I feel the sheriff looking at me as I hug myself.
“Well, if you think of anyone it could be, Miss Lucas, you know where to find me,” the sheriff says after a brief pause. “I’d recommend a trip to the hospital for a checkup.”
“I’m fine,” I say, but that’s a lie too.
Tears slide down my cheeks, cold against my hot skin. Across the road, most of my neighbors have gone back into their homes, but not all.
They watched me break down in Wyatt’s arms where he sat on the curb and I cried my heart out. They still watch me, pity filling their eyes. I have to pull myself together and figure out what to do next, even if I’m not sure what that is yet.
The sheriff says something else about seeing a doctor, but I shake my head, more tears wetting my cheeks as I slowly give way to panic.
I’m in smoky PJs and bare feet. My car is destroyed, and I can’t go back to my apartment until it’s deemed safe.
What am I supposed to do? How do I fix this mess?
“How about we talk about this tomorrow, Sheriff?” Wyatt says, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and drawing my trembling body against the hard warmth of his chest. “I’d like to get Maisie somewhere safe and warm.”
My eyes fly up to Wyatt.
What?
“And that place is?” the sheriff asks Wyatt.
Wyatt gives me a reassuring smile. “With me. Maisie will be staying with me.”
Chapter 7
Maisie
Three men I was not expecting stand at the top of the front porch of a pretty two-story farmhouse thirty minutes outside of town.
Knox, Hunter, and Elias.
They’re all in PJs, which makes sense. Itisnighttime. They must have been sleeping when Wyatt went for a drive and wound up pulling me from a burning building and saving my life.
Maybe it should have been obvious to me. It’s not like I haven’t seen them eating lunch together at the diner. I knew they worked together, but I had no idea they lived together.
“You okay?” Wyatt asks.
Startled, I snap my head around to meet his gaze.
Wyatt cut the engine and got out while I wasn’t paying attention. He’s standing outside the truck with my door open, waiting for me to get out.
Idiot.
My fingers fumble with my seatbelt. I stab at the button to release it, but I’m too clumsy or the button is too stiff that my seatbelt keeps me trapped in my seat.
“Can I?” Wyatt offers.
My face is hot when I finally stop fumbling with my seatbelt. All I’m doing is making a fool of myself in front of all of them, so I nod.
He leans in close. Beneath the smoke from the fire, I smell him: bourbon and hot iron. With one firm press, he releases me from my seatbelt.
So much for the stiff button. The problem wasn’t the button. It was you.
“Sorry,” I say, looking down as he steps aside so I can climb out of his truck. “I’m stupid.”
Derek would have called me an idiot if we were in public and slapped me across the face if we were at home. I preferred a slap to being called an idiot. The red mark from a slap went away fast with a bag of peas I held to my burning cheek. The names he called me have stuck in my head for years.
