by Erin Wright
Dammit. He didn’t exactly want to be left behind, but he wasn’t sure what else to do at that point. He also didn’t want to follow his younger brother around like a lost puppy dog.
He glanced around the living room. The chief of police for the city, the head librarian, even the clerk from the Shop ‘N Go, were all talking and milling around. When did Stetson become friends with all of these people? Jennifer must’ve gotten him out of his shell. She was good for him in more ways than one.
His brother showed up at his elbow again, but it was Stetson this time, not Declan. “Hey,” Stetson said. “Declan said this is for you.” He handed Wyatt a lemonade in a green Solo cup.
“Thanks.” He took a sip, enjoying the tart and sweet mixed together.
They just stood there and watched the crowd for a moment. Finally, Wyatt offered up, “Quite the shindig you have going on here.”
“Yup. Shoulda seen Carmelita. She’s been going nuts the last two weeks. I’ve never seen her cook so many dishes in all my life.”
They fell silent again, the country music twanging under the current of laughter and talk flowing through the room.
“Mom and Dad would be real happy if they could see this,” Wyatt finally said.
Stetson nodded real slowly. “I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately. I’m real sorry Mom isn’t going to be able to meet this grandchild. Or Jennifer.”
“Yeah. She would’ve loved it.”
It was quiet again between them, but for the first time in…years, perhaps, Wyatt wasn’t sure – it wasn’t a tense silence. Seeing Stetson here, taking care of their family home, starting a family of his own…Wyatt kept waiting for the green-eyed monster to flare up inside of him. For him to feel anger that once again, Stetson was being handed a wife and child without even having to try, but instead, he just felt pleasant. Warm. Relaxed.
Rhonda was right…the only thing I can control is my reaction.
It was a stunning thought, to see proof of it in front of him.
“Thanks for coming,” Stetson finally said, clapping Wyatt on the back.
“Dinner is ready,” Carmelita called out, and the room instantly hushed. Wyatt was pretty sure he wasn’t the only one in attendance whose mouth was watering. “You can start at that end and work your way through the line this way,” she said, pointing to the dining room table practically groaning underneath the weight of the food.
Stetson looked around. “I better find my wife,” he said. “She wouldn’t want to miss this.” He disappeared up the stairs. Wyatt looked around for Abby. Was she still with Jennifer? He saw Luke Nash, a friend of Stetson’s, with his arm around some pretty lady who he assumed was Bonnie. He’d heard from Declan that while they’d been bunked up at the jail on Christmas Eve, Luke had been here on the farm, along with Bonnie, and they’d fallen in love in the middle of that blizzard.
Abby and I weren’t the only ones to find each other during that blizzard.
Finally, he spotted Abby and worked his way over to her. He slipped his arm around her waist and gave her a peck on the cheek.
“Oh hi!” she said, turning a delicious shade of pink. He instantly decided to try to make her turn that color every day. She was gorgeous when she was flushed. She was gorgeous all the time, really. Even with her service belt on and her thick black officer boots and her hair pulled back in a bun, she took his breath away.
So with her hair down and curled and a flowing dress on that emphasized her tits and spiky boots that emphasized her ass? He wasn’t entirely sure how to breathe around her.
After they grabbed their plates of food, though, Abby got pulled away by Jennifer to meet Bonnie, and Wyatt was left by himself with his plate of food.
He looked around the crowded living room, and finally decided to step outside for a moment for a quick breather. It was crowded and a little too warm and a little too many people in there. He’d never exactly been the social one in a group, but he’d become even more withdrawn, even happier to be by himself, since spending quality time down at the county jail.
He walked out the back door and onto the back porch. Carmelita and Jennifer had even strung lights along the edge of the porch, alternating blue and pink light bulbs. They weren’t going to give the gender away even here. He took a deep breath of the freezing cold air, almost enjoying the burn in his lungs. At least he was able to breathe out here.
