Page 17 of Love At Peace

“He’s been sick lately, too,” I told Gavin as he got his phone out to call Marty.

“Yeah. Sounded like a nasty cold.” He nodded as he lifted his phone to his ear.

“But he was better,” Heather argued. “When I saw him last, he said he was on the mend.”

I nodded, knowing that already since I’d seen him at work since he was off sick, but I had heard him dealing with a lingering cough.

“I ain’t seen him at the bar lately,” another ranch hand said.

“Yeah. Me neither.”

“He’s sort of quiet, you know?”

Heather nodded at all the men speaking up while Gavin spoke to Marty on the phone.

He hung up quickly. “Marty said he’d like to meet you at Eric’s place.” Then he glanced at me and opened and closed his mouth. “Would you want to ride with one of us, or...?” He shrugged. “Instead of more cars going to the same place?”

Todd huffed a laugh. “Want to ride with me, hunny?” He was quick to pick up on the tension that came with the slight suggestion of expecting Heather to be in a vehicle with me.

“Thanks, Todd.”

Once she walked out with him, Gavin nudged my side. “You coming with me?”

I nodded, irked that I couldn’t be the one to comfort Heather. It was obvious that we wouldn’t let her handle this on her own. We came together on the ranch because we were coworkers. Beyond that, we were friends. But more than that, we were all neighbors in this town and this would have to serve as proof to Heather that we all looked out for our own.

Gavin drove to the house Eric wanted to flip, and on the way, he called Wendy on speakerphone to see if she’d heard anything about Eric being missing.

“Well, I haven’t heard anything about him dating anyone,” she replied.

It peeved me that we were relying on gossip for clues, but I supposed that was an important factor of small-town life that couldn’t be ignored. If Eric was seeing someone in town, he could just be playing hooky with his lover.

Eric? Playing hooky? Nah. That’s not like him.

We pulled up at Eric’s house, parking behind Todd’s truck. Marty was already there, likely able to get there sooner because Eric’s place was closer to town than Grand River was.

“Hey,” Marty said in greeting to us all. Heather nodded an acknowledgment at him and approached him first.

I hung back with Gavin while Marty looked around the house with Heather. Her voice carried, and I was glad that she wasn’t being secretive about the little she knew with him.

Secrets were harmful. That was just common sense. But Heather didn’t apply her need for confidentiality when it was about someone else’s potential well-being.

“Wonder where he could be,” Gavin said, kicking absently at the tall grass that was sprouting up along the rudimentary sidewalk pavers that Eric would likely replace.

“Me too,” Todd said. “And—”

Chirps sounded from the overgrown thicket Gavin was kicking at. It didn’t sound like a bird or other living being. It was more like an electronic noise.

“That sounds like a...” I lowered until I grabbed it.

“Phone.” Gavin nodded. “Marty!” he called out.

Marty and Heather jogged toward us out front, and I handed the phone to him.

“I don’t know his passcode,” Heather said.

Marty shook his head. “We’ll figure it out, if we have to. But his lock screen shows enough.”

He turned the device around for us to see the lines of notifications that had come through.