by Erin Wright
“Good. See you at home, then.” He brusquely dismissed her from his office. She hid her grin as she headed for the door. Some days, she had to wonder if it’d cause her father physical pain to be affectionate towards her. She just wasn’t sure he was capable of it.
Except as the hours passed, the storm outside just got worse. After a dash across the street to the diner to pick up the evening meal, she’d hardly been able to see a foot in front of her face. By the time she got back to the jail, she was shivering uncontrollably from the cold. The flakes were whirling around in front of her face, making it hard to keep her eyes open without having the flakes sting them. It was dark, much darker than it should’ve been, even in a valley with mountains to the west, even with it being the dead of winter. She felt like she’d somehow moved to Antarctica without realizing it.
When she got back inside, she set the to-go containers down on the counter, noticing a flashing red light on the phone. She listened to the message with a growing pit of dread in her stomach. Rios wouldn’t be able to make it in after all. He lived down a long dirt road with several steep curves in it. Apparently, one had filled in with snow to the point of being impassable.
Oh God, Abby was stuck at the courthouse for the night. Not just any night – Christmas Eve. She felt tears pushing upwards and she willed them away. She would survive. It was just a date on the calendar. Her dad and her could light a candle on a different night and that didn’t mean that they loved her mom any less.
She snagged the take-out containers and headed to the back, where she found Wyatt and Declan arguing over the rules of the Farming Game. Oh, the Farming Game. Abby wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that couples got divorced over that game. It was addicting and fun and everyone who played it ended up being bit by the Must Win at All Costs bug. A bug Abby was not immune to, either.
“When you land on that square, you can’t just hit every harvest between there and February!” Wyatt argued. “That isn’t farming like a pro, that’s hitting the jackpot!”
“Who’s hungry?” Abby jumped in, holding the containers aloft. She’d heard the Miller brothers sometimes got into fistfights. She really didn’t want to have to referee one in her own jail.
“Oh wow, is it that late?” Declan asked, shocked. “Dammit, I was going to go get us a Christmas dinner from across the street. Are they still open, Abby?”
“No, but I bought a dinner for you also, Declan. I figured it wasn’t nice to have the county buy food for Wyatt and I and then not serve you anything. And they served up some real nice grub today. Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, and even a small slice of pie for everyone. Said it was Christmas, so why not?”
Wyatt caught her eye, the first time they’d made eye contact since she’d gone back there, and said simply, “Thank you.” His eyes looked suspiciously moist, and she was sure he was pushing down emotions.
It wasn’t easy to be away from family at Christmas, and for the first time since grumpy, prideful, rough-and-tough Wyatt ended up in her jail, Abby actually felt pity for him. She’d felt pity for his dog; she’d felt pity for his brother. But Wyatt…he’d gotten his ass into this mess.
Yeah, maybe Richard would’ve gotten away with driving drunk because his father was the county judge. But maybe not. Either way, Wyatt needed to learn how to solve problems without using his fists. That wasn’t asking too much of a grown adult.
Except…
Maybe it was the season. Maybe it was seeing how sweet he was with his dog; that even now, she was lying next to him, her snout on his leg, watching the discussion with interest, or more likely hoping that some of that food in Abby’s hands would somehow fall into her waiting mouth.
But whatever it was, when she smiled back at Wyatt, it was with a little more warmth than she’d intended. His dark blue eyes were warm and friendly and…sexy.
Forcing herself to abruptly end that train of thought, she began divvying out the food along with utensils and bottles of water. While she was serving up the food, Wyatt and Declan cleaned up the Farming Game, ribbing each other good-naturedly about who would’ve won if only they’d been able to play a full game. When Wyatt started saying, “As the older brother, I know how to farm better than you, so of course I would’ve won the game,” Abby shoved his food into his hands, interrupting his little speech.
“Perhaps as a farmer, you’re also amazing at eating?” she asked sweetly.