The door opened and closed behind him and he turned, a smile on his face. Abby probably saw him slip outside and was wondering what was—
It wasn’t Abby. “What are you guys doing here?” he asked, staring at the three men coming out of the house.
“What? You think we’re not good enough to be invited to your brother’s party?” Jack sneered.
“Nope. I don’t.”
He also couldn’t believe that Stetson would invite them. Jack and his two sidekicks, Larry and Moe as Wyatt had mentally christened them years ago, had been employees of Sheriff Connelly…right up until Wyatt had bought the farm off the auction block and fired them.
It was the first thing he’d done when he’d taken it over. He’d never understood why the sheriff had held onto them like he had; they were the town drunks and they weren’t the nice kind. They got into more fistfights than he did, and that was saying something.
“Well, maybe you don’t know your brother like you think you do,” Moe – or was it Larry? – taunted him. “You two aren’t exactly close.”
“Either way, you need to get out of my face,” Wyatt growled. The three men were advancing on him, ganging up on him, and he started to feel claustrophobic again. Jack jostled against him, and Wyatt tightened his grip around his lemonade. You can’t choose what they do, only what your reaction is to them.
He took a deep breath and a sip of his lemonade, letting the sour-sweet liquid slide down his throat. “Listen, you guys, I don’t want to start something, okay? Not here, not tonight.”
“What if we do?” Jack said, taunting him, so close Wyatt could smell his tobacco-ridden breath. “You’re a piece of shit who was so lazy, you couldn’t be bothered to go out for milk. Killed your own wife and daughter. What if we think scum like you should be cleaned off the face of the planet?”
Like a tidal wave roaring over his head, Wyatt’s vision went red.
Chapter 42
Abby
For what seemed like the hundredth time, Abby looked around the crowded house, trying to find Wyatt. He’d been right there, and then…well, she wasn’t quite sure what’d happened, actually. Everyone seemed to want to either talk to him or her tonight, and for being on their very first official date, they hadn’t spent but ten minutes around each other.
Right then, Stetson clinked his fork against a beer bottle. “I’ve been informed by my lovely wife that it’s time to cut the cake,” he said. “As you all know, Jennifer is due in April and has spent the last two weeks taunting me by telling me that she knows whether or not we’re having a girl or a boy, but refuses to share the information with me.” A small ripple of laughter went through the audience, and Abby grinned too.
Jennifer had told her earlier that Stetson had refused to know, wanting to hear it along with everyone else, but apparently that didn’t keep him from teasing her. She stuck her tongue out at him, which caused an even louder wave of laughter to run through the room.
Abby craned her neck. Where was Wyatt? He was missing the big reveal.
She hadn’t said anything all evening – not that she had much of a chance to say anything to him – but she was worried about how he was going to take this party. After all, it was a celebration for his younger brother, who Wyatt didn’t exactly get along with, getting the one thing that Wyatt wanted more in the world than anything: Children.
What if he was hiding in a room somewhere, trying to keep from punching holes in the wall because he was frustrated? He’d wanted to go to this party; he’d asked her to come along with. Maybe the idea of attending was okay, but actually being here was t
oo much? Maybe it was weirding him out.
Abby’s attention was jerked back to the front of the room when people began chanting, “Cut it, cut it, cut it.” Stetson and Jennifer were holding a knife together, hovering over a giant cake from the local bakery. It made Abby grin – they looked just like a couple would on their wedding day. The knife entered the cake, once, twice, and then Stetson was pulling out the wedge with his bare hands.
“A boy!” he hollered, showing the blue cake to the cheering, laughing crowd. He shoved it into his mouth as everyone swarmed to give their congratulations to the couple.
“You better hope he takes after your wife in looks,” was what more than one teasing friend made sure to tell Stetson. Abby hid her grin. Stetson was sure a handsome guy…but he was no Wyatt.
