SLOAN
Light snow battered the windshield, the wipers ticking back and forth in a steady, hypnotic rhythm as the Jeep cut through the middle of Wyoming. The world beyond the glass had been reduced to shades of gray and white, mountains rising and vanishing again like half-remembered dreams.
She was still tired in that deep, bone-level way that had nothing to do with sleep and everything to do with adrenaline finally burning off.
Which was ironic, considering she’d actually slept.
With Kyle.
Well. Not with with. But with. In the same bed, under the same blankets. His hand warm over hers until she’d drifted off, the steady rise and fall of his breathing grounding her in a way she hadn’t expected and hadn’t been prepared for.
I can’t remember the last time I slept so . . . peacefully.
He’d told her she was safe, and the truth was, he hadn’t needed to. He didn’t need to spell out something he made so clear with everything he did.
She’d woken before him, heart doing something stupid and fluttery, very carefully disentangling her fingers from his like she might set off an alarm if she moved too fast.
He hadn’t pulled away in the night. That was the part she couldn’t stop thinking about. And she shouldn’t be thinking about Kyle. Or anyone. Two days ago, she’d woken up ready to take vows with Evan.
She wasn’t that big of a flake.
Yet . . . falling into a rhythm with Kyle had felt as natural as breathing.
The road stretched on, empty and pale.
Kyle’s hands were steady on the wheel, his posture relaxed but alert, eyes narrowing occasionally as the snow thickened and the visibility dropped.
She found herself watching him more than the scenery, music helping to fill any need to talk.
The way his hands were strong, with long fingers that always seemed steady.
Competent. He’d pushed the sleeves of his thermal Henley up to his elbows.
A sheen of fine, dark golden hair covered his well-muscled forearms.
He’s going to catch you staring.
She flicked her eyes away.
Last time she’d driven this stretch of road, it had been summer, a cloudless blue sky above her. Sun-baked asphalt. Evan had complained about the drive almost immediately, then fell asleep, then woke up long enough to tell her she was taking the curves too slowly.
He’d wanted to fly into Vail when she’d insisted they finalize the menu in person. She’d wanted the road. She’d always wanted the road.
Kyle hadn’t complained once this trip.
The GPS chirped again. “Rerouting.”
Sloan sighed. “That thing is lying to us.”
Kyle glanced at the screen and pulled over to the shoulder. He lifted his phone, analyzing the new route. “It’s not lying . . . it’s being aggressively optimistic.”
“That might be worse. How long is it saying it’ll take now?”
“Five hours.”
She squinted over her sunglasses. “See? It is lying. It’s been lying to us all morning. It said five hours two hours ago.”
He gave her a chagrined expression. “It’s a confident liar. That counts for something. To be honest, I’m not sure where it’s getting its information from anymore anyway. We seem to be out of service more than we are in it. I think we get a reroute every time my phone actually reconnects to data.”
She huffed a laugh. “At this point, we’re not going to get there until, what? Midnight?”
“If it doesn’t reroute us . . . maybe.” He snapped the phone back into a holder suction-cupped to the windshield. “We’ll get there. Might take longer, but we’ll get there.”
Something about the way he said it—so matter-of-fact and laid-back, as though he didn’t need to worry about catching a flight tomorrow and had all the time in the world—tugged at her chest.
A vein would have popped in Evan’s forehead by now.
She glanced at the low, heavy clouds above them. “You’re weirdly competent in crisis situations.”
He huffed a laugh and eased the Jeep back onto the road as a gust of wind kicked up snow across the highway. “High praise.”
“No, I mean it. You don’t get tense. Evan used to white-knuckle the steering wheel and snap at me like it was my fault the clouds existed.”
Kyle shot her a look. “Rude of you, really—summoning weather like that and forcing him to drive in it. Especially when you had a perfectly good broom you could have taken instead.”
His joke took a second for her to process, then a laugh bubbled up from someplace deep inside her she’d forgotten existed.
“You really don’t mind this, do you?”
“Mind what?”
“This.” She gestured widely to the weather, the Jeep, herself. “The snow. The whole . . . life not going according to plan thing.”
“Plans are frail things set up by people without an imagination.”
“Spoken like someone who doesn’t want to exist in reality.”
He sobered slightly, then cracked a half-hearted smile at her. “Granny used to say that, actually. But it’s all right. Her opinions and advice were sometimes questionable.”
“Oh, you don’t believe that for a second. You adored her.”
“I did.” He swallowed hard enough that his throat bobbed.
