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“You rode on a horse, Charlie.” Davis studies me for a beat. “For fun.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing with her,” I say, swallowing the whiskey, letting the sting of the liquid loosen my tongue. “All I know is I like her. A whole hell of a lot.”
Davis threads a hand through his dark hair, his face sober. “I haven’t heard you talk like this since ...well, in a long time.”
“Since Maggie,” Ford says. He gives me a sorry shrug, exchanges a look with Davis. “We’ve all been all thinking it.”
I inhale Ford’s words, Maggie’s name, and when I let the breath out, it doesn’t hurt so much.
“Smile looks good on you, brother.” Davis clears his throat. “Keep it there.”
I glance out the window at Ruby’s cottage. “I intend to.”
The radio on Davis’s hip crackles and Sam’s cigarette-riddled voice croaks out, “Hey, y’all seen Wyatt?”
Davis lifts the radio to his mouth. “No. Why?”
“We found Pepita over on the ridge. She’s got a real bad limp. No sign of your brother.”
Dread fills my stomach. Ford’s attention shifts from the whiskey bottle to me, his lean form tensing.
Davis’s jaw clenches. “She okay?”
“We’re takin’ her to the stables to check her over. Reckon she is, though. We’ll let you know. Over.”
“Thanks, Sam. Over.” Davis ends the call and swears.
The rare emotion from my level-headed brother sends alarm racing down my spine. Wyatt treats his horse like gold. There’s no way he’d let her run off hurt and not go after her.
“Where the fuck’s our brother?” Ford demands, worry blazing bright in his eyes.
The sentence lands like a wrecking ball and sends me flashing back to Wyatt getting bucked off a horse and knocked unconscious for two days. The whole family planted roots at the hospital. Our brother was hurt. That meant we weren’t okay. It also meant he could count on us to be there, to look out for him.
Always.
My hackles rise. “I don’t like this.” I pick up my phone and dial Wyatt’s number, but there’s no answer.
“Round up the staff. Start looking for him.” Davis shoves himself off the stool, his expression grim. “I’ll get Keena and see if she can sniff him out.”
The back door bursts open just as I’m grabbing my keys.
“Y’all got an ice pack?” Wyatt drawls, limping into the kitchen. He looks pale and tired. Blood’s smeared across his temple. He wears a baseball cap pulled down low, but I can see the beginnings of a black eye.
The room erupts into pandemonium.
Thundering across the floor, Davis strong-arms Wyatt toward a chair at the kitchen table. “Sit.”
Wyatt does, wincing as if the very motion is painful, and I want to hunt down whoever hurt him and turn their face into ground beef.
“Who the fuck do I need to kill?” Ford demands, prowling behind Wyatt’s chair.
Davis removes Wyatt’s baseball cap and tilts his head back to examine his pupils.
“Start talkin’, Wy,” I warn, slapping an ice pack into his hand, a glass of whiskey in the other.
My brother meets my gaze. “I was headed to help Ford with the creek when someone ran me off the road.” He hisses a breath as Davis peels back his hair, blood spilling faster now from the shallow cut. “I fell off Pepita and knocked myself out. I think they kicked me around when I was out, because my ribs hurt something fierce. When I woke up, I hiked my busted ass back here.” He exhales, trying to keep a cocky grin on his face, but the clench of his jaw tells me he’s in pain.
Blood pounds in my head as I stare at my little brother. Wyatt’s sitting there bleeding and I feel so goddamn helpless.
