Chapter 28
DAISY
I’m on the porch with my phone and a cup of June’s chamomile tea just before noon, still turning Lauren Reynolds’s name over in my head, when dust rises off the ranch road. Wyatt’s truck comes up the driveway, and he’s out of the cab before the engine’s fully off.
He’s covered in mud, his jeans caked to the knees, and his boots thick with it. His hat is pushed back on his head, and there’s a smear of something across his jaw that might be mud or might be grease.
He looks like the best thing I’ve ever seen.
I set down my tea and stand, but before I can say a word he’s up the porch steps and his hands are on my waist and my feet are off the ground. He lifts me like I weigh nothing, swings me once, and sets me down with my back against the porch post and his body blocking out the rest of the world.
I’m laughing. I can’t help it. Because this is not Wyatt Hartley. Wyatt Hartley does not swing women around on porches. Wyatt Hartley grunts and crosses his arms and communicates through meaningful silences and strategic hat adjustments.
“Who are you and what have you done with my rancher?”
“Had paperwork.” His mouth twitches. “Urgent paperwork.”
“Did you now.”
“Time-sensitive as a matter of fact.” He dips his head and kisses the spot just below my ear, quick and deliberate, and my knees turn to mush. “You doubtin’ me, Daisy-girl?”
“I would never.” My chin tips up to find his eyes, and the full weight of Wyatt Hartley’s attention from this close makes my pulse jackknife. His thumb traces my jaw before he leans down to cover my mouth with his.
The kiss is brief and unhurried, tasting like the outdoors and the morning and him. His other hand settles on my hip, and when he pulls back, he doesn’t go far.
“Hi.” He smiles.
“Hi.” I reach up and wipe the smear off his jaw with my thumb. Mud. “You have half a pasture on your face.”
He raises a dark brow. “Should see the other guy.”
I laugh again, and his eyes soften in a way that makes my chest throb.
“You hungry?” He hooks an arm around my waist and steers me toward the screen door, holding it open with his boot. “Because I’m starving and you can’t cook.”
“Excuse me, I can cook.”
“Daisy, you burned soup.”
“That was one time. And it was chowder. Chowder is thicker. It sticks.”
“It stuck alright.” He’s guiding me through the hallway with his hand on my lower back, and I let him because the casual authority of it is doing things to me I’m not prepared to examine. “Stuck to the bottom of June’s best pot. She still talks about it.”
“June talks about everything.”
“She’s got a point on this one.” He steers me into the kitchen and toward the counter. “Sit.”
Then his hands encircle my waist, and he deposits me on the counter facing the stove. “I’ll feed you before you burn somethin’.”
He moves through the room with an ease I’ve never seen from him before, cracking eggs one-handed, and starting a fresh pot of coffee without being asked. All the while, I sit on the counter and watch him work because the alternative is helping, and frankly, the view from here is so much better.
“You’re starin’ again.” He hasn’t even looked up from the griddle.
“Becoming a habit.”
“Mm. A real dangerous one.”
My face splits in a smile as I tease, “For who?”
He glances at me then, quick and warm, and the corner of his mouth lifts. “Me. Mostly.”
Then he slides a plate of scrambled eggs and toast across the counter to me and leans against the opposite side, arms folded, watching me eat with an expression that borders on smug.
“What?”
“Nothin’. Just glad you’re here.”
He holds my gaze across the counter, and I have to look down at my plate before my face gives me away.
“I’m glad I’m here too,” I murmur gently, and I mean it with everything I have.
He grabs his own plate, and we eat at the counter, our shoulders almost touching. He steals a piece of my toast, and I let him because the look on his face when he thinks he’s gotten away with it is worth the loss.
“Colt nearly got kicked this morning,” he says between bites. “Heifer took exception to being redirected. He rolled out of the way and came up grinnin’ like it was the best thing that happened to him all week.”
“Was it?”
“Knowing Colt? Probably.” He shakes his head. “Meanwhile Rhett just quietly fixed the whole boundary fence by himself while the rest of us were chasin’ cattle.”
“Sounds about right.”
“Man doesn’t talk, but he gets more done before breakfast than the rest of us manage in a whole damn day.”
I bump his shoulder with mine. “Remind you of anyone?”
He gives me a look but doesn’t take the bait.
“Shelby stopped by earlier.” I slowly chew my last bite of toast. “She was looking for June.”
“Mm.”
“She mentioned her sister Lauren works at the bank. Do you know her?”
“Lauren Reynolds?” He nods between chews. “Yeah, you know everyone knows everyone in Blackstone Creek.”
