Pulled into The Bar about twenty minutes later.
Gas station hadn't changed a bit in the decades I'd been fillin' up there. Same two pumps, same cracked concrete under 'em, same hand-lettered sign above the door that saidTHE BARin big red paint because the owner had been a drunk named Ed who thought it was funny. When Ed died a few years back, not a soul in this town—includin' its new owner—considered changin' the name. The little store inside sold Slim Jims and motor oil and very little in between.
I eased up to the pump closest to the building, got out, swiped my card, and started the fill.
"Lancaster, ain't it?"
I startled at the voice that came from behind me.
When I spun around, Wyatt Cole was leanin' against the hood of his white dually. Hat sittin' low. Hands in the pockets of his jeans. He hadn't been there when I got here. Or maybe he had. Maybe I was so far in my own head, I hadn't even noticed.
"Funny thing," Wyatt said, "runnin' into you out here."
I kept my eyes on the pump. Numbers rollin'. "Yeah," I drawled. "Funny how that works in a town with one gas station."
He didn't respond to that. Just pushed off the hood of his truck and moved a few feet closer. Not close enough to be a thing yet. Just closer. Like he had all the time in the world and intended to use it.
"You been keepin' her busy," he said. Not a question. Not quite an accusation. Just a statement of fact, the way you'd note the weather.
I didn't answer.
"She work for you? On your place?" Another drift. Still casual. "Or is it the other way around."
"You got a point somewhere in there?"
"Just makin' conversation." The smile was in his voice, but I still hadn't looked at him. "Man sees somethin' of his showin' up in a town he don't recognize, he gets curious."
Something of his.
The pump ticked.
I kept my hand on the nozzle and took a very quick, very private inventory of what I actually knew about this man. His size. Whether he was the kind to swing first or talk until he didn't have to. Whether the easy voice meant anything or was just the surface of somethin' I hadn't seen the bottom of yet.
Not enough.
That was the honest answer.
I didn't know nearly enough.
I looked up. He'd drifted again while I was thinking. Close now. Close enough that steppin' back would mean somethin' and steppin' forward would mean somethin' else entirely, and neither option was one I was prepared to take.
"She ain't yours," I said. Kept my voice even. "Ain't been for a long time. Might be time you figured that out."
He was quiet for a moment.
Then he laughed. Low and unhurried, like I'd said somethin' genuinely amusing.
"That's real sweet," he said. "You believe that?"
"I know it."
"Huh." He tilted his head, those flat black eyes movin' over me with the patience of a man takin' a measurement. "See, thing is—don't matter much what you know. Don't matter what she told you, or what she thinks." A pause. Just long enough. "Some things don't get to be renegotiated."
The words landed and sat there.
I looked at him straight then. Took him in full. The smile. The eyes that had nothin' behind them that resembled warmth. The absolute, unhurried certainty of a man who had never once in his life considered that he might not get what he came for.
"I'd think real careful," I said, "about what you're insinuatin'."
