Page 71 of Wild Sanctuary

West doesn’t step directly into his path. He just places himself in it, the way water finds the low ground without trying. Whatever he says is short. Three words, maybe four.

Felix takes a step forward, but West doesn’t move a single inch. He doesn’t shift his weight, set his jaw, or make himself bigger the way men do when they want to look like a wall.

He already is.

And Felix’s shoulders drop, as though he’s just this moment correctly assessed that the wall in front of him isn’t going anywhere.

He gets back in the car, revs the engine twice for good measure before speeding away from the property. West continues to watch until the trees take him, then he turns, and for just a second before he heads back to the barn, he glances toward the upstairs windows.

I don’t know if he sees me, but I step back anyway.

June finds me in the kitchen ten minutes later, staring at my tea.

“West had a word.” She simply states it, like that explains everything.

“I didn’t ask him to.”

“Nobody did.” She opens the fridge and starts pulling things out for breakfast with the calm efficiency of a woman who considers the matter well and truly closed. “He didn’t need askin’, honey.”

She cracks an egg one-handed against the side of the pan and tosses the shell in the trash.

“Man rolls up here yellin’ across our yard like he owns the place. He’s lucky West got there first.”

I open my mouth but end up closing it again, and just stand there while June slides bread into the toaster. Outside through the window, the paddock is empty, and the drive is empty, and the morning is very quiet.

And I really should get to work.

“You should use Wyatt’s office today,” June announces, without turning around, as though she’s just heard my thoughts. “You’ve been hunched over that tiny desk in the cabin for a week now. His is bigger, the light’s better, and besides, he’s not even here for the next couple days.”

“Where is he?” The words leave my mouth without permission.

June pauses briefly. “Elk Creek fence line. He and Rhett are out there for a few days.” She sets the spatula down. “He won’t be back until later in the week.”

I absorb that in silence. The fence line. That’s where he is. Not where he was.

“I can’t use his office.”

“The door’s unlocked. Coffee’s in the pot.”

She slides a plate of fried eggs and bacon across the counter with a pointed look, and that, apparently, is the end of the discussion.

I eat standing up, which feels about right for this morning. Then I rinse my plate, thank June, and head back across the yard.

The cabin looks different in daylight. Smaller. The brass bed frame catches the morning sun and there’s a dent in the pillow where Felix’s head was. I stand in the doorway for a moment, taking stock.

Right.

I start with the bed. Strip the quilt, shake it out, remake it with the kind of thoroughness that has nothing to do with tidiness and everything to do with needing something to do with my hands. The dirty sheets go in the laundry bag, and I make a mental note to ask June for some fresh ones.

The bathroom takes longer than it should because I end up standing at the sink for a full minute staring at my own reflection.

I look like someone who didn’t sleep. I look like someone who stood up to her ex, the bully, and then spent what was left of the night lying in another man’s bed because she made a fool of herself in an apple orchard and had nowhere else to go.

Which is exactly what happened.

I’m still wearing Wyatt’s shirt over the leggings June left out for me. It’s soft against my skin, worn to the kind of softness that takes years, and it smells like him and I need to stop noticing that immediately.

I slip it off my shoulders and fold it carefully. I’ll put it back where I found it when I go back to the main house. On the hook behind his bedroom door, where he’ll find it and never need to know it spent a night being used as emotional support by a woman who read too much into an apple orchard.