“Yeah, well, she works at the bank in commercial accounts. Transferred from Bozeman about four years ago.” I watch his face. “That puts her at the counter well before our dads died.”
Wyatt sets down his fork and thinks it through, turning it over before he responds.
“I’ve known Lauren Reynolds my whole life. A quiet girl, two years behind me in school. Married Bobby Diaz out of high school, divorced him three years later. Then she got her banking certification and moved to Bozeman.” He shakes his head, returning to his plate. “She’s not the type.”
“The type to what?”
“To make a call that gets people killed.”
“Wyatt.” I set down my coffee. “Nobody’s the type.
That’s the whole point. People get pressured into things every day.
They get scared, or they get leveraged. They do things they never imagined they would be capable of because someone with more power puts them in a position where the only option is to say yes. ”
The words linger in the space between us while he watches me with that careful, steady gaze. “You’re not just talkin’ about Lauren.”
“I’m not talking about any one person. That’s why I didn’t tell a soul about my evidence when I came back here.
Not you, not June, not the family.” I set down my coffee.
“Because the person who made that call lives in this town. They go to the same diner and shop at the same store. They gossip with the same people on Main Street and go to charity fundraisers for their neighbors. And I had no way of knowing who it was. I still don’t. ”
Wyatt is quiet for a long time, then, “That’s a hell of a thing to carry around.”
“Welcome to investigative journalism.”
He stands, pushes back from the counter, and pulls me into him. My feet barely skim the floor as his arms close around me, and I’m completely engulfed. All I can see is flannel, all I can smell is mud and Wyatt, and his chin settles on the top of my head like I was built to fit right here.
His phone vibrates in his pocket. He ignores it. It vibrates again.
“That might be important,” I murmur against his chest.
“It’s June.”
“You don’t know that.”
It vibrates a third time, and I reach around and pull it from his back pocket.
“How did you know?”
“’Cause she’s relentless.” He takes the phone without putting me down. “Yeah.”
I can’t hear June’s side of the conversation, but I can read Wyatt’s face. There’s a slight shift from mildly irritated to duly attentive. Then a nod, followed by another nod.
“Your truck still at the shop?” A pause. “No, it’s fine. I’ll come get you.” He glances at me. “Give me twenty minutes.”
He hangs up and slides the phone back in his pocket. “June needs a ride from Maggie’s. She dropped your Honda off at Hadley’s yesterday, thinking her truck would be ready, but neither one’s done yet. And Maggie just got called out on an emergency, so she’s stuck in town.”
“My Honda.” I raise an eyebrow. “The one you grounded three weeks ago?”
He raises one right back. “Check engine light’s not a suggestion, Daisy.”
“It ran fine for six hundred miles.”
“It ran lucky for six hundred miles.” He sets me down but keeps his hands on my waist while I smooth out invisible wrinkles on his shirt. “Come with me. Won’t take long.”
“I want to follow up on Lauren. And my phone needs to stay on the charger.” I tilt my head all the way back to meet his eyes. “Alma’s going to call. I don’t know when, but I know she will, and I need to be reachable when she does.”
He doesn’t like it. I can see the argument building behind his eyes.
“Dave’s here,” I argue. “He’s been out by the equipment barn all morning.”
Wyatt’s expression doesn’t change, and that’s when it clicks.
I step back and put my hands on my hips. “Did you send Dave to babysit me?”
“Dave wanted to check on the F-250.”
“That’s not what I asked, Wyatt.”
He holds my gaze, steady and completely unrepentant. “If he just so happened to be nearby in case you needed anything, that’s simply good plannin’.”
“And Marcus dropping by on his way to the Mason spread? Was that good planning too?”
Wyatt laughs, and it’s a low, surprised sound that changes his whole face. I genuinely lose my train of thought for a second because I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it before. Not like this. Not full and unguarded, with his eyes creasing at the corners and his shoulders shaking.
“I didn’t know Marcus was stoppin’ by.” He’s still smiling, his eyes shining in a way that makes my stomach somersault. “That one’s all him.”
I narrow my eyes, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. “So just Dave.”
“Just Dave.” His hands slide from my waist to my hips, and he gives my ass a pat so easy and natural it makes me grin like an idiot.
“Go get your sister before I start questioning your other strategic decisions.”
He doesn’t move. His jaw is doing the thing it does when he’s running calculations he doesn’t like the answer to.
“It’s just what you said before. About someone in town.”
“Wyatt.”
“Dave’s seventy-six and deaf in one ear.” He pulls out his phone. “If Marcus is still in the valley, I’ll see if he can swing back this way till I’m home. Can’t be too careful.”
* * *