Page 7 of Wild Sanctuary

I used to think he just didn’t like me. Then I got older and realized he’s like this with pretty much everyone. It’s nothing personal. It’s just Wyatt.

You’re only lying to yourself, Monroe.

“I’ll stay out of your way,” I promise, and I mean it. Mostly. As much as I can mean it while also planning to dig into every dark corner of this ranch’s history. “I’m just here to write an article.”

His eyes narrow slightly. I feel like he’s seeing past my very reasonable cover story and straight through to everything I’m not saying.

“That’s what you said in your email.”

I can’t help quirking a brow as I feed him his own words. “Figured it bore repeating.”

For just a second the corner of his mouth twitches, but it’s gone before it gets anywhere. Then his expression locks back down and he turns to leave.

“Sunday dinner’s at six,” he tosses over his shoulder. “Attendance ain’t optional.”

“Wyatt, I have to work⁠—”

But he doesn’t stop. I watch him walk back toward the main house, his stride long and unhurried, and I can’t help noting his shoulders are stiff, almost like he’s carrying something he never seems to put down.

Does he even know how?

Sunday dinner. With the Hartleys.

My mind wanders toward what that means as his figure grows smaller in the distance. Sitting across from people I haven’t seen in years, people who knew me when I was all knobby knees and endless questions. People who watched my father get buried and never heard from me again.

I try to picture them all as they are now, not as the sun-bleached memories I’ve been carrying.

Colt, with his easy grin and complete inability to take anything seriously. West, who communicates mostly in silence and somehow still makes himself understood. Maggie, who has never once softened a truth just because it would’ve been kinder to. And June, who came to this family with nothing at age ten and somehow became the heart of it.

I used to envy them growing up. The chaos of their dinners, the way they argued and laughed and drove each other crazy but always—always—showed up for each other. My parents’ house was quiet after the divorce. Polite and careful. The Hartley house was loud and messy and full of people who would die for each other without hesitation.

And now I’m supposed to sit down at their table and pretend I’m just here for an article.

I close the door and lean against it, pressing my palms flat against the cool wood.

This is fine. Everything is fine.

I’m just here to do a job—two jobs, technically. My editor knows about both. There were leads I couldn’t chase without his contacts, calls I couldn’t make on my own. Which makes him either my co-conspirator or my conflict of interest, depending on how this plays out.

So I’ll write my article, I’ll find my answers, and I’ll leave before Wyatt Hartley has to use more than ten words at a time in my presence.

Simple. Easy. Totally achievable.

I push off the door and drop into the chair at the desk. My reflection in the window looks skeptical, and true to form, I choose to ignore it.

Outside, the light is fading, the last of it catching the snow still clinging to the mountain peaks in the distance. And through the window, I see a tall figure cross the yard, hat pulled low.

I watch for a moment, then turn back to my laptop and open my files. I came here for the truth about my father.

Everything else I can handle.

Probably.

3

WYATT

Three years. I’ve had three years to prepare for the possibility that Daisy Monroe might come back, and I still wasn’t fucking ready.