Page 52 of Wild Sanctuary

Except someone did. The Hendersons are sitting at the front table because someone took everything from them, and that someone might be in this orchard tonight too. Same as my father. If I’m right about him, whoever did it is almost certainly here. Maybe a face I just smiled at.

“Come on.” June links her arm through mine. “Let’s go find Shelby.”

I take one more look at the clearing—the lights, the flowers, the dance floor, every detail so perfectly placed so that it appears effortless, which means it wasn’t. “You’re wasted on this town, you know that?”

June beams. “Blackstone Creek wouldn’t know what to do with that conversation.”

We make our way through the crowd, and I’m stopped every few steps by someone who remembers me. An older woman named Dolly, who used to sit in the pew behind us at Sunday service, cups my face in papery hands and tells me I look just like my dad. A rancher named Dell, who used to play poker with Dad every Thursday night, shakes my hand with both of his and has to look away before he finishes his sentence. Miguel from Glacier Ridge, cleaned up and unfamiliar without his ranch dust, tips his hat and says, “Your daddy would be proud of you, mija.”

Each one lands like a stone dropped in still water. Ripples spreading out, touching things I’ve kept buried.

He’d be proud.

Would he? I’m here under false pretenses, chasing a dead man’s secrets while letting people believe the article is the whole truth. I’m standing in a dress someone else bought for me, about to climb on a stage so strangers can bid on the privilege of my company, and the man I’ve been half in love with since I was old enough to know better told me this morning that I make his life harder by being here.

Pride might be a stretch.

I take a breath that’s deeper than it needs to be and adjust my hat, like that’s the thing that needed fixing.

We find Shelby near the check-in table, clipboard in hand, dark hair swept over one shoulder. She’s wearing a fitted blue dress that makes her look like she stepped out of a magazine, and she pulls June into a hug before turning that megawatt smile on me.

“Daisy! Look at you.” Her eyes sweep from the hat to the boots before coming to rest on my face. “You look incredible.”

“Thanks.” I mean it, even though the compliment sits funny coming from a woman who looks like that. “This is amazing, Shelby. The lights, the flowers… all of it.”

She waves her hands, but the pride in her expression is hard to miss. “June did the heavy lifting. I just made a couple of phone calls.” She’s good at this—the warmth and easy charm. I want to dislike her and I can’t, which is its own particular brand of torture.

“How’s the turnout?” June asks.

“Over capacity. We had to set up extra chairs—” Shelby’s eyes, which had been scanning the crowd, suddenly light up. “Oh—Wyatt’s here. Save my spot.” She hands June the clipboard and is gone, cutting through the crowd like a woman on a mission.

June watches her go with an expression I can’t quite read. Before I can question it, someone calls her name from the bar and she lightly squeezes my arm. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

Then I’m alone. Which is how I end up doing the one thing I told myself I wouldn’t do tonight.

I look for Wyatt.

He’s standing near the far edge of the tent with Rhett, a beer in his hand. Dressed in faded denims and a clean shirt that’s dark blue with the sleeves rolled to the elbows. His hat sits low, shadowing his face, but I’d know the set of those shoulders in the dark even in a crowd of thousands. He’s leaning against one of the tent poles with his arms crossed and his weight on one hip, and even in a sea of cowboys, he stands apart, tall and still.

Shelby reaches him and touches his arm. He turns, and his expression shifts, easy and unguarded in a way he never is with me. She leans in to say something, and he ducks his head to listen closely. Her hand stays on his arm, and she laughs at whatever he says, her whole body tilting toward his.

My stomach clenches, which is ridiculous. My ex spent this morning texting me with the calculated warmth of a man who knows I’m secure in the trap he built. That should be the thing keeping me up tonight. That should be what hurts.

But it doesn’t.

What hurts is that Wyatt Hartley is standing twenty feet away, letting Shelby Reynolds touch his arm while giving her the kind of warmth he hasn’t shown me once since I got here. I’ve had this crush for over a decade. It should have died by now. But apparently it didn’t get the memo.

I look away. Count to three. Look back.

Still there. Still close. Her fingers are on his sleeve now, fixing something—a loose thread, maybe, or nothing at all. Maybe it’s just an excuse to touch him. His head is bent toward hers, and from this angle I can’t tell if he’s smiling, but I can see the relaxed way he stands beside her.

This morning, he couldn’t be in the same room with me. Tonight, Shelby Reynolds gets to fix his collar. And I’m just standing here, watching, and feeling like I’ve been hollowed out with a spoon.

I reach for my familiar armor. The dry voice in my head that usually has something clever to say about denial and growth and therapeutic coping mechanisms.

But the voice is quiet tonight. It doesn’t have a punchline for this. It just hurts, plain and simple, in a way that no amount of self-deprecating humor can dress up.

I turn away from them and take a long sip of the drink someone pressed into my hand earlier.