Page 76 of Wild Sanctuary

He doesn’t stop working. His hands stay loose on the rope. “Didn’t take much.”

“Still. It wasn’t your mess to handle.”

There’s a pause. The mare shifts and he shifts with her, barely a movement at all. Then he looks at me for the first time, brief and direct. Like he’s been waiting for the right moment and decided this is it.

“You’re one of ours, Daisy Monroe. Figured it was time someone said it.”

He says it the way he’d state the height of a fence post. Like a fact, not a comfort.

Present tense. As if it never needed stating, because it was never in question, and the only reason he’s saying it now is that, apparently, I needed to hear it out loud.

The mare shifts her weight. She doesn’t move toward me, but she doesn’t step away either.

“Some things just need more time,” West says. Those green eyes, so like his brother’s, hold mine for just a beat longer before he turns his attention back to her.

I nod, then push off the fence and head back toward the house. The morning sun is warm across the yard. Behind me, a meadowlark starts up, clear and carrying, and I find myself walking a little faster.

Because I have absolutely no idea what to do with that.

* * *

Glen replies on Friday morning, which is either good or terrible timing, depending on how I look at it.

SENDER: Glen Calloway [email protected]

RECIPIENT: Daisy Monroe [email protected]

RE: Glacier Ridge + other

Article’s good, Daisy. Really good. Will run it as is with the edits I’ve marked. Staff position is yours when you get back.

Re: the other thing. The Cutter you’re after has a daughter—Alma. Worked commercial accounts at the local bank for nine years before her father got sick. Quiet exit when he went into the hospital. No black marks, no formal complaints, just a woman who walked out the door and never went back. She’s running Sky Country now.

Worth a conversation if you can get one. Be careful.

I read it twice. Then I close the laptop and sit with it for a minute.

The article is done. The staff position is mine. Everything I came here for, professionally speaking, is sitting in my inbox with a green light and Glen’s signature underneath it, but the thing I’m focused on is a bookshop on Main Street and an old man’s daughter who may or may not know what her father signed his name to.

June’s head appears around the office door at noon.

“I’m making a town run. Need anything?”

I look at her. She looks at me with the specific expression of someone who has already decided how this afternoon is going to go and is simply waiting for me to catch up.

“Give me two minutes.” I grin as I reach for my jacket.

The drive into Blackstone Creek takes fifteen minutes and June fills every single one with the Henderson fundraiser aftermath, which has apparently generated enough gossip to sustain Blackstone Creek through the winter and well into spring.

“Dolly Briggs has called Maggie four times.” June doesn’t quite manage to suppress the laughter in her tone as she navigates the county road with one hand on the wheel. “Four times, Daisy. Each call was longer than the last.”

“About the auction?”

“About Wyatt.” She says it with the careful neutrality of a woman who has filed her own opinions away for later. “Dolly has theories.”

“Everyone in this town has theories about everything.”

“Dolly’s are more detailed than most.” She glances at me sideways. “She’s also not entirely wrong, which is the annoying part.”