding and sometimes managed to wheedle Audra into accepting some help, some credit, but mostly—because she’d grown up with Rosalie and knew all her tender points—she knew how to move around her sister.
She didn’t know how to move around Copeland. Not when he was poking into things that were about her, not the case. Life, not threats.
“You could get there with me, Audra,” he said, very carefully. “All it takes is a little leaning.”
She laughed, knew it was bitter-sounding. “Is that all? Because every time I’ve let myself lean, I’ve fallen flat on my face.”
“You won’t with me.”
The worst part was she believed him, even when she knew she shouldn’t.
THEY FINISHED HER CHORES, and while Copeland was eager to get back to the case, to find some answers for her, he’d also enjoyed himself in a weird way.
There was something different about doing a lot of physical labor and seeing your efforts have physical manifestations.
So much of his own work was nebulous. Sure, he solved mysteries, helped people out of danger, but then it was left up to the mess of the judicial system.
The only thing that could undo the windbreak was Mother Nature.
He glanced at Audra as they walked from the stables to the house. Speaking of things that needed an act of nature to move.
She needed a push, and it wasn’t coming from the people she’d learned to fool with her walls and boundaries.
So it was going to have to be him.
Something he’d think about later, when there wasn’t a strange car in Audra’s drive.
He stopped her progress, situated himself in front of her. Rested his hand on his weapon. “You recognize that car?”
“No.”
A woman got out of the driver’s seat. Copeland gestured for Audra to stay put, and he did the same, watching as the woman crossed the yard with purposeful strides.
“Hello. I’m looking for Detective Beckett.”
“You found him.”
The woman smiled, and there was something about the eyes, almost the same shade as Rosalie’s, that had him more wary than the sudden appearance of a stranger. She held out a hand as she approached, offered a firm handshake. Cop or military, he was almost certain.
“My name is Karly Young. It was brought to my attention that you’ve been looking in to my brother.”
Definitely the same blue eyes. He glanced back at Audra. She looked a little pale. But she stood there, strong as ever, ready to face something she shouldn’t have to face.
“Bent County is a bit of a hoof from Schriever.” He’d looked into all the half siblings, so he knew Karly was military, currently working at a Space Force base in Colorado.
He wanted her to know that he’d looked in to her as well as her brother.
Maybe this was innocent, but he wanted her to know he wasn’t caught unaware.
“I suppose it is, but I’m desperate to find my brother. You were looking in to him before he was reported missing.”
Copeland studied her. “Where’d you hear that?”
She smiled, maybe a little ruefully. “I know people. I want to know your connection.”
Copeland gestured at the house behind him. “You really going to pretend like you don’t know the connection?”
Karly’s expression hardened. Copeland noted she had expressly not looked in Audra’s direction.
But Audra clearly couldn’t resist. “It’s cold,” she said from behind him. “You should both come inside and have this discussion.”
The woman—Karly—looked at the house. She did not look at Audra. “No. Thank you.” The words were clipped. Icy.
Hurt crossed over Audra’s face, and it made him want to be difficult with Karly for the sake of it, but that wouldn’t get them answers.
He weighed his questions, his next moves. Decided being forthright without explanation was the best course of action. “What connection does Austin have to Florida?”
Karly frowned. “None.”
He could have played along, but he was tired of Audra living in a world of nonanswers, so he didn’t even play that game. “That isn’t true, and I know it. So you can either give me the truth, or you can leave.”
He watched the woman’s face. Hints of Audra, but something harder and sharper. Angrier. There was a deep-seated bitterness there that even when Audra found some bitterness within her, didn’t twist like this.
Copeland found his hand creeping back up to his gun. There was something about this woman he didn’t trust.
But some of that softened. Not into anything soft, but something far more resigned. Karly looked back at her rental car, shook her head.
“Some internet girlfriend. He’d talked about visiting her in Fort Myers. Honestly, the first day he was missing, I figured that’s what he’d done. But I can’t find any evidence he went to Florida.” Everything in her expression went hard again. “I want to know where my brother is.”
“So do I,” Copeland returned. “Would your brother have any reason to want to harm this place?”
“Of course not.” But Karly’s gaze looked at the boarded-up house windows. The plastic-wrapped truck windows. “You’ve had trouble.”
Copeland could have corrected her. Pointed out it was Audra’s trouble, not his.
But it felt a little too tenuous. So he kept talking to Karly like Audra wasn’t there, even though he knew it hurt all of them.
“Lots of it. Coming from someone who has connections to Florida.” Something occurred to Copeland then.
Maybe Karly didn’t know what her brother was up to, but she had the background.
“When your dad was alive, did he give your brother any reason to think this ranch was his?”
She snapped right back up—all bristle and offense instead of any hint of exhaustion or defeat. “I don’t have to answer these questions. I came looking for my brother, and I want to know why you were looking in to him before he disappeared.”
“You’re looking at it,” he said, pointing at the boarded-up windows.
“Then you’re a really bad detective,” Karly snapped, then turned on a heel and headed back toward her car.