by Laurel Greer
“Okay.” His brow furrowed. “But I’d like to support you through this.”
What she would have given for him to say that eighteen years ago... Then blurred with now, current accusations and Ryan’s past desertion swirling in her belly like when she’d stirred the paint in the tray. She shot him a glare. “Forgive me if I don’t understand that. The last time I needed you—and my God, I really did, Ryan, more than you know—you didn’t even have the guts to face me in person. So do me a favor...walk away again. Please. You don’t need my drama, and whatever support you were hoping to give? It’s not the kind I’m looking for.”
His head hung for a second. “Right. I’m not going to force you to accept comfort. Even though we both know you need it.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Hurting alone? It’s unnecessary, Stella. Call if you change your mind. I mean it.” Standing, he tipped his hat, then left.
And she spent the rest of the day pretending the nausea consuming her body was from dealing with the news report, not from the yearning look he shot her before he disappeared out the door.
* * *
At about seven, Maggie and Gramps forced her to mute her phone, which had been blowing up with social-media alerts and emails for hours, and leave the house for dinner. She still wasn’t able to give her family details about the evidence she’d be providing, but the investigators had at least given her permission to tell them that the allegations about her taking a plea were unfounded. As for the rest of the world, stories were running, wild and unchecked.
“You’ve done what you can, dear,” Gramps said, pouring the three of them glasses of water from the milk bottle that served as a water pitcher at the hole-in-the-wall pie restaurant Maggie had insisted they go to. “Have something to eat.”
Stella clutched her napkin and glanced at the people sitting at the next table over. She was pretty sure she’d gone to high school with them. And they were doing a terrible job of pretending they weren’t talking about her.
“I had a big lunch,” she lied.
“You painted through lunch,” Maggie said. She held her cutlery awkwardly, given her wound dressings.
“You kept track?” Stella challenged. She wasn’t used to people monitoring her like this. And the extra eyeballs on her personal life, added to the national-level scrutiny about her job, weighed on her like an iron net.
Maggie shrugged. “I can see the barn from my office.”
“Good to know.”
The bell on the door jingled and two vaguely familiar woman walked in, bundled up in winter gear and knit hats.
Maggie lifted a hand. “Emma! Georgie! Hey!”
Stella’s blood boiled. The famous Emma, and her mom. She could see why everyone thought Emma and Ryan would suit each other. With her bright smile, dark brown ponytail and a mountain-chic puffy jacket, the woman could have been a model for Sutter Creek tourism advertisements. And her mom looked as sharp as anything, gaze honed in on Stella.
They made their way over to the table, Emma smiling apologetically.
“Hey, hon,” she said to Maggie. “Good to see you out of the house. Ready for a girls’ night out soon?”
“Sure,” Maggie said. “I’ll bring Stella.”
“Oh.” Emma’s green eyes widened. “Uh, okay. So...you’re staying longer, Stella?”
“We’ll see,” she replied tightly. Agent Gill had told her not to return to Manhattan yet. But even so, she wasn’t about to force her company on someone who didn’t want her around.
“Any news on the thefts, Georgie?” Gramps asked.
“Not yet. Seems our sheriff’s attention has been pulled elsewhere recently.” Georgie crossed her arms over her purple Gore-Tex jacket.
Before Stella could protest that everyone needed to back off and let Ryan do his job, Gramps sat back in his chair and said, “Now, I’m not sure how fair that is.”
“It’s plenty fair,” the older woman said. “Every time I’ve gone to look for him, he’s been involved with something to do with a Reid.”
Gramps chuckled. “We elected him, too.” He sobered. “I’m sorry you’re not getting the answers you want, though. Do you really think the investigation is hitting snags because Sheriff Rafferty isn’t being thorough?”
“I don’t know.” Georgie frowned. “He does seem distracted. Today, especially. We had a meeting this afternoon and I didn’t know it was possible for a person to check a phone that many times in fifteen minutes. I just hope he isn’t reverting to the kind of shoddy decision-making he was known for when he was younger.”
Nobody looked at Stella. They didn’t need to. She felt their judgment, anyway. Flames licked her face.
“Excuse me for a second,” she said, then grabbed her purse and headed for the washroom. She ran her hands under cold water and pressed them to her hot cheeks. “Come on,” she told her reflection in the mirror over the sink. “Hold it together. You can handle one passive-aggressive ranch owner.”
She pulled her phone out of her pocket. Her heart sank at the notification screen that was too full to display all the messages she’d gotten. Requests for interviews. More accusations from coworkers. Links to articles and videos sent by the few people who probably thought they were being supportive by giving her a heads-up. After pressing the power button, she dropped the device back in her purse and returned to the table.
Small miracles—Emma and Georgie were up at the counter. Her pulse settled a bit.
Maggie wore an apologetic frown. “Not sure what’s gotten into Georgie.”
“Sounds like logical business-owner concerns to me,” Stella said. “I didn’t realize how serious the thefts were.”
“Ryan didn’t mention it?” Maggie sounded surprised.
