Much as she often wants to wallow in the way her heart has broken into a thousand shattered little pieces, as each day without Wyatt twists the knife tighter, she has a child to think of. She won’t allow herself to crumble completely when it’s her job to keep Emma safe.
So she makes plans and backup plans and several more after that, should the first two fall to shit. Cover her bases. Hide her emotions. If there is anything her upbringing could be good for, it’s for forcing herself through a turbulent situation and out the other side, even if it feels like she’s dragging half her body along behind her in the process.
“Do you think we should go after him?” Emma asks as the sun rises on the fourteenth day, and they watch the sky bloom into gentle hues of orange.
“No,” Addison replies quickly, so much firmer than she feels. “Not yet. He said to stay here, and so that’s what we’ll do.”
“Not yet?”
“Maybe one day. When it’s been long enough that we know he’s held up by something he can’t overcome. When you’re older and when the weather isn’t quite as cold. Maybe then we’ll leave this farm and head west.”
She hopes that day never has to come.
“That sounds like a long time from now.”
“It is. But we have to give him a chance to follow through on his promise. He didn’t do what he did, so we can run off and get ourselves killed a few weeks later. We have to trust him.”
And she does, she’s realized. In the time she’s been waiting and watching, her anger is such a long-lost feeling in the very back of her soul that all she feels now is that fragile thread oftrust they’d formed grow stronger and stronger. It has replaced her fury and softened her fear into faith.
Even years from now, when Emma is old enough for a road trip, and the warmth of spring lets them travel for an investigative journey to find answers, she supposes there will always be a fraction of hope left inside her that she may find him out there, alive and in one piece.
“I miss him,” Emma says.
“Me too.” Addison gives one of the cows a last pet as she stares at the horizon for a moment, something faint and rumbling catching her attention.
The sound briefly grows loud enough to topple a few of the goats at the back of the field, their fainting instincts kicking in at something unfamiliar, and her breath stills.
She tilts her head, her pulse thumping as she waits. It was only the wind, she reasons when nothing more comes of it. “Let’s go inside. It’ll be dark soon.”
They turn back toward the house as another gust of wind forces the tree canopy to split like a tattered cathedral, and then there’s that sound again, low but consistent, a gentle hum in the background of the sky that’s too steady to be anything but man-made.
Her pulse slams so hard in her veins that it hurts.
Addison looks up, unable to pinpoint where it’s coming from as it gets closer and closer. The purr of an engine finally crests whatever doubt she may have held and transforms her skepticism into full-blown elation.
She doesn’t let herself breathe yet. Not until she sees him.
The trees split at the tops in a violent display, exposing the underside of a helicopter as it passes overhead and disappears in the same direction that Wyatt left in to take Vincent toward his hidden plane.
She wants to run down the long gravel driveway and around the corner to meet him in the middle because it could only be Wyatt flying overhead like something out of her best daydreams. He’s not in the same aircraft he left in, but if it has wings, he can fly it. He told her that once, and she supposes a helicopter’s blades will have to be close enough.
Seconds stretch thin under the weight of her anticipation. Every cruel, rational thought claws its way back in, reminding her how many times she’s mistaken wind for engines and dreams for reality. If this is some stranger instead of him, and this hope dissolves like all the others, then she isn’t sure how many more times she can survive the fall. She presses her fingers into her palms, bracing herself for disappointment, or even invasion by some new enemy as she scans the end of the property.
He appears at the fence line as the last rays of sunrise spark dark hues across the sky, hobbling and blood crusted, pausing as if he used all his strength to get this far.
Her legs that felt heavy a moment ago regain every ounce of energy she thought she lost…and then she runs.
Trees and fencing pass in her periphery before she collides with him hard enough to drive him back a step.
He grunts, and that’s when she feels the stiffness in the way he catches her, the hesitation in his arm before it wraps around her waist. The metallic scent of blood beneath oil and smoke soaked into his clothes.
“You’re hurt,” she breathes into his chest.
“Just a little banged up.”
She pulls back to look at him and nearly unravels. There’s dried blood along his temple, a split in his lip, and he’s missing half the fabric off one leg. His shirt is torn at the shoulder, hastily wrapped beneath with something that’s already soaked through.The world tried to take him from her, and the battles he fought on his way back out are written across his body like brands.
“We thought you were gone,” she whispers. His jaw tightens, but his thumb brushes under her eye before she realizes she’s crying.
