Chapter 24
DAISY
Maggie looks at me like I’m the season finale.
I shrug. “I don’t know where to start.”
“The dress.” She pops a piece of popcorn into her mouth and chews with what can only be described as a devilish smirk. “Start with the dress and work forward.”
I open my mouth, but Wyatt cuts in before I get a single word out.
“There was a break-in at her cabin last night.”
Maggie’s legs stop swinging as her hand lingers mid-air, halfway between the popcorn bag and her mouth.
“Someone trashed the place while we were at the auction dinner,” he continues, and I notice the way he angles himself as he says it. Just a small shift, but he’s been doing it since last night. Small repositions that put his body between me and whatever direction a threat might come from.
I don’t think he even knows he’s doing it.
“Trashed it how?” Maggie’s voice has dropped the teasing note entirely.
“Laptop’s gone. Cushions sliced open. Cabinets emptied.” Wyatt’s voice is flat and matter-of-fact, but his jaw is set in that way that tells me he’s been replaying it on a loop since we walked through that door.
Maggie looks at me, her navy-blue eyes filled with concern. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
The words come out more controlled than I feel, though there’s something about the way she’s looking at me that makes it hard to swallow past the sudden lump in my throat.
“And the sheriff’s been called?” she questions her brother.
“Last night.”
“So you’re stayin’ here now.” This she directs at me, but it’s not really a question. It’s a Hartley confirming a decision that’s already been made.
“I’m staying here.”
Maggie nods, then eats another piece of popcorn. I can see her reorganizing the entire conversation she thought she was about to have. She came in expecting gossip and maybe a budding romance, but now she’s recalibrating.
Then she surprises me.
“Okay, but the dress conversation isn’t over.” She points at me with a kernel. “You don’t end up barefoot in a man’s kitchen at dawn wearing something that nice without there being a story.”
I almost laugh, and it dislodges the tightness in my chest I didn’t realize I was carrying. “Deal.”
“And you.” She swings toward Wyatt. “You look like you haven’t slept.”
“I haven’t.”
“Eat something, for Christ’s sake. You’re useless to everyone when you’re runnin’ on fumes and self-righteousness.” She hops off the counter and tosses the popcorn bag onto the table. “I’m going to shower. I smell like amniotic fluid and regret.”
She pauses at the doorway and looks back at me. “Daisy.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you’re okay.” Her eyes soften even as the hint of a smile threatens her lips. “And I’m glad you’re stayin’ where someone can keep an eye on you… even if that someone has the emotional range of a fence post.”
Then she disappears down the hall, and the kitchen settles into silence.
Wyatt picks up his coffee again, I pick up mine, and we stand on opposite sides of the counter and don’t talk about any of it.
He hasn’t touched me since I got out of his bed. Hasn’t come within arm’s reach.
Not once.
But he also hasn’t stopped tracking me. Every time I shift my weight, his eyes move. When I raise the mug to my mouth, his gaze follows my hands.
But I don’t push. I don’t ask where we stand or what last night meant now that Maggie’s out of the room. I just drink my coffee.
The back door opens again and I hear boots on the mat.
Colt comes through, hangs his hat on the hook, and comes to a complete stop when he sees me at the counter.
His eyes do the same inventory Maggie’s did. They scan the dress, my bare feet, and then encompass the kitchen. But where Maggie went for popcorn, Colt just raises one eyebrow at Wyatt and gets absolutely nothing back.
“Mornin’,” he says to me, like this is a perfectly normal start to his day.
“Morning, Colt.”
He pours himself coffee and leans against the fridge, and I watch him decide not to ask. It costs him. I can see the effort it takes to swallow whatever one-liner that’s formed behind his easy grin.
West comes in next, though he doesn’t react to me at all. He just nods once and moves to the stove, starting to pull out a pan, eggs, and butter in his usual no-fuss way.
June is last, hair still damp, smelling like vanilla and something floral.
She takes one look at me and her mouth opens into a perfect O before she presses it shut, biting down on whatever she was about to say.
She lightly squeezes my arm on her way to the coffee pot, humming to herself in an aggressively casual way.
Wyatt waits until they’re all in the room. I think he does it on purpose, so he only has to say it once more.
“Someone broke into Daisy’s cabin last night.” He sets his mug down, and continues through gritted teeth. “Place was tossed. Laptop was stolen. Sheriff’s been notified.”
The silence that follows speaks louder than words.
