Chapter 24 #2
We sit together for the better part of an hour. He doesn’t push conversation, just drinks the coffee I pour for him and tells me about a fence post he replaced last week that turned out to have a bird’s nest inside.
“Left it alone,” he murmurs. “Some things’re more important than straight lines.”
Wyatt comes back from the cabin with mud on his boots and a jaw so tight I’m surprised his teeth haven’t cracked.
He claps Dave on the shoulder in the doorway, a wordless exchange that carries the weight of their friendship.
Dave shoots me a reassuring smile, sets his hat back on his head and lets himself out.
Once he’s gone, Wyatt doesn’t tell me what the sheriff said, just stations himself at the kitchen counter with paperwork he’s not reading while watching the driveway like he’s daring someone to come up it.
While he’s busy, I shower and change into the bathrobe June left folded on Wyatt’s bed before she went down to the cabin.
It’s soft and oversized, and I’m more than a little grateful for the comfort.
I cinch it tight and go back downstairs with wet hair, bare feet, and nothing else to put on until June gets back.
Wyatt’s eyes find me and drop the full length of the bathrobe before he catches himself. His jaw flexes and he scrubs a hand over his face, turning back to the paperwork he’s not reading.
Around ten thirty, Dolly Briggs pulls up in her station wagon with a casserole dish and a face full of purpose.
I haven’t seen her since the fundraiser, but I can’t help recalling how, even back when she’d press a lemon drop into my hand after church, she knew everything about everyone within a thirty-mile radius. Time has only sharpened the skill.
Dolly doesn’t gossip. Instead, she distributes intelligence with the efficiency of a wartime radio operator, and she heard about the break-in from her nephew, who is apparently Deputy Torres. She hugs me tight before placing the casserole on the counter, and telling Wyatt he looks terrible.
“You need to eat.” She points an accusing finger at him. “And sleep. You look like you haven’t done either.”
“I’m fine, Dolly.”
“You are not fine. You’re a man runnin’ on spite and caffeine, and I’ve known you since you were in diapers, Wyatt Hartley, so don’t you try that face on me.”
Wyatt doesn’t argue. He just takes the casserole dish and puts it in the fridge, and Dolly pats his cheek on her way out like he’s still six years old.
The kitchen barely settles before a truck rumbles up the driveway around eleven. Wyatt looks toward the window.
“Marcus.” I can see his shoulders loosen a fraction.
The back door opens with an easy knock before we hear his voice. “Anybody home?”
“In here,” Wyatt calls back.
Marcus appears in the kitchen doorway, hanging his jacket on the hook. “June called me. Said there was some trouble over here last night.”
Wyatt gives him the short version. Break-in. Cabin tossed. Laptop gone. Sheriff’s just about done processing the scene.
Marcus listens with his arms folded, his face growing more serious with every detail. When Wyatt finishes, he shakes his head slowly.
“Lord.” His eyes find mine. “Daisy. Are you all right, sweetheart?”
“I’m fine.” I’m closer to believing the words every time I say them. “Wasn’t there when it happened.”
“Thank goodness you were at the auction dinner and not at the cabin.” He exhales heavily before tapping his fingers on the table with a shake of his head. “Doesn’t bear thinkin’ about, what could’ve happened if you’d been home alone.”
The words linger in the air for a moment as he pours himself coffee and leans against the island.
“Any idea who’d do something like that?” he asks Wyatt. “Come on to Hartley land and target a guest?”
“Not yet.” But the determination in Wyatt’s eyes tells me it’s only a matter of time before that changes.
Marcus nods. “While I’m here, I can call the insurance company and get a claim started on the property damage. If Daisy’s laptop was used for any ranch work, invoices, interview recordings, anythin’ like that, then we might be able to claim that under the ranch policy too.”
“Mm.” Wyatt grunts, having returned to the paperwork he’s still pretending to read. “Yeah. Do that.”
“I’ll need a list of what was taken when you’re ready, Daisy. Serial numbers if you have them.” He takes a sip and gives Wyatt’s arm a squeeze on his way past. “We’ll get it sorted. Always do.”