“No. I’ve only seen him once since Thursday, even if people think we’re living in each other’s pockets again.” Nor did I take the time to ask what’s going on in his life. She could tell herself it was because she wasn’t interested in getting close to him again. But in actuality, it was also due to her being too focused on her own crap to consider any of his. Guilt crept up her neck and she sighed. “Gertie was right about people being concerned about his involvement with me.”
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Georgie is just one person.”
“I get the sense that more people are talking about me than Georgie,” Stella said.
Gramps coughed. “I’ve heard some gossip.”
“Today?” If her grandfather, who was known for being oblivious to that sort of thing, was hearing rumors, then they must be rampant.
“No, at the bakery last week.”
“Damn it.” The iron net doubled in weight. She took an extralarge breath to try to hold off the feeling of suffocation, but it didn’t work. She needed space. Living at Maggie’s was the opposite of that. But she couldn’t go back to holing up in the hotel—that would be too hurtful. “I need somewhere I can get away. Where I’m not causing problems for Ryan, and where I can’t keep checking my phone.”
A thoughtful expression crossed Gramps’s face. “There’s my fishing cabin.”
Maggie guffawed. “You? At the cabin? There’s no Starbucks there. And when was the last time you lit a propane stove?”
Stella glared at her. “I’m not incompetent. I can use matches.” Her sister had a point on the Starbucks, though. But if she wanted isolated, that cabin, out in the middle of the woods, would certainly fit the bill. “Is it decently winterized?”
Gramps’s silver-white eyebrows rose. “Yes. Wouldn’t suggest it if it wasn’t.”
Even the possibility of being cut off from everything eased the pressure in her chest. “Would you take me out there?”
“If that’s what you want,” he said.
She wanted her old life back. But in the absence of that, maybe a few days to recalibrate out at Gramps’s cabin would be p
erfect. “Let’s go in the morning.”
True to his word, her grandfather took her out early the next day, him on his old snowmobile and her on a borrowed one from Maggie. A light snow fell while they traveled, lending the forest a romantic vibe. She had enough supplies to last a week, though he promised to come check on her in two days. Gramps showed her how to use the woodstove, turned on the propane for her and got the fridge and stove going, then pointed her in the direction of the outhouse and asked her one last time if she was okay to be alone. She assured him she was, and then he was gone.
Oh, man. She hadn’t been out here in two decades. She and Ryan had sneaked out for an overnight once. During the summer, though, and on an ATV, not a snowmobile. They’d spent most of the time in the nearby lake. And when they’d come in to warm up, they made a cozy nest on the double bed in the one bedroom.
She could sleep on the couch then. She wasn’t spending the night with the memory of Ryan’s eager, fumbling hands bringing her pleasure. She sank onto the brown Naugahyde couch. Then again, they’d fooled around on the couch, too. And he’d kissed her in the teeny kitchen.
Okay, she really hadn’t calculated well. In her haste to get out of town, she’d forgotten that this was one place that had only witnessed good times. And she missed those good times, damn it. How was she supposed to clear her head when all she could think about was him wistfully telling her he wished they could stay in the woods forever?
Growling at herself for not taking all that into consideration before saying goodbye to her grandfather, she tried to stay busy. Making herself tea and soup and reading a well-loved Beverly Jenkins novel she found buried on one of the bursting-at-the-seams shelves kept her occupied until dark. Her second day wasn’t much different.
“Should I be concerned that I’ve started talking to myself? Nah.” She cut into the omelet she’d made for dinner on the small, four-burner propane stove that was older than she was, and pretended the pangs in her stomach were from hunger, not loneliness. And then the wind started blowing.
Her pulse picked up. “I’m fine. This is what I wanted. To be alone. Not causing trouble for anyone, following the plan.” Needing to use the facilities, if one could call an old wooden outhouse that, she put on her parka and the snowmobiling boots she’d borrowed from Maggie and opened the door. A gust of wind smacked into her, along with a face full of snowflakes. A foot of powdery snow had accumulated on the path. She paused on the wooden stoop, nerves jangling. Pointing her flashlight down the short path to the outhouse, she could barely see through the swirling white. “A blizzard. Awesome,” she muttered. This was not the six to twelve inches that had been forecast.
“No whining,” she reminded herself. “You’re a grown-ass woman, and you asked to come here.”
She did her business, and made sure to bring a shovel inside with her in case she had to dig a path in the morning before settling in for the night.
Morning rolled around. Her joints ached from being curled up on the ancient couch.
Maybe tonight she’d brave the bedroom.
She stoked the embers of the fire back into flame, got it roaring and went to use the outhouse. The wind wasn’t rattling the windows anymore, which was welcome. Swinging the door open, she stopped short. Her jaw dropped. Close to three feet of snow barricaded her in.
Find the bright side, find the bright side... “At least I brought in the shovel.”
* * *
Ryan rolled his stiff neck. Six o’clock, and his Friday shift was finally ending. He threw on his coat and clicked off his office light, locking up behind him. He had the weekend off, and after being up all night dealing with a horrible accident on the highway to West Yellowstone and monitoring all the minor, snow-related complaints in town today, he intended to use every second to relax.
What would Stella be up to? He hadn’t seen her since Tuesday. It had felt oddly incomplete. Ridiculous, given he’d gone his entire adult life without her. Though maybe my life wasn’t complete...
