“It’s fine.” But the tension in my voice argued otherwise.
He studied me for a moment, likely taking in the lie. “Want to come fishing with me and the girls tomorrow? Should be the perfect day for it.”
“Can’t.”
“Helping out at the ranch?”
I picked up a pencil and rolled it between my fingers. “Dad and I are going up to Everly’s to assess her barn. It looks like it’s one gust of wind away from collapsing.”
Calder’s brows rose practically to his hairline. “You’re going to help out up there?”
I wasn’t setting foot near that damn shed. But I didn’t mind helping stabilize the barn, run some new fence line—whatever else she needed. “She wants to start an animal sanctuary, and I’m trying to make up for being a total asshole to her when I showed up at her place the first time.” Well, the first and the second times.
Calder snorted. “You never did handle surprises well.”
“Shut up.”
“Sounds like a good use for all that land. And it’s something the community could get behind.”
“More than a few animals in this county could use a good home.”
He took a sip of his coffee and then rested it on the arm of his chair. “You think she’ll give them that?”
“I do.” Everly had a stubborn determination that meant she wouldn’t back down from a challenge. But there was gentleness, too. The way she’d sunk to the ground to engulf Koda in a hug. “She was good with Koda.”
“Probably the only way she could’ve gotten you on her side—being good to that dog of yours.”
“Sides have nothing to do with it. I’m just trying to make things right after biting her head off.”
Calder’s expression sobered. “You gotta let this go, Hayes. The only person responsible for what happened is in jail. He’ll be there for a long time. It wasn’t Everly’s fault, and it sure as hell wasn’t yours.”
My back molars ground together. “I know that.”
“You may know it in your head, but your heart sure as hell doesn’t. That guilt is going to eat you alive.”
It wouldn’t. Not if I didn’t let it catch me. It was why I stayed so busy. And why I went on such long runs. “Every time I see someone from that family, it’s a reminder of how I failed. Of all the ways my family is still broken. So, I get angry. Not because it’s any of their faults, but because when I see them, I have to remember.”
“If you’re going to be helping Everly, you’re gonna need to figure out a way to come to terms with this. It’s not fair for you to hold on to all this anger and make her deal with it.”
“I know, it’s not,” I growled. It made me feel like the lowest of the low that anger had been my reaction to seeing the woman who had saved my sister’s life when she was a girl. But there was more than anger in the mix now, too. There was also a healthy dose of admiration.
“Okay.”
“I’m working on it.”
Calder’s mouth twitched. “She flusters you. Is she pretty?”
“Pretty?” No, Everly was heart-stoppingly gorgeous. She had the kind of beauty that could bring a man to his knees. I bit the inside of my cheek to stop that train of thought.
“Yeah. Is she attractive?”
I spun the pencil between my fingers. “I guess you could say that.”
Calder barked out a laugh. “Oh, man, this is going to be so much fun to watch. Maybe the girls and I should ditch fishing and go up the mountain to watch the show.”
“Don’t make me deck you. You know I’ll do it.”
“I’m not scared of you. I know all your tells.”
My eyes narrowed at my lifelong friend. “I still have some tricks you’ve never seen.”
“But I’m quicker. That’s what happens when you have to do your job with forty-five pounds of gear on your back. That desk you’re riding has made you lazy.”
“I do not ride a desk,” I said through gritted teeth.
Calder inclined his head to a stack of paper on my desk. “What’s that? Looks like a whole lot of paperwork to me.”
“It’s called being the boss. It comes with strings.”
“Sure, but just remember what the nail in your coffin was when you try to take a swing at me.”
I had half a mind to do it simply to prove Calder wrong. “Get out of my office before I throw this coffee at you.”
He chuckled but pushed to his feet. “I have to get to work anyway.”
“Enjoy riding that pole.”
“Always do, desk jockey.”
Just as Calder disappeared, Deputy Young stepped into my office with an amused smile on her face. “Did he just call you a desk jockey?”
“Yes,” I growled. “He’s an ass.”
“He’s a firefighter. They’re all pompous.”
“You’re not wrong there. What can I do for you, Young?”
Her feet shuffled as she gripped the back of the chair Calder had vacated. “I, uh, saw something yesterday I thought you might want to know about.”
“Okay…”
“I was picking up lunch for my mom and me from Spoons, and I saw Everly Kemper.”
Young stopped talking. I waited for a moment, but she didn’t say anything else. “She does live here now. You’ll probably see her in town.”
“I know. It’s just… It looked like her brother was threatening her. I was about to step in and see if she needed help when her uncle called Ian off. I’ve got a bad feeling about those guys, boss.”
The coffee in my gut soured. I did, too. And Everly hadn’t said a single word when I showed up at the cabin yesterday afternoon. “He touch her?”
“He knocked into her when he walked away. She stood her ground, didn’t let him see her scared. But I saw her shaking a bit when she walked to her car.”
I bit back a slew of curses. I didn’t want to feel this pull to make sure Everly was okay. I tried to justify in my mind that it was simply because this was my job—to protect the citizens of this county. But I worried it was more.
11
Everly
I leaned on the fence and pulled. With a groan, it gave way in an almost comical domino effect. Post after post, and board after board went down. That answered whether any part of the fence line was salvageable. It looked like an entire new one was on my list. I stepped on a rail with my boot. The wood itself seemed sturdy. That meant I might be able to reuse the materials, but it also meant I’d have to assess each piece.
The sound of an engine caught on the breeze, and I turned to see an old pickup truck cresting the hill. I stiffened, my hand going to the holster at my back and resting there. If my brother thought he’d catch me unaware, he had another thing coming.
But it wasn’t Ian who climbed out of the truck. It was a face as familiar as his, but one that had matured over the years. The rest of him had, too, broad shoulders and a leanly muscled form. I froze in place, my body warring with itself. Part of me wanting to run to Ben and engulf him in a hug. The other part felt the need to protect myself from whatever might be coming my way.