"Calvin." His voice was easy. Unhurried. Like a man who had exactly nowhere else he needed to be. "What's the address?"
I recited it from memory.
There was a beat of silence that told me he clocked that, and was kind enough not to say so.
"I'll be there in forty-five minutes," he said. "Don't go anywhere."
"I wasn't planning on it," I muttered.
He laughed softly and hung up.
I set my phone on the passenger seat and looked back at the front entrance. I reclined my seat two inches.
Closed my eyes.
Wyatt Cole was coming to Meagher County in two weeks.
My grandfather was forty feet away.
Brody Lancaster was forty-five minutes out.
I had no idea what I was doing.
But he was coming anyway, and I'd stopped arguing with myself about what that meant because it made the forty feet feel a little more like something I might be able to cross.
Just not until he was here.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-FIVE
The phone rangand rang and rang.
Then it went to voicemail.
You've reached Luke. I can't come to the phone right now. Leave a message.
BEEEEEEEEP.
Son of a bitch.
"Answer your fucking phone."
I hung up and looked around the store. Wasn't no one here. Why the hell did I need to be?
The answer was because Luke deserved a break.
One weekend a month, I covered the store on Saturday and Sunday while Luke did… whatever it was he did. Still had no fuckin' clue. It was like for one weekend a month, he just disappeared. Went off the grid. For all I knew, he had a secret family in Wyoming.
I tapped my knuckles against the countertop, impatient as hell and tryin' to work out my next move.
Calvin needed me. She'd called because sheneededme.
I wasn't takin' that lightly.
"Fuck it," I said, slammin' my palm to the counter. I locked the register and the back door, then bolted for the front. Just as I closed it behind me, twisting the key in the lock, Mr. Nelson hopped outta his truck. "Sorry, sir. We're closed."
His mustache made a dramatic curve downward. "Since when? It's only one o'clock on a Saturday. You best not be duckin' out early, young man."
"Apologies. It's an emergency."