His phone rang as he was climbing into his truck. He narrowed his eyes at the number. “Dr. Tom? What can I do for you?”
The veterinarian sighed with what sounded like relief. “Glad I caught you, son. Is this a bad time?”
Ryan’s heart clenched at the endearment. Tom Reid probably threw it around like candy off a parade float, but the kid lurking inside Ryan’s hollow places soaked up the affection. He’d never gotten that kind of attention from his dad. Even his grandpa had been brusque. Once upon a time, he’d wondered if he’d get to call Tom “Gramps,” but that was long gone. He’d take the “son,” though. “Good a time as any. What’s on your mind?”
“Stella.”
Ryan held in a groan. “People still harassing her about the media accusations?” He’d had to warn more than one person who was taking Stella’s story out of context.
“Not to her face. They can’t. She’s at the cabin.”
“Your cabin?” A brief flash of Stella’s naked limbs on a plaid camp blanket burned on his brain before he shut it off. “Why?”
“She wanted space. But neither of us expected the snow.”
Shivering, he turned on his truck and cranked the heat. “No one did. Does she have enough food and water? And fuel?”
“She should. But I was supposed to go out there and check on her today. And I wasn’t able to—I got stuck out at Rafe Brooks’s place with Lachlan. And now it’s late, and my eyes aren’t the best at night. Setting out on the trail... I just don’t think I can do it. But I hate to think of her sitting there alone, worried about why I didn’t come.”
He hated thinking of her out there alone, too. For entirely different reasons. Mainly to do with that flash of memory, and wishing he could experience it one more time.
Safety, Rafferty. Focus on her safety.
“She wouldn’t assume it was because of the snow?”
“She might. But she might also wonder if I’d gotten hung up somewhere, and try to come find me. She could get lost, or worse...”
Genuine concern laced Tom Reid’s words.
The thousand search-and-rescue calls he’d witnessed during his time with the sheriff’s department didn’t lie—things could go sideways in the woods but quick. He caught his toes starting to tap. Damn it. He wouldn’t be able to relax tonight, not without knowing Stella was safe.
“Would you be able to take Puddle for the night if I go?”
“Certainly.”
“It’s a deal,” Ryan said. “I’ll check on Stella.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah, I know that trail like the back of my hand. I’ll bring the dog by and then head out.”
Two hours later, backpack slung over his shoulder and ice from yet more precipitation crusted to his neck warmer, he peered through the foggy glass on the front door of the Reid cabin. He didn’t see any movement, but at least a light was on.
He knocked.
“Who’s there?” Stella’s suspicious tone was clear, even through the door.
“Stella? It’s Ryan. Your grandfather asked me to check on you.”
A shadow shifted through the glass. “I have a weapon. Prove it’s you.”
He had a weapon, too—he’d strapped his shoulder holster under his heavy snowmobiling jacket before he left the house—but he wasn’t about to announce that. “The night we got arrested, you told me you didn’t want to love me anymore.”
The lock clicked and the door opened a crack, then all the way.
Her face was clouded with fury, like the snow clouds overhead, not that he could see them for the dark. But the storm was picking up again, and he knew what the sky looked like when troubled.
“You scared the bejesus out of me. I knew it wasn’t Gramps because your snowmobiles sound different. I had visions of you being an ax murderer,” she snapped, pulling the edges of her fuzzy cardigan closed in
front of her chest. “Why are you here?”
“Your grandfather asked me to check on you. He wasn’t able to get out here today, so he sent me instead.”
She narrowed her eyes and still didn’t invite him in. “Well, you checked on me. Now you can go.”
“Go? Stella, doll—”
“I’m not your doll.”
“Sorry. But the temperature’s dropping, and more snow’s coming. The visibility’s garbage, and I slept all of two hours last night. It’d be dangerous for me to head back tonight.”
“So why’d you come out then? Wasn’t that dangerous, too?”
“Probably.” He shrugged. “I needed to see you were okay.”
Her mouth gaped, then slammed shut. She whirled and stormed over to the couch. “Do what you want. Take the bedroom. I haven’t been using it.”
Shutting the front door behind him, he stripped out of his gear and hung the wet pieces on the laundry line behind the potbellied stove. The cabin was cozy and warm, despite the storm. It smelled like the wood fire and some sort of savory food, maybe sausages. A half-full mug of what looked like tea sat next to a romance novel on the coffee table, and the couch was made up like a bed. He faced her. “You sure you don’t want the bed?”
“Yes,” she said, teeth gritted. Her gaze flicked to his shoulder holster and her pupils flared a little.
“Occupational habit,” he explained.
“Wasn’t wondering.”
Wondering, maybe not. But enjoying? Looked to be so. Her cheeks were pink in the warm glow of the propane lights.
Seating was limited in the tiny cabin. The couch barely classified as a three-seater, but it looked way more comfortable than the pair of vintage vinyl chairs tucked under the small kitchen table. He sat next to her and held his hands in the direction of the stove to warm them. “I’m sorry I disturbed your peace. But I couldn’t let your grandfather worry.” I wouldn’t have slept a wink myself.
