Chapter 15
The evening had cooled quickly, the warmth of the afternoon slipping away without ceremony.
The sky above the tree line had turned that particular shade of deep blue that appears just before the first stars peek out, and the paddock fence was rough and solid under Cole’s forearms as he leaned into it.
Next to him, close enough that he could feel every inch of space between them, stood Jewel, her arms crossed on the top rail, her dark green eyes watching the horses move in the fading light.
Phantom moved along the far fence with his usual restless grace, his dark coat catching what was left of the evening light.
Sundancer stood near the center of the paddock, her head low as she grazed unhurriedly, just as she always did.
After a while, Phantom slowly approached her with a cautious, tentative step, as if still deciding whether to trust her, and Sundancer didn’t move away.
He noticed that. He’d been noticing it for weeks without letting himself think too much about the parallel and what it reminded him of.
“Ashley held herself together pretty well until she suddenly didn’t.
” Jewel was telling him the story about their encounter with Ashley yesterday.
She’d slipped into it naturally, without the careful measuring he used to feel in her voice—the kind that had told him, more clearly than her words, exactly how much damage he’d caused by hiding the truth from her.
He didn’t take for granted that it was now mostly gone; he was aware of its absence, like you are of a pain that has gradually eased. Grateful it was gone, but not entirely convinced it wouldn’t return.
“She also admitted to borrowing the bracelet. And I think it was more than the ‘occasionally’ she admitted to. When I mentioned seeing her wear it in the picture, she didn’t even flinch.”
“What picture?”
She glanced at him sideways. “Well, there is no picture. I just told her I saw her wearing the bracelet in one to see what she’d do with it.”
He looked at her, not hiding his amusement. “You bluffed her.”
One corner of her mouth lifted slightly. “I’m a skip tracer. It’s not my first bluff.”
He turned back to the paddock, feeling something that wasn’t quite happiness, but it was awfully close.
Four months ago, he didn’t even know this woman existed.
Now, he was standing at his fence watching her quietly dismantle complex people like she was hanging laundry, and the normalcy of it all felt both grounding and terrifying.
“And she denied knowing Robert, which says a lot,” she continued. “When I told her I’d seen her with him, she told me I’d have nobody left on my side in town and then stormed out.”
“Do you think she believed it? She might’ve thought you were bluffing.”
“Oh, she knew. She’s smart enough to know I wouldn’t have put Robert’s name on the table unless I really saw her with him. But smart doesn’t mean she’ll admit to it.”
“But we still don’t know who physically planted the bracelet in my office.”
“No. We know Ashley could’ve easily accessed it. We know she’s connected to Robert, and Robert to Rebecca. And we know they’re up to something. But knowing they’re up to something isn’t the same as proving what they’re up to.”
For a moment, he was silent. The weight of everything pressed down on him as it always did.
What had happened to Vivian? Who had walked into his barn?
Who had stood in the space where he worked, thought, and sometimes sat alone when the world outside was too loud, leaving something behind meant to make him look guilty?
He couldn’t make sense of it.
Next to him, Jewel sighed heavily, as if she, too, were carrying a burden. “I haven’t heard directly from Robert or Rebecca in quite a while. Which doesn’t mean they’ve stopped or given up. It just means they’ve gone quiet.”
He understood that kind of silence. He’d grown up with a version of it, the specific quiet that came before his father’s worst moments, the held breath before something broke. But that’s not what he told her.
What he said instead came out before he’d fully decided to say it. “The party meant a lot to Beck. He hasn’t stopped talking about it. The lights and the cake and…everything.” He felt her still beside him.
He paused and pressed his lips together, watching Phantom move in the dark.
There was so much more he wanted to say.
The image of her in his mother’s dining room with streamers in her hands, the chocolate cake, and the way Beck had stood over his candles with that enormous breath and that obvious joy.
The way she looked, standing just slightly apart from everyone else, like someone unsure if she was allowed to fully join the moment.
He wanted to tell her she was allowed, but he didn’t know how to say that without implying everything else that came with it.
“You didn’t have to do all of that.”
“I wanted to.” She looked up at him with her direct, honest gaze.
He felt it move through him the way things did when they were true. “Thank you.”
For just a moment, she held his gaze, then looked back at the paddock, and the quiet that came down between them was the kind that didn’t need any filling.
His mind drifted back to the birthday table.
To Beckett’s voice, easy and confident, telling them, “We ran to our mommies.” The way the sentence had landed in the room and then folded itself back into the noise before anyone had time to figure out what to do with it.
He’d kept his face still, his hands steady, and he hadn’t looked at her while he told himself he’d think about it later.
He hadn’t stopped thinking about it since.
He still didn’t know what to do with it. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to do anything at all. His son was four years old, scared, and had run toward the nearest, safest person. That was all it was, and turning it into something bigger would be unfair to everyone, especially to Beck.