He glared at her for a moment and then solemnly said, “I am amazing at eating. There is no one better at eating than I am!” Everyone cracked up laughing, including Wyatt, his stony face breaking into a beautiful smile.
Abby heard Declan say something about how this explained why Wyatt was getting a spare tire around his waist, and Wyatt volleying back, heckling his younger brother as only brothers could, but Abby wasn’t really listening to any of it. Her mind was caught on his smile. His gorgeous, high-wattage smile. Her breathing had stopped at the sight of it, but her heart had tripped into double-time.
She frantically thought back, trying to remember if she’d ever seen Wyatt smile in their entire lives – a genuine, happy, huge smile. With only three years between them in school, he’d always been this older, cute guy who was way too serious.
But now, seeing him smile…
It changed his face, his personality. He lit up like a Roman candle.
He was beautiful.
“Abby. Abby!”
“Sorry, what?” she asked, turning back to the guys with a blank smile.
“You okay? You disappeared there for a minute.”
“Oh yeah,” she said, forcing her blank smile to grow more genuine. As genuine as a forced smile could become, of course. “Just worried about everyone out on the roads tonight. It’s really bad out there. I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to drive home, Declan.”
“Is it that bad?” He put his fork down into his mashed potatoes, and then maneuvered his way out of Wyatt’s jail cell, a space only meant to house two men but instead was housing two men, a woman, and a dog with a damn loud snore.
She’d left the cell door ajar – locking herself in with her prisoner didn’t seem like a real great plan, and anyway, Wyatt wasn’t going to go anywhere, she’d stake her life on that – so Declan slipped out and down the hallway to stick his head out into the jail yard.
Abby looked awkwardly at Wyatt, not sure what to say without the buffer of his brother to pave the way between them, until Maggie let out a snort and began running frantically on the floor. Except her body was sprawled out, her head on Wyatt’s lap. She was in the grips of a very realistic dream, from the looks of it. Her face twitched as her body moved, her paws slicing through the air. Wyatt caught Abby’s eye and they began laughing together at the absurdity of Maggie’s movements.
“I think she’s catching a rabbit. Hopefully, she’ll be able to actually catch one in her dream, unlike when we’re out on the farm,” Wyatt said dryly.
“She can’t catch rabbits out in the field?”
“Oh no, she’s way too dumb for them. They outsmart her every day of the week. Sometimes, I think they sit back on their back haunches and stick their tongues out at her as she goes chasing after them. As soon as she gets close, down a rabbit hole they go, and poor Maggie. She has no concept of object permanence. Like an 18 month old, as soon as the rabbit is gone, she can’t remember it ever even being there. One time, she went—”
“You weren’t kidding, Abby.” Declan’s voice broke into their conversation and startled, she turned towards him. She’d forgotten he’d even left the cell. She’d forgotten he was even there. She’d been so engrossed in Wyatt’s story, she’d forgotten about everything.
“Yeah?” she asked, trying to mask her surprise and worry at how easily her mind let her just forget about everything but Wyatt Miller for a moment.
He stepped into a bar of light and she could see him then – covered in a thick layer of snow, obscuring his light brown hair completely.
“How
long were you out there?” she gasped, staring at him.
“You look like the Abominable Snowman,” Wyatt put in.
Yup, these two were definitely brothers.
Declan ignored Wyatt, which was probably a good plan, and instead focused on answering Abby’s question.
“Only a couple of minutes. I went for a little walk around the courtyard, propping the door open with my wallet so I wouldn’t get locked out there. But damn, it’s really coming down. I know the other deputy couldn’t make it in, Abby – I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a huge mess when this storm finally blows through. I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s a wall of white. I could barely see my hand when I stuck it out in front of me.” He wiggled his hand in front of him to demonstrate.
He came into the jail cell, clomping across it in his cowboy boots, until he could slide down into place against the far wall. His every step left a puddle of water behind.
Before Wyatt could raise a fuss about what Declan was doing to the floor of his cell, Abby scrambled to her feet.
