“Lara.” Calder’s hand touched the back of my arm, and I flinched, snapping out of the memory.
“Doctors get blamed for many things that aren’t their fault,” I murmured, a telltale catch in my voice.
“True, but do they all pack up their successful practice in the city and move states away to run a wilderness retreat?”
No.I swallowed but didn’t say anything. It did seem off—but then again, I’d up and left for Wyoming after Ian, even though Rachel was my reason.
“I have a call out to the student who wrote the article for the paper to see if I can get more information. He’s still at the school getting his master’s, so I should hear in the next day or two.”
“All right. In the meantime, keep following the money—”
“It has to be coming from somewhere, I know,” Callum finished, not bothering to hide the drip of bitterness in his voice. “I know how to do my job, Calder. You don’t always have to be the director.”
Calder winced. “You’re right.”
“I know,” he said, and then one of his computers on the other end of the desk started beeping, and it must have been something important, because Callum spun his chair around and almost ran over my foot to check the alert.
He squinted, zoomed in on one of the weather models, and then whistled. “Gotta go. Come on, Twister.”
The dog bounded over, waiting for the door to the back side of the porch to open. Callum grabbed a baseball cap off the nearby coatrack, several of them adorning the rungs. At the very top, and well beyond what he could reach from his chair, was a cowboy hat.Thecowboy hat he’d been pictured wearing in the news. I had a feeling it was out of reach for a reason.
“Looks like we’re going to the retreat,” I murmured.
Calder’s expression remained almost unreadable as he looked me over.Almost.Ever since that moment back at the diner, the glint in his hazel eyes had burned like embers he couldn’t put out.
His jaw flexed. “Then I guess we better learn a little bit about each other so our”—his jaw flexed—“incompatibility isn’t mistaken for ignorance.”
Following him back outside, I pretended like I hadn’t heard how his voice hit a speed bump over the wordincompatibility.
Chapter 8
Lara
“Who taught you to cook?” I asked, watching Calder at his stove from the same seat I’d taken earlier.
After leaving Callum’s, we’d made a pit stop at his dad’s; I’d waited while he went inside the greenhouse abutting the far side of the house. When he returned, it was with two sweet potatoes and a handful of kale.
It was these moments when my sister’s disappearance didn’t feel like the only mystery I wanted to solve. The Stone family was a puzzle of so many incongruous yet interconnected pieces, each just as intriguing as the next. But none so much as the eldest. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit the latent silver lining to my impetuous plan was to have an excuse to learn more about Calder. About his life. His family.About why he seemed so alone.
“Cassius,” Calder answered, volleying several jars of spices from the cabinet to season the meat hissing in the frying pan. “But growing what we cooked and knowing what was safe to eat was my mom’s domain.” The way his hands moved suggested he’d made this meal a thousand times. “Survival means knowing the difference between what can sustain you and what will kill you.”
Another rule.
I propped my elbow on the table, resting the side of my head on my hand. “So, the greenhouse was hers?”
He pressed his lips together and nodded. “Cassius mostly tends to it now, with some help from Colby and Creighton. The rest of us can get by but never quite mastered Mom’s green thumb the way they did. Ironic, since they had the shortest amount of time with her.” He stiffened at that, like he hadn’t meant to say it.
I vaguely remembered that Calder’s mom had died when he was young.
“How old were they when she passed?”
Talking about his mom was a sore subject. I could see him pull away from the topic just as surely as if I’d physically pushed on a pressure point.
“Six and eight.”
“Wow.” I swallowed, feeling my throat start to tighten. “I didn’t realize ... I’m so sorry.” The words felt awkward. Insufficient. I’d never been good at sympathy, even at the hospital. Not because I didn’t feel it, but because as soon as I expressed it, it started to swallow up my thinking. My judgment. My composure. “How old were you?”
“Fifteen.” He reached for the kale left drying in the sink.
