Page 89 of Wild Sanctuary

DAISY

My hipbone is still burning where his thumb was and Wyatt Hartley is already three feet away, hands in his pockets, looking at the terrace like nothing happened.

It’s not even nine thirty, but I find myself nodding.

“Sure,” I blink owlishly. “Okay.”

We cut back through the terrace.

Colt is at the roping station now, showing his date how to hold the lasso, standing behind her the way Wyatt just stood behind me. Except Colt is laughing, and his date is laughing, and the photographer is right there getting all of it.

Easy and fun.

Must be nice.

Wyatt’s hand finds my lower back as we navigate through the crowd toward the doors but it’s gone before I can decide what to do with it.

Shelby catches us at the entrance.

“Leaving already, y’all?” Her hand lands on Wyatt’s arm. Again. The same arm. The same easy, sure touch that makes the green-eyed monster in me spring to attention. “I was gonna save you a spin on the bull.”

“Early start tomorrow.” Wyatt’s voice is polite, bordering on warm. A sight warmer than anything he’s given me all night. “You and June did a helluva job, Shelby.”

“Well.” She beams up at him, and winks utterly shamelessly. “You know where to find me.”

Oh yes. We all know where to find you, Shelby.

“Night, Daisy.” She squeezes my arm like we’re friends. “So great seein’ you.”

“You too.” The smile I plaster on my face deserves a freaking Oscar.

This is fine. I’m fine. Everything is so spectacularly fine I can’t breathe.

Wyatt holds the door. I step through and keep walking toward the truck because if I slow down, I’m going to say something I can’t take back.

I don’t wait for him to get my door, and stare out the window into the darkening sky.

The return trip is worse than the drive over.

At least on the way here, I could engineer small talk. Now there’s nothing between us but the sound of the engine and the county road and whatever just happened at the roping station that neither of us is going to mention.

And Shelby.

His hands are tight on the wheel, at ten and two, and his jaw could just about cut steel.

I stare out the window at the mountains, still holding the last dredge of light along the ridge, and replay the pressure of his thumb on my hipbone. The nickname I’ve hated until recently that felt like it tumbled out of him before he could catch it. The rasp of his voice against my ear. The heat of his chest against my spine. The way he dropped his hands and stepped back as though I’d burned him.

Gettin’ late.

Nine twenty-seven. I checked when we climbed into the cab. Late my good goddamn ass.

The silence thickens with every mile. I can feel it pressing against my skin, and every second he doesn’t speak is another second I have to sit here pretending I’m fine when I am so far from fine, I’m in a whole other continent.

The ranch gate appears in the headlights, and he takes the turn without a word. The gravel pops under the tires as we roll past the empty main house and down the track toward my cabin.

He parks and kills the ignition, but neither of us moves.

The tick of the cooling engine is the loudest sound in the world as I stare at the cabin door. I try desperately to find the version of myself who can say thanks for dinner and get out and walk inside and close the door and be done with this. She’s in here somewhere.