“In the case of emergencies, I have a checklist of items to double-check. I’ll be back in a minute. If we end up losing power, I will have wanted to make sure all of this was taken care of when I could see where I was going.”
She headed out, pulling the cell door closed behind her this time, and headed for the front office. It was time to stop making googly eyes at the cute-if-total-pain-in-the-ass farmer in her jail cell and start doing her job.
Chapter 11
Wyatt
“Do you remember that? I didn’t think Mom would let me live to the ripe old age of 12 after that stunt.” Wyatt grinned at Declan, happy for a moment at the memory. Those were truly the “good ol’ days.” It was before their mom had passed away. It was before their dad had decided to give the whole Miller legacy to the youngest sibling in the family, instead of to the oldest like he should have.
It was before a lot of the shit went down between him and Stetson.
“At least you could walk after Dad’s paddling. I never thought I’d walk again after he found out I’d brought all of my frogs into Mrs. Westingsmith’s room and let them go. I tried to tell him it wasn’t on purpose but he paddled me anyway.” Declan shrugged with a sorry-not-sorry grin on his face.
“I always meant to ask you – was it on purpose?” Wyatt asked, laughing.
“Oh hell yeah. There was a science test that afternoon and I’d spent the night before riding my horse and preparing for a 4-H event and so I was completely unprepared. I figured I could get paddled for having let a whole passel of frogs loose in my teacher’s room, or I could get paddled for getting an F on a test. At least the frogs would be more fu—”
“Hey you guys, we may be in for it tonight,” Abby said, walking up to the cell and cutting Declan off. “I just tried to start the backup generator to make sure it was ready to go in case the electricity went out, and it won’t even pretend to turn over. I don’t know what’s going on, but if we don’t ready for the electricity to go out right now, we could be in big trouble if it does.”
She turned to Wyatt with an apologetic shrug. “I have to leave you in here, but Declan, I’d sure appreciate your help in rounding up supplies.”
“Sure thing.” Declan pushed himself off the floor and hurried to the cell door. She let him out and then locked it shut behind him.
“We’ll be right back,” she said to Wyatt, and with an unconsciously sexy sway of her hips, she and Declan hurried down the jail block to gather supplies.
With a quiet groan, Wyatt leaned his head back against the wall. What had he already told himself about sexy women named Abby Connelly? He couldn’t get involved. He couldn’t even look. It wasn’t fair.
What else wasn’t fair? Being stuck in his cell while Declan got to go do things. Wyatt wished he could just give his solemn promise not to run away and have that be enough to convince Abby to let him help. More than the loneliness, more than the worry that his farm was going to shit and his dog was slowly wasting away without him – which at least that worry was completely founded – was how rough it was to just be cooped up in a cell all day.
He ran his fingers through Maggie’s mangy coat mindlessly as his body filled with restless energy. Day in, day out, to sit in a cell and stare at the same walls and read the same books and eat the same food, with only two chances a day to stretch his legs…it was maddening, especially for someone who was used to being outside most of the day, working in the fields or during the winter, working in the barn. Riding his horse, Elvis, along his fences, checking for breaks.
Anything but just sitting and staring.
Maggie, seemingly sensing his restlessness, began stirring beneath his fingers, and then with a shake of her fur, she jumped off the bed and walked to the cell door, nosing against it and whining.
Wyatt thought for a moment that she’d been reading his mind and was trying to say she wanted to go be free in the world, and then he realized that rather than an existential crisis about where her life was going, it was much more likely that she just needed to take a leak.
Rolling his eyes at himself, he pushed himself off the bed and rattled the bars of the cell. “Abby! Declan!” he called out, Maggie whining beside him. “I’ll get you outside in just a minute,” Wyatt promised her, scratching her behind the ears. “They’re going to make me come back and pick up all your shit when the snow melts in the spring, you know.” As much as Wyatt didn’t look forward to the idea, he was still thankful they let her in here to be with him. As awful as it was to be cooped up in his cell all day, having her with him was already giving him some of his sanity back.
