Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Wyatt
Sunday
If there’s one thing Colter Creek never fails at, it’s showing up for a potluck.
I’m convinced this town would hold a potluck during an alien invasion: people running around screaming while Betty Lou from the diner sets out her green bean casserole, yelling, “Well, someone’s gotta feed the extraterrestrials.”
At least today’s mayhem is the normal kind. Kids shrieking across the church lawn, folding tables sagging under enough carbs to kill a grown man, old-timers defending their favorite potato salad recipe.
I’m leaning under the shade of a cedar tree, sipping chamomile tea out of a paper cup because I lost my favorite mug. Again.
“Wyatt Tucker, the only man at a barbecue drinking flower water,” Emmett Holt says with a grin as he walks up, hands shoved into his back pockets, hair damp.
He’s wearing his Dusty Spur Ranch shirt, the one with the faded bronc rider logo, and somehow he still looks as happy as a puppy.
I take another sip. “It’s tea, Emmett. Chamomile tea.”
“Uh-huh,” he says, leaning in. “Flower water.”
I shove him lightly with my elbow. “Didn’t your mama teach you to be respectful toward medicinal beverages?”
“She taught me to drink coffee like a man.”
“Your heart is going to give out at forty.”
“Worth it.”
I snort and take another sip, purely out of spite. The tea’s lukewarm and a little bitter, and I miss my mug. The blasted thing will turn up somewhere ridiculous later, tucked inside my vet bag or sitting on a fence post where I absolutely did not leave it.
Emmett stretches his arms overhead with a groan. “We’re gonna need you tomorrow at Dusty Spur. Got a few horses acting strange. Might be the heat, might be this weird pressure in the air.”
Yeah. The pressure.
Even the dirt feels it today. That restless, heavy something that you can’t name but everyone senses. The same something that had Marshall staring at the tree line earlier, waiting for it to blink first.
I roll my shoulders, which have been tense since sunrise. “What symptoms?”
Emmett shrugs. “Skittish, not eatin’ much. Spooked by shadows. Red thinks it’s atmospheric.”
“Red also thinks Bigfoot lives behind the rodeo grounds,” I remind him.
“Yeah, and? Bigfoot’s real particular ’bout storms.”
I turn and stare at him. He grins wider.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll come by tomorrow.”
He claps me on the shoulder gratefully. “Knew I could count on you. You’re a good man, Wyatt Tucker.”
“That’s what they tell me,” I say dryly.
“Who’s ‘they’?” he asks.
“Oh, you know. My fans.”
“Name one.”
I deadpan, “You.”
He barks out a laugh. “Fair enough.”
We’re still chuckling when Emmett’s gaze shifts past my shoulder, and he nudges me with a grin that says trouble’s coming.
“Look who it is,” he murmurs.
I turn, and sure enough, here comes the entire High Ridge Ranch polycule, strolling onto the church lawn, practically representing the cover of a Small Town Cowboys Calendar.
Clint leads the pack, all brooding intensity and protective energy that seems to radiate off him like heat. Sawyer’s with him, smiling politely at whatever Dakota says.
Reid’s trailing behind, wearing sunglasses even though we’re standing under a tree and he’s inside a churchyard, because he’s Reid and subtlety is dead.
Dakota’s holding little Charlie’s hand, laughing at Reid. Charlie’s holding a toy horse, happily oblivious to everything except figuring out how the tail comes off.
I feel myself smiling a little. You don’t have to be the town vet to see they’re all good. Happy. Settled.
Emmett whistles low. “They look good.”
“Healthy,” I say automatically.
“That’s your diagnosis for everything.”
“Mmm,” I hum into my tea. “Better than dying.”
“Is that the bar?”
“Some days, yes.”
Dakota spots us and waves so enthusiastically that it nearly yanks her shoulder out of the socket. She steers the men over, Charlie trotting alongside her.
“Wyatt! Emmett!” she says, cheeks flushed from the walk. “Hi!”
“Hey, Dakota,” I say. “Hey, Charlie.”
Charlie waves his horse at me as if it’s a weapon.
“Whyyyyyatt,” he says, drawing my name out, practically singing it.
“Is that a new horse?” I ask.
“No,” Reid says solemnly. “He’s been performing surgery on it all morning.”
Charlie beams. “I took out his squeaker.”
“As one does,” I deadpan. “Necessity of the medical arts.”
Sawyer chuckles. “Kid’s got talent. Scares me a little.”
Clint grunts something that might be agreement or might be him remembering he left the stove on. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with him.
“How’s High Ridge holding up?” Emmett asks. “Haven’t seen you all in a couple of weeks.”
Sawyer’s the one who answers: “Better than it was. Fences are finally fixed, the new cattle feed came in, and Clint only yelled at the tractor twice this week.”
“That’s progress,” I say.
Clint shoots me a look. “I don’t yell at the tractor.”
