It was a command he’d never given before, but Bramble understood immediately, positioning himself between the kittens and the door with a low huff of acknowledgment.
He took off the leather apron and grabbed his jacket on his way out the door. Dusk cast long shadows across the ranch, turning familiar shapes strange and foreboding. His breath clouded in front of him as he quickened his pace, not quite running but close.
Her cabin windows glowed with warm light against the gathering darkness. No sign of forced entry, no unusual tracks in the dirt around the steps.
But something wasn’t right.
He took the steps two at a time and rapped sharply on the door. “Maggie?”
No answer. He knocked again, harder. “Maggie, it’s Anson. You in there?”
The silence stretched until he was about to try the handle. Then came a small sound from inside. “Come in.”
The door wasn’t locked. That alone sent a fresh surge of concern through him. Maggie had been obsessive about locking her doors since she arrived. She’d even asked Walker to install a new deadbolt.
He pushed the door open slowly and scanned the room. The cabin was warm, tidy, nothing obviously wrong, except?—
Maggie sat on the edge of her bed, still wearing River’s hoodie, staring at the phone in her hand like it might bite her. Her face was colorless, dark smudges beneath her eyes standing out like bruises against her pale skin. She looked like she’d been sitting in exactly that position since Boone dropped her off.
“Been waiting for you at the forge.” He kept his voice calm as he stepped inside. “Boone said he dropped you off an hour ago.”
She looked up, blinking, disoriented. “Oh.” Her gaze dropped to her phone again. She was clenching it so tightly, it was amazing the screen didn’t crack. “I was on my way over, but then…”
“Maggie?”
Tears filled her eyes. “He called.”
He didn’t have to ask who. Only one person would put that stark fear in her eyes. “What did he say?”
She held up her phone, hand trembling slightly. “Left voicemails.”
He wanted to tear across the room, rip the phone from her hand, and throw it in his forge. But he kept his movements careful, measured, like approaching a spooked animal, as he crossed the room and sat beside her on the bed.
“Can I hear them?”
She nodded, thumbed the speaker button, and held the phone between them.
“Hey, beautiful.” The voice was male, superficially warm, but with something slick and wrong underneath. “I know you’ve been taking some space, and I respect that. I do. That’s why I haven’t pushed, even though it hurts when you shut me out like this.” A pause, a rehearsed sigh. “But baby, we’re too good together to throw away what we have. The network needs us. The show needs us. I need you. And I know, deep down, youneed me too. I’m not giving up on us, Mags. I’m not giving up on what we built together. I’ll wait as long as it takes, but we both know you’ll come around. You always do. Because no one understands you like I do. No one else will ever love you the way I do. Call me back, beautiful. I miss you.”
The message ended. Maggie’s breaths came in quick, shallow bursts as she played the next.
“Maggie, it’s me again. I know you’ve been stressed, not thinking clearly. Maybe you need help, baby. Professional help. I’m worried about you. Making decisions like this when you’re not in your right mind... that’s dangerous. For both of us. For the show. For everything we’ve worked for. Just... call me back. Let me help you. That’s all I want. To help.”
And the next:
“You know what hurts the most? That you won’t even give me a chance to explain. After everything I’ve done for you. Everythingwebuilt together. You’d still be nobody without me, Mags. A nobody in a nowhere town. I made you somebody. And this is how you repay me? By running away like a coward? That’s not the woman I fell in love with. That’s not the woman America fell in love with. Call me back. We need to talk about this like adults.”
And the next:
“I’ve been patient. God knows I’ve been patient. But you can’t just throw away what we have because I made one tiny mistake. For fuck’s sake, why can’t you forgive me? Everyone else has.”
And the next:
“You think you can just disappear? Start over somewhere else? It doesn’t work that way. We have contracts. Obligations.History.”
There were ten voicemails in total. They got progressively angier, more demanding, more unhinged, ending with:
“Do you really think you can hide from me, bitch? There’s nowhere you can go that I won’t find you.”
