Page 111 of Bailey

The man nodded. “My partner’s getting their statements.” He looked to Reeves. “It would be great if I could get yours.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Reeves said, though he sounded exhausted.

“I’ll give you the office,” Bailey said, and she smiled at both of them. “Really, Reeves, we’re ordering lunch today for the office, and I can add something to it for you.”

“All right,” he said. “You know what I like.”

Bailey reached out and shook the officer’s hand. “It’ll probably be forty-five minutes. Will you and your partner still be here? I’m happy to order in for you as well.”

“Oh, no, ma’am, that’s fine,” the officer said. “I can’t imagine we’re going to be here that long.”

She nodded, and she stepped outside as Reeves asked, “So, they just left?” She pressed her back to the wall, because Reeves’s voice had taken on a clipped quality, and she wanted to hear what he said.

“Yes, sir. We told them if they came back here, we’d issue them a trespassing citation. We told them that they can’t be following citizens around Coral Canyon.” Her chair squeaked as the officer clearly took her seat behind her desk. “I think I know why they were following you. You’re the Teton Mountain Man.”

Bailey pushed away from the wall and walked down the hall, sure she had other tasks she could do somewhere while Reeves gave his statement to the police. Her stomach felt like someone had knotted it into a bow, because she’d moved to Coral Canyon and established her veterinary clinic to be closer to her family and finally have a normal, average, small-town life.

Tears crowded into her eyes, and Bailey turned left and went outside the doggy daycare drop-off door, and hurried to her car. She could text Leslie to get the lunch order in and wait to face Reeves until her emotions had settled.

She got behind the wheel and started the car, so the air conditioning would blow. Then she sighed and looked up toward the ceiling. “Why did I have to go and fall in love with the one man who looks like he has the normal, average, small-town life, but actually doesn’t?”

And the bigger, scarier question Bailey couldn’t say out loud: Could she be with Reeves if it meant giving up her dreams of that idyllic mountain life?

CHAPTER

FORTY-TWO

Reeves laughed with Graham, really feeling like he belonged as part of the Whittaker family. The man clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m sure glad you came tonight, Reeves.” He shot a glance over to his wife, who stood with Bailey as they shucked an early crop of corn.

“Yeah, of course.” Reeves said. “Thanks for having me.” He’d been outside with Graham to check on the smoker, and they’d come back in to get the trays and tongs they needed to pull off the chicken, salmon, and pork roast that had been getting delicious for hours now.

Graham turned and headed back outside. Reeves picked up the cookie sheet he’d been given, as well as a pair of tongs, and followed him.

The lodge sat in the evening shadows, which meant the temperature had started to drop. Their growing season would end soon as well, as the first frost would probably kiss the ground here in Coral Canyon in the next couple of weeks. A quiet excitement built inside Reeves, because while his summer camping videos did all right, it was really the winter camping that brought in the big views, and thus the bigger income.

“When are you going to post the video of you camping with OJ?” Graham asked.

“This weekend,” Reeves said. “And I’ve got a couple more done, because I like to work ahead.”

Graham lifted the lid on the smoker, and the most delicious scent wafted out.

“I’ve got to do something for this week, but I’m not sure what.”

Graham glanced over to him as Reeves joined him in front of the meat. “Do you ever do tours of places?” Graham asked. “I mean, I’ve watched a few of your videos, and you’ve done like…recommended hikes or road trips or things like that. Sometimes, I’ll see you highlight a pie shop or a diner in a tiny town somewhere.”

“Yeah, sure.” Reeves picked up an oven mitt and slid it on his hand, then held the tray as he started to pull off chicken breasts and thighs.

“Laney is probably going to kill me for asking you this,” he said. “And you just tell me no if you don’t want to.”

Reeves’s default when he got uncomfortable was silence, so he simply nodded and kept his attention on the protein in front of him.

“We do horseback riding and things like that here at Whiskey Mountain Lodge,” he said. “They do at the Lions Lodge too, and out at Silver Sage, and I don’t know…maybe you could do excursions at all three, and do a recommendation video. Otis goes to the Lions Lodge all the time. Wolf Creek too, but I think they’re more of a resort out of Jackson, with swimming pools and a few kid hikes and things like that.”

“Yeah, they’ve got a lot of nice restaurants there,” Reeves said, as he was familiar with Wolf Creek. It was high-end vacation living for those with money, and he wasn’t surprised at all that Otis took his family there.

“Boston’s at Silver Sage and leads a lot of their excursions,” Graham said.

Reeves put a smile on his face as the idea for the video came together. “I don’t think it’s a bad idea,” he said. “I’ll add it to my list of things I might be able to do.”