When she finally turned to face him, her eyes were dry, but red-rimmed and exhausted. “Sheriff Goodwin has never listened to me. Why would he start now?”
“We still have to report it. For the insurance claim, if nothing else.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I know, but I fucking hate dealing with that man.”
Christ, she looked… defeated. He couldn’t stand it. This wasn’t his fiery, smart-mouthed Greta, and he wanted to fix it.
He reached for her without thinking. Needed to put a hand on her shoulder, the back of her neck, anywhere. Needed her to know she wasn’t alone in this.
She sidestepped him.
It was such a small motion. A quarter step to the left, a turn of her shoulder, and his hand met empty air.
She didn’t look at him as she did it, didn’t acknowledge it had happened. “Alright, let’s get it over with.”
Fuck.
He dropped his hand and exhaled slowly as she pushed through the front door into the cold evening air. She didn’t wait for him to catch up. Just whistled for the dogs, ushered them into the backseat, then climbed behind the wheel and started the engine.
He’d seen men in worse shape pretend they were fine—men with gaping, spurting wounds, men who’d just lost the guy on their left—and the look was always the same. The mind locked down to keep from spinning out.
Greta had that look now. She was holding herself together by the sheer force of her stubbornness.
He should say something. Something to bridge the distance she’d just put between them. But what?
Don’t shut me out.
He had no right to ask that.
I’ve got you.
He’d just promised himself not to make promises he couldn’t keep.
She leaned out the window. “You coming or not?”
“Yeah.” No way in hell was he letting her face that bastard Goodwin alone when she was already this raw. Goodwin would smell blood and go straight for it.
He got in the passenger seat, the Jeep’s suspension groaning under his weight. Greta threw it in gear and pulled out of the parking lot without a word.
The cab was silent except for the dogs settling in the back—King’s heavy panting and Atlas’s sigh as he settled down, head resting on his paws, worried gaze on the back of his person’s head. Bear stared out the windshield at the empty road and let the silence sit, because she needed it to. Because filling it would only push her further away.
Whatever had started between them in that turnout was gone, shattered by the wreckage of her office and the words on her wall.
STOP LOOKING.
As if she ever would.
eight
Deputy Murdock had his feet on the desk when they walked in—a deliberate statement if Bear had ever seen one. He dropped them to the floor when he recognized Greta, but the look on his face wasn’t welcoming. More like a man settling in to hear a complaint he’d already decided wasn’t worth his time.
“Ms. Dougherty.” He reached for a notepad, slow and unhurried. “What can I do for you tonight?”
Bear hung back near the door and let her take the lead. It was her shop. Her report. He crossed his arms and watched Murdock’s face while Greta laid it out—the slashed trailer tire from the night before, the forced gate, the pry marks on the equipment shed, and tonight’s break-in. The overturned filing cabinet, the smashed display case, the missing laptop. She described the spray-painted message on the wall without flinching, her voice flat and factual.
Murdock wrote. Slowly.
Bear watched the deputy’s pen move and counted backwards from ten in his head.
