Chapter Seventeen
“He’s gone.” Arlen stoodin the doorway to the dining room as Belle served breakfast, a look of surprise creasing his face.
“Gone?” George echoed.
“Trip isn’t in the stable, and the bunkhouse is empty.”
The table erupted into chatter, but Lara stood. Someone called after her—Josie, perhaps—as she rushed from the room, but she didn’t acknowledge them. She ran without stopping across the yard as the morning sun still hung low in the sky.
She blew into the bunkhouse like the wind, her eyes raking the place for evidence that Mitchell had simply just gone for a morning ride.
But Arlen was right. He was gone.
There wasn’t even a piece of dirt left to show he’d been there—except . . . Lara picked up the half-carved duck on the table and hugged it to herself.
Why would he have left?
The untamed part of her mind said it was because of her. Because she was too nosy for her own good.
But that wasn’t it, no matter what he’d told her to get her to leave the bunkhouse last night. He used that as an excuse because he knew it would hurt her enough to make her leave. And she’d fallen for it.
No, this had nothing to do with her, of that she was absolutely certain. Instead, it had everything to do with that man in town. Mr. Clarkson, the outlaw who’d escaped from prison and had come to Last Chance . . .
Lara set the duck down on the table. No one just happened upon Last Chance, not if they didn’t intend to come here. That man was here for a reason.
He was here for Mitchell.
Lara was certain of that. But what connection did an outlaw like Clarkson have to do with Mitchell? She knew it had something to do with whatever it was he’d carried deep inside him. That thing that sat like a somber shadow behind his eyes at times, behind the raw memories of his family.
The part of him he wouldn’t tell her about.
Whatever this was, it had to be bad. Which meant that Mr. Clarkson knew exactly who she was when he’d followed her in town yesterday. It hadn’t been a mistake at all. It was meant to scare her—and to scare Mitchell.
And it had worked, because now he was gone.
She swallowed a sob that had worked its way up her throat. This wasn’t the time to cry. She had to remain strong.
She had todosomething. But what?
“Lara?”
Lara turned to see Josie standing in the doorway, her hands laying protectively over her stomach.
“Are you all right?” Josie asked as she shut the door behind her. “Belle wanted to come down here, but I convinced her to entertain the children instead.” She paused. “I thought that might be for the best.”