Abby hurried down the cell block toward him, her arms filled with blankets and flashlights. Declan trailed behind her with pillows in his arms.
At Wyatt’s quizzical look, she said, “No emergency generator means no heat and no lights. We’ll have to make do for tonight.”
“Well, Maggie Mae needs a trip outside if you know what I mean,” Wyatt said with a wry grin. “Her whines are getting louder by the moment, I swear.” She was nudging his leg rather insistently, and Wyatt just patted her reassuringly. “We’ll get you outside, girl.”
Abby opened the cell door and stepped to the side. “Go on outside with her. Don’t let the door close behind you – it’ll lock and you’ll be stuck out there until spring. I’ll get this set up,” she said with a jerk towards their cell.
Wyatt nodded his appreciation, unsure how to tell her how much it meant to him that she wasn’t guarding his every move, believing he was about to spring the Great Escape on her. Truthfully, even in the depths of his hatred at the system, he wouldn’t have tried to escape. He wanted to go back to his farm and pick up the pieces of his life. Living on the lam for the rest of it just didn’t appeal to him. He wasn’t going to leave the jail until the county let him go as a free man.
He opened the door to the courtyard, a gush of wind catching the door and yanking his body out into the cold. As Maggie passed him and began hunting through the snowdrifts, looking for just the right place to do her business, Wyatt held onto the door handle with all his might. He’d never been thrown around by wind like this before. He was 6’2” and a whole lot of work muscle. He didn’t get pushed around easily.
As he watched Maggie make her circles in the snow, he realized how mundane and boring his life had become before that night at Mr. Petrol’s. Plant, harvest, plant, harvest, watch TV or read a book…he’d retreated from the world after Shelly and Sierra had died. He needed to start doing things again; start helping out in the community. He’d heard about Adam Whitaker’s special needs camp that he was starting up, and after his help with Maggie, Wyatt wanted to do something to help him out in return.
Plus, he could reintegrate with the world in a small way. His counselor would be happy to hear him make these plans, that’s for sure.
Finally, Maggie Mae found the perfect snowdrift and crouched down. He swore he could hear a happy sigh e
scape from her as she looked towards him, her tongue lolling happily.
He grinned at her obvious joy at being able to relieve her bladder. Dogs were so simple, so straightforward. They loved you or hated you. There was never any question of what they were thinking, or why. Maybe that was why he’d always been more comfortable working with animals. Dogs, horses, even dumb-as-a-pile-of-rocks cows were all just…them. No artifice, no hiding and lying and distorting the truth. He could count on them to simply be them.
They’ve never let you down.
And wasn’t that just the root of it all.
His wandering thoughts were brought back to the present when he began shivering from the biting cold. Luckily, Maggie had stayed on his side of the courtyard; it wasn’t a large area, but he didn’t want to have to go searching for her through the blinding snow. It was stinging his eyes, cheeks, and ears, and he was sure his nose was going to turn into a frozen icicle at any moment.
C’mon girl, piss faster…
Finally, she straightened up and after doing a few passes with her nose to make sure everything came out all right, she trotted towards him, her tongue still happily lolling to the side. She didn’t seem the least bit thrown off by the massive amount of snow coming down.
She trotted in past him and shook her fur, spraying him and the walls, floor, and ceiling with wet dog hair and frozen snow pellets. “Maggiiieee,” Wyatt said with a half-laugh, half-sigh. He’d have to ask Abby for a towel to dry her off, and a mop to clean up the mess.
Maggie looked up at him, recognizing her name, and then when he didn’t tell her to go chase cows or round up the chickens, she nudged his hand, obviously reminding him that he hadn’t told her what to do.
“What you get to do,” he said, stroking her sopping wet head, “is come back to the jail cell with me and get warm. No chickens in here.” She licked his hand and then they took off down the cell block and back to his cell.