Colt’s grin is gone, and what’s underneath is a stillness I haven’t seen from him before. His eyes move to the windows, then to the back door, like he’s already mapping entry points.
West doesn’t look up from the eggs he’s cracking. But his hand has stopped moving.
June’s smile falters for just a beat before she hitches it back into place. “Well. They clearly don’t know who they’re messing with.”
Everyone murmurs in agreement before Wyatt clears his throat.
“She’s stayin’ here from now on.”
Only six words and no room for questions, and the kitchen absorbs them without a single person looking surprised.
“I’ll go down to the cabin once the sheriff clears it,” June announces, moving to grab a pen and notepad. “Here you go, honey. Make a list of what you need and I’ll grab what I can once the sheriff’s been.”
“Thank you.” My voice comes out rougher than I expected.
“I’ll take a look at the locks on the main house today.” West is still facing the stove. “Back door’s been sticking. Might as well check all of ’em.”
Colt hasn’t said a word. He’s watching Wyatt with an expression I can’t quite read, something passing between them that doesn’t need language. Then he pushes off the fridge and sets his mug in the sink.
“Anyone gets within a mile of this house that shouldn’t be here, Rhett and I will know about it.”
That’s all. No questions about who did it or why. No speculation. Just four people closing ranks so fast and so completely that my throat aches with the weight of it.
I watch a family absorb a threat the way a body absorbs a punch, and I’m standing in the middle of it, wondering when I became someone they protect.
Wyatt takes the plate West hands him and sets it in front of me instead of himself. When I look up to thank him, he’s already looking down at me.
Anger is rolling off him in waves, yet his eyes are soft as they trace the line of my collarbone and my jaw.
They linger on the shadows under my eyes as he catalogs every part of me that looks different from last night.
His fingers brush the back of my hand where it rests on the counter.
Barely there, but enough to send a shock of awareness clear through me.
Then he picks up his mug and moves to the window.
* * *
The sheriff arrives just after nine. Deputy Torres is a young and serious man with a clipboard and a camera bag slung over one shoulder.
Wyatt meets him on the porch and walks him down to the cabin while I watch from the kitchen window, still in last night’s dress because everything I own is involved in an active crime scene.
West pushes back from the table. “I’ll head down, too. Want to look at the door frame and try figure out how they got in.” He looks at June. “You want to come and grab her things?”
June nods, already pulling on her boots. “I’ll take the list.”
Maggie’s phone beeps twice in quick succession. She reads it, grimaces, and reaches for her keys. “Colicky foal out past Sage Harbor. I need to go.”
“Not alone you don’t.” Colt doesn’t look up from his coffee.
Maggie plants her hands on her hips. “Excuse me?”
“Take Miguel or Old Dave.” His shoulders are stiff, spine ramrod straight as he continues to stare into his coffee. “Someone broke onto our property last night, Magnolia, or have you forgotten?”
She grits her teeth at his use of her full name, but manages, “It’s Sage Harbor, asshole. It’s forty minutes on a straight road in broad daylight.”
Colt lifts his eyes and spears his sister with a look, that usual easy grin nowhere in sight. “Take Miguel or don’t go. Choice is all yours.”
Maggie opens her mouth, looks at me, looks at the cabin through the window, and closes it again.
“Fine.” She huffs. “I’ll radio him from the damn truck.”
The house empties in stages. Maggie first, then West and June head down toward the cabin. Colt finds Rhett somewhere between the barn and the bunkhouse, and I watch the two of them move out along the tree line, scanning the ridge methodically.
The house goes quiet after everyone leaves. Too quiet. I’m standing at the kitchen window with cold coffee when Old Dave appears at the back door, hat in his hands.
I’m not surprised he’s heard. News moves through a working ranch like water through a crack.
“Miss Daisy.” He nods at me with the quiet formality he’s used every time we’ve spoken. “Wyatt asked me to sit with you while he’s down at the cabin.”
Of course he did.
“You don’t have to do that, Dave.”
“No trouble at all.” He settles into the chair nearest the door with the unhurried ease of a man who has sat in this kitchen a thousand times. “The crew’s checkin’ the outbuildings. Boys’ve split up, east and west. Anythin’ looks off, we’ll know.”
He turns his hat in his hands for a moment, studying the brim.
“Your daddy had a break-in once, long time ago now. Turned out to be Hector Pruitt’s boy looking for cash to buy a dirt bike.” He shakes his head. “Bill tanned his hide and drove him home. Different times.”
The story doesn’t help, but I don’t think it’s meant to. It’s Dave’s way of being here.