Confronting Billy now, while he’s in this state, while I’m carrying this secret, would be like throwing a match on a puddle of gasoline. It would destroy whatever’s left of our family.
And how do I get Sedona to stay? The question pounds in my head, a frantic, desperate beat. She’s the only one who can fixthis mess with the cattle, but she’s also the only one who can fix this mess in my brothers. In me.
Her leaving isn’t just a loss for the town; it’s a final, brutal closing of a door I’ve been secretly hoping she’d walk back through for years.
I look at Tex, his face pale and bruised, his eyes closed. I look at Boone, who whines softly and nudges Tex’s hand with his wet nose.
We’re a broken pack, a family fractured by a past we can’t escape.
I have to fix this. I don’t know how. I don’t know if I can. But I have to try. I have to make her stay.
My gaze drifts past him, landing on the sedan parked haphazardly by the fence. It looks abandoned.
“What happened to her car?” I ask, my mind already shifting, looking for a problem to solve.
Tex squints at it, as if seeing it for the first time. “Battery died. I gave her a ride. I was going to call the garage but then… well, then I had to come back and deal with our resident asshole.” He gestures vaguely toward the house.
A battery. Something I can fix.
I stand up, my decision made. “I’ll be back,” I say to Tex, who just grunts in response. I walk over to the sedan, pop the hood, and get to work.
The engine is a familiar landscape of wires and hoses. I find the battery, the terminals corroded with a chalky white substance, and grab my toolkit from my truck, along with a set of heavy-duty jumper cables.
I clean the terminals with a wire brush, the metal scraping satisfyingly against metal. I connect the cables to my truck’s battery, then carefully attach the other end to her sedan’s dead battery.
There’s a spark when I make the final connection. I get back in her car, turn the key in the ignition. The engine groans a weak protest.
I try again. This time, it turns over, sputtering once before catching with a healthy roar.
I let it run for a few minutes, charging the battery, the smell of exhaust and hot metal filling the air. It takes me less than an hour. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
I disconnect the cables, close the hood, and leave the engine running as I walk back to the porch.
“I’m taking her car,” I say to Tex, who just gives a weak, drunken thumbs-up.
I don’t wait for a better response. I just get in the sedan, the scent of her—honeysuckle and cedarwood—faint but still present, clinging to the upholstery. It’s a dizzying, intoxicating reminder of what I’m fighting for.
The drive to her house is a frantic one. My mind is racing, rehearsing speeches, arguments, pleas.Don’t go. We need you. I need you.
But when I pull up to the house, it’s dark. The windows are black, the porch light off. I knock on the door anyway, the sound loud in the quiet evening.
No answer.
I try the handle. It’s locked.
My next stop is the clinic. Same story. The lights are off, the door locked. A “closed” sign hangs in the window.
A cold dread washes over me.
Am I too late? Has she already gone?
I’m standing there, staring at the darkened clinic, feeling a sense of defeat so profound it’s hard to breathe, when a vehicle pulls up beside me. It’s a sheriff’s department cruiser.
The window rolls down, and Sheriff’s Deputy Jamie Martinez looks up at me. He’s an Alpha, a few years older than me, witha clean-cut look that’s always felt a little too polished for Prairie Pine.
“Seth Carson,” he says. “Everything alright? I heard there was some trouble with the herds.”
“Some,” I say, my mind still reeling. “We think we have it under control. Just waiting on some test results.”