Speaking of, where on earth had he gone? She decided to make a systematic search of the house, checking each room, even knocking on the bathrooms, which was inexcusably rude but she didn’t have a choice. She was genuinely starting to get worried at this point, so good manners be damned.
Well, he wasn’t in the house, which meant…he’d gone outside? It was freezing cold and dark out there. Why on God’s green earth would he go out there? She worked her way through the crowds and out the backdoor. Maybe he just needed a breath of fresh air and had let time slip away—
Which was when she saw him. Sitting on a bench, holding his hand up to his face. She got closer, squinting in the shifting shadows from the house and the pale moon overhead.
“Helwhoa,” he slurred, through a mouth full of broken teeth and blood. Even in the uncertain light, she could tell he was developing a black eye. Maybe two.
She heard a stick crack in the distance and her head shot up. There were three figures melting into the forest. Her first instinct was to run to Wyatt’s side and check over his injuries, but her police training kicked in. She scanned the scene.
There were open beer bottles and cans all over the back deck. The snow on the deck was scuffled and trampled, and there were spots of blood everywhere.
Wyatt had come out here to get drunk, and then picked a fight with some guys once he was nice and rummy?
“Was you doing?” he slurred, looking up at her through his better eye.
He was drunk.
Wyatt Miller, the very last person on earth who should ever touch alcohol, had gotten smashing drunk. And got in a fight. She’d been right to worry – Stetson’s news had been too much for him after all. He’d been doing so good…
And then he broke.
He broke and went right back to what he’d always done – fixed his problems with his fists. Although she had to hand it to him: Getting drunk was a new one for him. If he was going to go down, he obviously was going to go down in flames.
She felt anger sweep over her – anger and frustration and rage and she realized she was livid. She wasn’t just angry; no, that was too benign. She was livid. She was shaking.
She was going to kill him.
She stalked over to him and jerked him to his feet. He yelped in pain and she figured he’d hurt his ribs somewhere along the way. Good. He deserves pain. Out of all of the stupid stunts to pull in the world, this was the kicker.
She left her purse inside; she’d go back and get it later. Right now, she was going to drag Wyatt’s sorry ass out to the truck.
“You goddamn idiot,” she ground out as she drug him along. He was stumbling in the semi-darkness, and she didn’t even care.
“Where’s we going?” he mumbled.
“To jail. You couldn’t even make it a damn week, could you? You just finished probation and bam! right back into jail you’re going to go.” She opened up the passenger side of the truck and shoved him in, slamming the door behind him. She stalked around to the driver’s side and pulled his keys out of the door pocket where he’d dropped them earlier and shoved them into the ignition, bringing the diesel engine roaring to life.
“And this time!” she yelled, gunning the engine and weaving through the parked cars to get back to the main driveway, “I hope they lock you up and throw away the key! You’re drunk, Wyatt, damn drunk! I can smell it coming off you in waves. After everything that happened, you go and get drunk at your brother’s party?”
They bounced along the rutted dirt road until she spotted the stop sign ahead, gleaming in the darkness. She made a quick check both ways and then ran the stop sign. No one was coming, and at that point, she couldn’t begin to make herself give a damn. She roared down the highway towards Sawyer. Wyatt’s head was lolling around as he mumbled to himself but she didn’t bother asking him to repeat himself louder. Whatever he had to say, he could say it to a judge.
She was sick of defending him. Not when he was going to take that trust and throw it away like this.
The dim lights of Sawyer began to show between the trees, and then Main Street burst into view as she came around the corner. She wished she was in her police cruiser and could flip on the lights and just bust through town, but she’d stupidly been on a date with Wyatt Miller and so she wasn’t driving her cruiser and she didn’t have handcuffs on her, although the idea of snapping them around his wrists just then sounded wonderfully appealing.
She pulled up right outside of the courthouse, the massive truck taking up three spaces because of her shitastic parking job. She couldn’t bring herself to care about that either. She yanked the keys from the ignition and stalked around to the passenger side door, pulled it open and practically rolled Wyatt out of the truck.
