Page 35 of Ironwood Ranch Cowboys

And one of my mama.

That one usually gets people.

Annie looks at it, then at me. “She was beautiful.”

I glance over, caught off guard by the softness in her voice. “Yeah. She was.”

Her eyes go back to the photo. “You look like her.”

“Nah. Silas has her eyes.”

“You have her smile.”

I lean against the dresser, folding my arms to stop myself from doing something embarrassing. “Well. Good to know I inherited at least one endearing trait.”

She sips her coffee. “Charm isn’t a trait. It’s a strategy.”

I laugh. “You’re not wrong.”

A quieter note drifts through the room from the record player, all steel guitar and low ache.

“So,” I say, “you want to tell me what happened, or do you want me to keep distracting you with baked goods and excellent taste in music until your nervous system files a complaint?”

Her fingers tighten on the blanket. “That depends.”

“On?”

“How much prying are you planning to do?”

I put a hand to my chest. “Me? Pry? Never.”

She gives me a look.

I grin. “Okay, that’s not true. But I’m selective about it.”

I think she’s going to dodge, deflect, throw me a joke and call it good. I’d let her, mostly.

I know enough about people to understand that forcing honesty out of them usually just teaches them not to trust you with the next one.

But maybe Annie’s too worn out for evasive maneuvers. Maybe she’s reached that point where keeping it all inside costs more than saying it.

“My desk had been touched,” she says finally. “This morning.”

I let the grin go. “What do you mean?”

She stares down into her coffee. “Drawer open. Pen cup moved, papers shifted. Tiny stuff.” Her mouth twists. “Tiny enough that I almost convinced myself I was imagining it.”

“And you weren’t.”

“No.” She swallows. “Then I checked my camera bag.” I don’t interrupt. Just wait. “One of my SD cards is gone.”

Cold moves through me. “From your camera?”

“Yeah. It had old photos on it,” she says. “From other jobs, trips, family stuff. Things I don’t…” She exhales deeply. “Things I don’t keep anywhere else.”

I push away from the dresser and sit in the leather chair across from her, elbows on knees. “Back up. Why wouldn’t you keep copies?”

A humorless laugh slips out of her. “I do. Usually. Just… not all of them. Not neatly.” She rubs one hand over her face. “I move a lot. I get behind. Sometimes I tell myself I’ll sort everything later, and then later turns into six months and a contract extension, and another town, another room, and apparently one day I die under a pile of poorly organized external storage.”