Page 105 of Wilder

The house was still quiet, broken only with the sound of the creaking floorboards under my feet as I descended down the hall and stairs to the main floor. A slight chill clung to the air closest to the front door, brought in by whatever cold front had settled overnight. It had me rolling my shoulders back, wincing at the slight click my joints gave.

Sneaking Asher out of here would have to be all about divine timing. Given the hour, I still had another twenty minutes before my Mama was making her way down to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Plenty of time to put on the pot for her and head back upstairs to wrestle Asher out of bed and out the door.

Unless he actually fought me on staying in bed all morning—something I was beginning to suspect now that I thought about how cozy he looked curled up on my side. Cutting things down this soon before my Mama was supposed to get up would have me looking at about only a five minute buffer window...

I could always carry him. Dress him and then throw him over my shoulder, taking him back up to the bunkhouse that way. As long as I put the pot on, my Mama wouldn’t bat an eye. She’d probably assume I started out earlier than usual.

As long as I stuck to the back parts of the property and came in through the kitchen before Hazel usually started breakfast, I could get Asher up to his room without anyone seeing us. He could sleep on my shoulder on the walk up for all I cared.

Tempting...

Very, very tempting.

Hell, I’d take any excuse to hold onto him for just a little bit longer.

The scent of brewing coffee had me pausing as I rounded the table coming into the dining room, raising a brow.

Mama usually wasn’t up this early.

The sound of something sizzling low and steady from the kitchen had me shuffling through the doorway, stopping short at seeing the man I least expected to be taking up space in front of my stove.

Sully.

Fuck.

He had one hand wrapped around the handle of the pan in front of him, the other had a wooden spoon that he was using to move around some kind of scramble while he cooked it on low.

Why in the world was he here?

Sully didn’t just show up at my house right after dawn unless something was wrong.

Something with the horses?

A call back from the lab with results about the samples we sent in?

Or he’d found Carter doing something else shady and was coming by to let me know before sending him packing.

If something was wrong, why the hell didn’t he come upstairs to wake me?

In a way, I was glad he hadn’t.

Christ, given the state Asher and I were in, that would’ve been the quickest way to get us ripped apart and me buried six feet under without anyone asking questions.

“Morning,” I said finally, pushing myself away from the doorframe and forcing my feet to move.

Sully glanced over his shoulder at me, nodding once. “Morning. You’re up late.”

Was I?

I blinked at him.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept in past sunrise, true. Then again, that was only because I’d been trying to work myself into the ground in order to stop my thoughts from latching onto Asher.

Funny how all of that nonsense did the complete opposite.

“Didn’t sleep well,” I answered, coming around to grab three mugs from the cupboards next to him right as the coffee maker gurgled.

Sully hummed, stirring the wooden spoon around in the pan again. “That doesn’t sound good. Something on your mind?”