I can’t breathe.
Maddie’s voice is calm, but there’s steel under it. “Rangers aren’t the only men who track.”
And behind me, Wyatt’s hand closes around the back of my chair, grip hard enough to shake the wood.
“Now,” he says, voice like a promise, “we hunt him back.”
Chapter 9
Wyatt
Devil’s Peak is the kind of town that can smell a secret from three blocks away.
Ellie thinks she can slip into her shop, grab inventory, keep her head down, and leave without becoming entertainment. She’s wrong before we even park. There are already two trucks outside Devil’s Kiss and Mrs. Hargrove is across the street “watering” the same dead planter she’s been watering since 2009.
Ellie steps out of my truck in my flannel, boots crunching on old snow, chin lifted like she’s daring the world to say something. She’s got that stubborn shine in her eyes, the one that usually means she’s about to do something reckless just to prove she can.
I slam my door and come around the hood without hurrying. It’s not a race. It’s a statement.
Her phone is in her hand. Her knuckles are white around it. I don’t like that. I don’t like anything about this situation—Graham’s photo, the fact he knows where my cabin is, the fact Ellie had to run to me at all.
But I do like one thing.
I like that she’s here with me.
I stop close enough that my shoulder brushes hers. Ellie stiffens, then doesn’t move away.
“Remember the plan,” I say.
She glances up at me. “I get my things.”
“You stay where I can see you,” I correct.
Her lips press together. “You’re not my dad.”
“No,” I murmur, eyes dropping to her mouth for half a second. “I’m worse.”
Heat flashes in her cheeks. She looks away fast like she hates that her body hears me.
Good.
I take her elbow and steer her toward the door. Ellie’s shop sign swings above us—DEVIL’S KISS CHOCOLATES—cute cursive, little devil tail curling under the K. She built this place from nothing. I can feel her anger in the way she walks, like she’s trying not to explode.
The front door is still locked with the new hardware, bright and smug.
Ellie jabs the keypad like it personally offended her. “It’s not even my lock.”
“It’s his,” I say.
Her jaw tightens. “I want to smash it.”
I glance down at her. “You want to smash something, you tell me first.”
Her eyes narrow. “Why?”
“So I can hold you back,” I answer, easy.
Her breath catches. She glares at me like she hates that sentence more than she hates the lock.
