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Why didn’t she come and find me?
Where did she go?
“Dude, before you get super pissed off and just take off, she swore she was just going for a quick drive to clear her head.”
“You don’t know that,” I exasperated, shoving past him to the door of the workshop. “She’s tough on the outside, but she’s fucking fragile when it comes to her background. She’ll leave and never come back.”
“Wade,” Blake grabbed my arm, jerking me to a stop. “Calm the hell down. She didn’t leave for good. She didn’t even take Takoda with her. I think she just wanted to get in the right frame of mind to deal with it all. I mean, give her a break, she’s had an overwhelming day. I’m sure—”
“It’s going to storm, and I havenoidea where she went. How am I supposed to find her?”
“You don’t have tofindher. She’ll probably be back at any moment, to be honest. You’re blowing this out of proportion, bro.”
I took a deep breath, Blake’s hand still firmly planted on my arm, holding me. “Right. I guess I just thought... You know, I wouldn’t blame her for running from all this. It’s a lot to face, and I can only imagine what it’s like for her. I have all of you—and this is myhome.She’s in a brand new place, and she didn’t even want to be here in the first place.” The words came pouring out, and I didn’t know how to stop them, my true worries flooding out. “What if she doesn’t really want this? What if she’s just doing it because it’s the only option she feels like she has?”
“She’s not here because it’s the only option she has. She could easily call her sister and I’m sure she would arrange to get her to Arizona. She could take off and just rip you off for child support, living the life of her dreams on your dime.”
I hadn’t ever thought of that.
“I guess that’s true, isn’t it?” I admitted, relaxing a little. “She’s never mentioned anything like that.”
“Yeah, because she’s not here for the money or because it’s the easy way out. She’s here foryou.”
I nodded, running my hands over my face. “I just wish I knew who was talking about her like that.”
However, as soon as the words left my mouth, my brain answered.
Ryder.
“I don’t know—”
“It was fuckingRyder.” I shook my head. “Iknowit was him. He talked shit about the whole situation to my face earlier. I’m sure he was just ranting about it to one of the other hands. I don’t know what the hell is his problem.”
“We probably shouldn’t go making assumptions.” Just as Blake spoke, a crack of thunder roared across the ranch, shaking the ground beneath us. “Whoa,” Blake muttered, giving me a knowing look. “We should probably head back up to the house.”
“And make sure that Cheyenne is home. I know that the roads aren’t going to be able to take much rain before they all start flooding again.”
“Or caving in. I heard from Dan that some of the roadways are getting really weak—but I doubt that Cheyenne went too far. She might have even just stayed on the dirt roads. I don’t know.”
“Why did you not stop her?” I groaned, locking up the workshop’s door as we started the long walk back to the house. Normally, I took the Ranger, but the walk felt nice in the moment.
“I mean, you know as well as I do how hard it is to stop a determined woman like Cheyenne. She was also adamant that she would be back—and wouldn’t even be gone long. I just tried not to worry about it.”
“If you weren’t worried about it, then why’d you come all the way out here to find me?” I eyed him, suspicion oozing from my tone of voice. “Because I don’t buy what you’re saying.”
He hesitated. “Well, it’s just that she’s been gone a while.”
“How long is a while?” I demanded, picking up my pace. “Like thirty minutes?”
“Try more like an hour.”
Where the hell did she go?
“Has anyone tried to call her?”
Blake nodded. “Hazel tried a couple of times, but she didn’t answer. We just figured she was on the phone with her sister at first.”
“But the phone is ringing, right?”