Just how drunk was he? He had to have been doing shots outside. Had he carried a flask of whisky in with him without her noticing? Her anger burned hotter as she half dragged, half pulled him into the jail. Officer Rios’ head shot up at her entrance, and his eyes grew wide.
“What the hell?” he asked, bounding around the edge of the desk to stop in front of them. He looked back and forth between Abby in her civilian clothes and Wyatt in his dressy shirt, and then up to his bloodied and swollen face.
“Apparently, this is how Wyatt celebrates his brother having his first child,” Abby ground out. For the first time since it all started, she felt tears prick the edges of her eyes. She’d had so much hope…and it was all gone.
Wiped out in a single night.
“Book him on drunken and disorderly conduct,” she said, the ice closing around her heart in stark contrast to the heat of the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. She jerked her arm away from him, half hoping he’d collapse to the floor of the jail office, but he managed to stay on his feet, wavering around, a half smile curling his lips. He looked for all the world like he was enjoying this.
“Is there an officer on patrol?” she barked.
“Yeah, Morland.”
“Can you radio him? I need a ride home since this jackass was my ride to the party. His truck is parked outside; it’ll probably have to be moved to a more…appropriate location.” Considering she was practically blocking the entrance to the jail with her stellar parking job, but she just couldn’t bring herself to care about that at the moment.
Nodding, Rios radioed Morland with one hand as he wrapped his arm around the waist of Wyatt, directing him back to the drunk tank – the cell where they put the drunks to sleep off the alcohol.
Abby tossed Wyatt’s keys onto the desk and went outside to wait in the cold and the dark for her ride, the light wind piercing her dress, and even as her teeth chattered from the cold, hot tears blazed their way in an endless trail down her cheeks.
Chapter 43
Wyatt
He swam to the surface, his head throbbing from the pain. There was light, and he wanted it to go away. He wanted everything to go away. Why was there so much light? He groaned.
“You awake?” he heard a deep voice ask.
He tried to open his eyes but there was pain and light and he closed them tight again, with a louder groan this time. “Where…where am I?” he rasped.
“The Long Valley Jail,” the voice said, a hint of amu
sement in it. “I would’ve thought you’d had enough of this place, but here you are, back again.”
“Why?” he whispered. His throat was parched and it was hard for him to get any sound out, but he had to know. He had to figure this out. Something was wrong. Really wrong. He peeked one eye open, and Officer Rios’ face swam into view.
“I’m gonna go get the sheriff,” the officer said, blatantly avoiding Wyatt’s question. “He told me to tell him as soon as you were awake.”
“Water,” Wyatt croaked. If he was going to have to face the sheriff, he at least wanted to be able to talk. It wasn’t a fair fight otherwise. The officer nodded and quickly returned with a water bottle. Room temperature, but Wyatt didn’t even care.
After dribbling some into his mouth, he slowly sat upright, trying to keep the world from spinning out of control. It went this way and that on him, and he reached up, cradling his head in his hands. He slowly scanned the holding tank, and spotted a toilet in the corner. Good. He might need to upchuck the contents of his stomach at any moment.
Why did he feel like this? He was so confused. He tried to think back to what he last remembered. Picking up Abby from her house, and petting Jasmine while he was there. Then driving to Stetson’s house. It was the big party. He tried to remember the cake cutting – the big reveal of whether they were having a girl or boy, but it was a dark abyss. Nothing. Why couldn’t he remember them cutting the cake? That was the whole point of the party. Stetson was never going to forgive him for forgetting one of the biggest moments of his life.
Whatever happened, it had to be why he felt like he’d been run over by a one-ton truck. He didn’t get to feeling this way by going out and having a fine time at his brother’s baby shower, for hell’s sake. Especially not one where all he’d been drinking was lemonade.
He sniffed, gingerly at first and then deep breaths.
He sure as hell didn’t smell like he’d been drinking lemonade. He smelled like a brewery.