He believed that, but he also knew what he’d felt when he heard it, and that feeling hadn’t been small.
She finally broke the silence. “I’m going to Albany next week.”
He had been expecting it ever since she mentioned Trevor would be there a few weeks ago. He stored it in the part of his mind where he kept things he wasn’t ready to face yet. “You’re going to the rodeo to meet up with Trevor?”
She nodded. “He’s competing Thursday night. It’s a big public event, and there’ll be plenty of people around. I’ll drive down on Wednesday, find and talk to him sometime on Thursday, then be back by Friday.”
“I want to come.”
“You’re not up to coming.” Her response wasn’t unkind, just factual.
She’d clearly already thought this through.
“Conrad’s busy running the lodge and the trail rides, and now that Sylvie and Della are gone, Susan needs someone here to help her, and Beck needs his routine.
” She glanced at him. “Don’t worry. I’ve done this a hundred times.
I know how to approach someone in a public setting. ”
“Trevor Montgomery isn’t just someone you tracked down over an unpaid debt.”
“No, he’s not. He’s a man who was involved with a woman who disappeared, and who’s been back on the circuit for months without a word to anyone who might need answers.
There’s no question he knows something, and he might even know everything.
And I am not going to sit here for another three weeks waiting for a better opportunity when this one is right here. ”
He held her gaze. In it, he could see the thing that always kept him from pushing back harder. It wasn’t stubbornness or recklessness, but the clear, settled certainty of someone who knew fear and had decided it wouldn’t stop her. He didn’t know whether to find that reassuring or terrifying.
He looked back toward the paddock.
Phantom had moved closer to Sundancer now, nearly touching shoulders, both of them peacefully grazing in the cooling dark, like animals that had stopped paying attention to the space between them.
He swallowed hard. “You’ll call me as soon as you find him? And after you’ve talked to him?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll leave if anything feels wrong. Anything at all.”
“Yes, then I’ll leave.” She said it like she meant it, and he believed her, but he still didn’t like it, and none of those things cancelled the others.
“Okay.”
She nodded once.
As they stood by the fence, the stars appeared one by one above the tree line, and the horses moved in the darkness just a few feet away.
The lodge behind them exhaled the quiet sounds of an evening settling in.
From the house above, Beck’s voice floated once through an open window, high and bright, and he heard his mother laugh.
The sound of it moved through him with a tenderness so sharp it was almost painful.
This was exactly what he wanted. He didn’t even know he was capable of wanting something this specific. But he didn’t say any of that.
They heard Emma Johnson before they saw her, her warm voice carrying across the yard from the porch. “Well, would you look at that. If it isn’t our favorite nanny.”
Jewel turned, and the smile that moved across her face was immediate and unguarded, the kind she didn’t always let out. “Emma.”
Jewel crossed the yard, and Emma met her halfway, arms open wide, her silver braid catching the porch’s light. Richard followed a step behind his wife, tall and unhurried, a man who had spent a long life trusting that his wife would get them wherever they were going, and he was happy to follow her.
Emma held Jewel at arm’s length and assessed her with a kind of frankness. “We were hoping you’d still be here. You look tired, dear.”
“Emma.” Richard’s voice was a gentle note of caution.
“I’m not being unkind, dear. I’m being honest. There’s a difference.” She let go of Jewel’s arms and turned to Cole with the same warmth she’d shown Jewel, gently squeezing his hand between both of hers. “Your mother looks wonderful, all things considered. We stopped in to see her earlier.”
“I’m sure she was happy to see you.”
“We’re here for the fun ride.” Richard smiled with the quiet satisfaction of a man anticipating something genuinely good.
“Third year running.” Emma was also smiling.
“Fourth.”
Emma looked at her husband. “Is it already the fourth?”
“It is.”
“Fourth year, then.” She moved on without ceremony, turning back to Jewel. “We want you to come with us tomorrow. To the Friends of Otter Creek fun ride. It’s a gorgeous route, the weather will be perfect, and that beautiful mare in the paddock looks considerably underworked.”
Jewel blinked. “I don’t—”
Emma’s hand raised to stop her. “Before you say no, it’s not a competition, and it’s not strenuous.
It’s just a nice group of people who love riding horses through the most beautiful area in the state.
And you look…” She paused, choosing her words carefully.
“Like someone who could use a morning with nothing more urgent to think about than where the trail goes next.”
Cole watched the automatic refusal forming on Jewel’s face, and then something quieter crept in behind it. Something that looked almost like longing.
“Sundancer could use the miles.” He hadn’t planned to say anything. But it was true, and it was also true that he wanted her to say yes, though he didn’t examine too closely why it mattered to him.
She glanced at him. Then back at Emma’s patient, expectant face. “Okay. What time?”
Emma’s smile proved that she had never seriously entertained the possibility of no. “Eight o’clock. And wear layers.”