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But I also couldn’t be so narrow-minded to think we hadn’t earned enough enemies through the years that it might not have been someone else. How many contracts had I forced? How much intimidation had I used?
So, I was hunting, sifting through every document and connection because it wasn’t like the detectives on the case or my private investigator had found anything. Our misdeeds were buried too deep.
Because of it, I’d known I couldn’t remain in Seattle. Not with Evelyn. Not when it felt like every breath and step she took in that city was done with peril and risk.
“Fence was clipped out in pasture three,” Mert said. “Fifteen horses got loose and were wandering out in the middle of the main road. Could have gotten hit.”
A whirr of unease trickled through my senses. “What do you mean, cut?” I demanded.
“Wire cutters, I suppose. Cut right down the middle.”
Apprehension blustered, the low howl of alarm that gathered at the edges of the earth.
I tamped it, trying to control the anxiety that swam through the murky cesspool that had become my soul.
I needed not to make assumptions. Paranoia wasn’t going to help me in any way.
“Where is pasture three?”
“It runs about five acres along the main road on Junction 12.”
“So, someone wasn’t necessarily on my property, and it could have been anyone passing by?”
“Likely was,” Mert said with a palpable shrug, as if this was of little consequence. As if I hadn’t been stirred into disorder. “It’s not the first time one of those fences have been clipped,” he added.
Air puffed from my nose.
It was likely nothing. Unrelated.
Some assholes out looking to cause heartache that somehow in their minds was the equivalent of a good time. Still, I wouldn’t be complacent.
“Search the area and let me know if there are any tracks or anything left behind. Then see to it the fence is fixed.”
“Yes, sir.”
I ended the call, exhaling the strain as I pushed the end of my phone to my forehead. I struggled to regain sense, to find solid ground, a baseline when that would be impossible since my life had been purged into this bitter oblivion.
I moved from my office and downstairs, my footsteps quieting as I hit the second floor. I eased down the hall and poked my head through Evelyn’s open door.
Her room was empty.
Apprehension bloomed, though I bit it back and kept moving farther downstairs, walking passed the enormous, vacant rooms that echoed emptiness, a cavernous space lacking life.
There was a glimmer of it at the end of the hall where it opened to the kitchen, and the unease that vibrated in me both flared and was soothed at the sight of the little girl sitting at the island eating a bowl of cereal.
Her spirit subdued but looking for a way to break out.
She peered over at me when she felt me at the entry, and a timid smile pulled to her innocent face, one that nearly cracked me in half all over again.
“It’s been two days, right?”
“Yeah, Evelyn, it’s been two days.”
I ignored the energy that stirred in the depths, that wild, chaos of a woman who would soon descend.
She was here to teach Evelyn how to care for and ride her horse. That was it.
I couldn’t have her. The problem was, she was becoming everything I wanted to possess.
FOURTEEN
PAISLEY
Monday morning, I was barreling down the dirt road at five to ten, leaving a plume of dust behind me. Maybe grumbled as we climbed the hill, chugging and lurching, though I was the one chugging for air as we crested the hill and Hutchins Ranch came into view in the valley below.
Miles of green pastures with the gorgeous scenery hugging the land. The river that ran through and the dense woods at the back.
Absolutely breathtaking.
Still, sweat slicked my skin, and my nerves were racing in overdrive.
I hoped to God this wasn’t a mistake. Giving in the way I had. Caleb Greyson had already proven he was irrational and bossy and rude, which was so not my thing, and I was not about to be a pushover.
Every time that worry had slithered into my thoughts over the weekend, I’d reminded myself I wasn’t doing it for him.
I was doing it for Evelyn.
The tiny white lie jabbed at my conscience, and my chest panged. Bottom line, this really was about Evelyn, but there was also a speck inside me that knew there was something about the way Caleb had stood there pleading with me to return that had softened my dislike of him. Something in his icy eyes that spoke of pain and grief and sorrow.
Exposed in a bare moment of vulnerability.
I knew it was the deep, deep kind that wasn’t superficial or easily repaired. I imagined it was the kind that could turn an okay guy into a raging asshole.