He heads toward Wyatt’s office, mug in hand, already pulling his phone from his pocket to make the call.
June comes through the front door around noon with two bags. She sets everything on the kitchen table and pushes a strand of damp hair off her forehead.
“Okay. I grabbed jeans, sweaters, your boots, toiletries, and that green jacket you had on the back of the door.”
She smiles encouragingly, and my nostrils flare as emotion surges through me. “Thank you.”
“I’ll make up the guest room.” June is already moving toward the hall closet for sheets.
“No.”
Wyatt’s tone brooks no argument as the word flies out of his mouth so fast it stops June mid-step. We both turn to face him at the same time, and the kitchen goes very, very quiet.
His jaw works once, and I know he can feel us both looking at him. The silence stretches long enough for the coffee maker to click off in the corner, and still neither of us rescues him.
“She’s with me,” he says, like he’s justifying it to himself as much as to us, but keeps his gaze locked on the empty yard. “I don’t want her out of my damn sight.”
For a man who spent all morning building a case for why we can’t do this, he just demolished it in a single breath.
June looks at him, then looks at me. “Your room it is, then,” she replies lightly, and puts the sheets back. She catches my eye on her way past, mischief dancing behind those green eyes as a grin tugs at her lips.
Pure June.
I shake my head even as I smile to myself before taking the bags upstairs to Wyatt’s room and changing quickly into faded blue jeans, a plain red sweater and my old boots.
It shouldn’t make as much difference as it does, but by the time I make my way back downstairs, I feel less like a woman whose life got turned upside down twelve hours ago and more like someone who can function at least semi-normally.
June is at the bottom of the stairs when I come down.
“Sheriff’s finished up. They dusted for prints but Torres said not to get our hopes up.
Whoever did it wore gloves.” She tilts her head.
“Also, your laptop charger was still plugged in by the bed. They took the laptop but left the charger. Make of that what you will.”
“Someone in a hurry?” I ask.
“Or someone who knew exactly what they were after.” She holds my gaze for a beat, then squeezes my arm and heads toward the laundry room.
Wyatt is at the counter where I left him.
He looks up when I come in. His gaze lands on the red sweater, and his hand tightens around his mug before he sets it down carefully to cross the kitchen.
He doesn’t say a single word, just reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his rough fingers dragging slowly against my jaw on the way down.
His eyes search my face, piece by piece, and they’re open in a way I’ve never seen from him before.
My heart is in my throat, and I have no idea what to do with that, so I focus on the only thing I can control right now.
“Alma Cutter,” I say quietly.
His hand drops. He holds my gaze for one more beat, then steps back and nods once, picking up his keys and grabbing his hat from the hook by the door.
He stops at the laundry room door. “June? We’re headin’ out. You’re not alone. Marcus is in the office.”
June appears in the doorway, a folded towel in her hands. “Be safe,” she says to both of us, but she’s looking at me.
The truck is warm from sitting in the sun. Wyatt opens my door, waits until I’m in, and closes it. Then he comes around and climbs behind the wheel, flipping on the air before turning the engine over.
We pull down the drive, heading toward the tree line that’ll take us out onto the county road. I glance toward the cabin as we pass the turnoff, and find the sheriff’s tape across the porch, bright yellow against the weathered wood.
I face forward just as Wyatt’s phone vibrates twice on the console between us. He glances at it, then back at the road.
“Could you check that for me? Passcode’s 4-7-2-1.”
He shares it without ceremony or hesitation. Just hands me access to his entire life the way he’d hand me a coffee mug, and I don’t think he realizes what he’s done.
I pick up the phone, type it in, then tap the text to open a group chat named Hartley’s Hellions.
I resist the almost overwhelming urge to laugh, knowing without a doubt that Colt is behind the name. “Maggie’s on her way back from Sage Harbor with Miguel. Foal’s stable.”
I scroll further. “Colt says he and Rhett are finishing up the fence line. And West’s got the cabin door sorted.”
Wyatt nods once, eyes firmly on the road, and every piece accounted for.
“So, what do we know about Alma in all of this?” he asks.
And just like that, we’re partners.