“But she put on an act occasionally—the tough-as-nails persona. She never really recovered after my grandfather died, even though you wouldn’t know it.
But she was all grit and get through it .
Used to say that she was glad she outlived him because she knew she could survive without him, but he couldn’t have survived without her since he was so madly in love with her. ”
Sloan set a hand over her heart, the ache there strong enough that it spread out into her chest. She wished she’d witnessed love like that in her life. Maybe she’d have been a better person because of it.
Maybe it was what made Kyle who he was.
Meanwhile, my mom was smitten with my dad, and yet he threw away everything she owned the second she died, never spoke of her again, and became a workaholic who only cared about his company.
And that was the thing, above all, she couldn’t quite forgive Dad for.
The GPS chimed again, cheerfully announcing another reroute.
Sloan groaned. “I swear, it’s just making things up now.”
“It’s doing its best.” He grimaced. “But we will have to stop at the next gas station and fill up. That’s the only thing about Wyoming roads that worries me—long stretches to the next station in the snow.”
She hadn’t thought of that. “Don’t scare me now.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve been topping us off every time, which is why I’ve stopped four times already.”
She smirked. “And here I thought you had an unusually small bladder for a man your size.”
“Who says I don’t? Speaking of which, hand me that soda we picked up at the last stop. Maybe the peanut M&Ms and Doritos, too. Oh, and the Twinkie.”
“You eat like a toddler.” She leaned down for the bag he’d stashed at her feet, then she uncapped the soda and handed it to him.
“I eat like a man who skipped lunch.” He gave her a pointed look.
They rounded a long, gentle curve, and something flickered in the headlights, darting off the road. A flash of black fur.
“Did you see that?” he asked.
She leaned forward. “Yeah. Was that . . . a bear?”
He frowned, shaking his head. “Too small.” He slowed further, scanning the shoulder. The snow thinned just enough for her to see a shape near the guardrail.
Not a bear, after all, but something far more familiar in shape, with floppy ears and black eyes that pierced right through her heart.
A dog.
He stood a few yards off the road. Medium-sized and scruffy—a mutt of some kind—with matted black and tawny fur. “Oh.” Her stomach dipped. “Kyle . . .”
He pulled over carefully, hazards clicking on. “Yeah. I see it.”
Cold hit her immediately when she tugged her hat and coat on and opened the door. The wind carried snow in thin, stinging sheets across the empty highway.
The dog didn’t take off, but it didn’t come closer, either. One leg held awkwardly, trembling with the effort of staying upright.
“Oh no,” Sloan breathed, already crouching. “Hey, sweetheart . . . it’s okay. You can come here. It’s okay.”
The dog hesitated, ears back, and took a limping step toward her.
Her chest tightened painfully.
“Who leaves a dog out here?” she asked, anger slipping into her voice before she could stop it.
Kyle crouched beside her. “Some miserable fucker who shouldn’t be allowed to have one.”
He held out his hand, a Dorito chip extended. The dog sniffed it, then took it from Kyle, ears falling flat. He whined, chewing, then leaned into Kyle’s outstretched hand like he’d been holding himself together by will alone.
Sloan swallowed hard. “His leg . . .”
“Yeah. Not broken, I don’t think. But he’s hurting. And he’s exhausted.”
She looked at Kyle.
He didn’t hesitate. “We’re not leaving him.”
Relief rushed through her so fast it made her eyes sting. “Thank you.”
They worked together without really talking about it—Kyle grabbing one of his shirts from the back, Sloan keeping her voice low and calm, coaxing the dog closer. He let them lift him, a yelp and whine leaving his throat as Kyle touched his leg. He didn’t bite or snap, though.
They settled him into the back seat, and he curled into the shirt almost immediately, tail giving a weak, uncertain thump.
Sloan closed the door gently and stood there for a second, staring at the snow swirling around them, her heart still pounding.
“This is not how I pictured today going,” she said.
Kyle smiled faintly and rubbed the back of his neck. “Road trips are big on character development.”
She looked back through the window at the dog.
He was so sweet. Desperately in need of a trim and a bath, but beautiful.
“I just don’t get it,” she said, her voice cracking.
“I don’t understand how someone can betray an innocent creature like that.
How can someone just dump a dog on the highway like this? How can someone be so selfish?”
Her shoulders started shaking, emotions climbing higher, her lungs hurting with each gasped breath.
“Hey,” Kyle said, reaching out and grasping her shoulder. “Hey. It’s going to be okay.”