“It’s okay,” I assure him. “It deserves it.”
Dakota laughs, bright and warm. “We’re just glad things have calmed down. Last month was… a lot.”
That’s the polite version of “someone from town tried to ruin our entire livelihood,” but hey, this is a potluck. We soften the edges here.
“We’re happy for you,” I tell them, and I mean it. There’s a steadiness about them now. A settledness. Something I think I’ve been quietly jealous of without admitting it.
Not their relationship dynamic; that’s their business, not mine. But the belonging. The certainty. The sense that they’ve found their people and a place where they fit without question.
I wonder sometimes if I’ll ever find that.
Emmett elbows me. Obviously, he’s reading my mind again. “Sawyer, you still baking pies?”
Sawyer nods. “Yep. Brought a blackberry one today.”
“Thank goodness,” Emmett says smilingly. “Half the reason I showed up.”
Reid smirks. “All the reason you showed up.”
“Don’t expose me like that.”
Dakota laughs again.
She’s about to say more when the wind shifts hard, sending napkins and paper cups skittering across the lawn. The sky darkens just slightly, but enough to make every rancher in the yard go still.
A herd sensing a predator.
Marshall’s across the lawn helping organize tables, and his head turns fast. His posture sharpens in an instant.
Storm’s close.
Closer than it was an hour ago.
Clint glances at the clouds, jaw working. “We should head back soon. Don’t want the cattle spooked.”
Sawyer nods. “And the horses were restless this morning.”
“Everything’s restless today,” I murmur.
Except maybe Jesse, who’s currently trying to coax a cupcake out of his kid’s hand without getting frosting on his shirt. He fails immediately.
Dakota notices my stare and follows it.
“He is… chaotic,” she says fondly.
“Chaotic” is one word for Jesse. “Menace” is another. “Sunshine personified” is a third.
He’s the kind of man who doesn’t understand how much light he throws on other people’s shadows.
Dakota is mid-sentence when Sawyer’s gaze flicks toward the walkway leading from the church steps.
“Oh,” he says softly. “There’s Abilene.”
Her name hits my chest before I even turn.
And then I do, and my breath catches.
Abilene Kentwood stands at the edge of the lawn with the look of someone who accidentally wandered into the wrong universe and is too polite to say so.
She’s holding a glass casserole dish in both hands as a shield, shoulders slightly hunched, chin tucked just enough that the brim of her sunhat shadows her freckles.
Her soft blue dress sways around her calves when the wind nudges it, and her braid, always perfectly neat in the morning, has come loose at the sides, little wisps of golden hair curling against her cheeks.
She must have fought with her courage in the car for ten full minutes before getting out.
And won by half an inch.
Her eyes flick nervously over the crowd, scanning faces, calculating the quickest route to a table where she can set her casserole down and retreat. She edges forward a few tentative steps, trying not to draw attention but somehow doing the exact opposite.
People part for her without even realizing they’re doing it, as if the world softens around her, clearing a path.
“Poor thing looks like she wants to evaporate,” Dakota murmurs, smiling gently.
Yeah. She does.
And then, because this town has terrible timing, someone’s dog barrels past her, barking at a kid with a hot dog. Abilene startles so hard she nearly drops her dish, juggling it with a quiet gasp.
I feel myself about to move.
But then she steadies the glass against her stomach with a soft exhale of relief. No one else even notices.
But I do. I notice everything.
The faint tremble in her fingers.
The way she whispers something to herself, like a little pep talk.
The pink already rising on her cheeks when she realizes she’s standing in the way of the Mercer family trying to get to the lemonade table.
She steps aside too quickly, almost trips, recovers, and gives a tiny apologetic smile she doesn’t actually owe anyone.
Emmett nudges me lightly.
“Dude,” he whispers. “You’re staring.”
“I’m observing,” I mutter.
“That’s what ranchers say about cattle.”
“Shut up.”
He snickers.
Dakota follows my gaze and grins. “You should go say hi.”
“I say hi all the time,” I protest.
“Uh-huh,” she says. “From thirty yards away, while pretending to inspect a fence post.”
Reid lifts his sunglasses just enough to look at me. “If you stare any harder, you’re gonna set her on fire.”
I groan into my tea. “Everyone, please stop talking.”
But they’re not wrong.
I watch as Abilene finally reaches the end of the lawn where the food tables sit. She places her casserole down like she’s afraid it might explode, smooths her skirt unnecessarily, then steps back with her hands clasped in front of her, trying to make herself smaller.
Millie from the bakery says something to her, and Abilene gives the softest, sweetest little smile, the kind that flickers quickly then hides itself again.
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, glances around…
…and her eyes briefly meet mine.
But it’s enough to knock everything loose inside me.
Her gaze jumps away almost instantly, cheeks flushing pink as she fusses with the hem of her dress.
Adorable.
Absolutely, devastatingly adorable.