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The moment Dale was out of my sight, I was jogging back to the apartment in the hopes that Rhett had already come home.

He wasn’t there. The boots still weren’t by the door, and the apartment was filled with that same hollow quiet it had all night, like the whole place was holding its breath, same as me.

I stood in the middle of the kitchen for a second, hands on my hips, trying to think where else to look. Rhett didn’t have family left to run to, didn’t have a truck of his own, and I doubted he’d gone back to that cellar after everything that happened down there. So I grabbed my keys and went back out, figuring I’d just have to walk every inch of this town till I found him.

I tried the feed store first, even though Dale hadn’t mentioned seeing him. Then I tried the little park with the rusted swing set, half expecting to find him sitting there, same as I had the night his parents died. I tried the gas station on the edge of town, and tried the old ball field where we used to sneak off to drink beer as teenagers. I tried every single place that had ever meant anything to either one of us growing up. Nothing. No sign of him anywhere, not a single soul who’d seen him pass by all morning.

By the time the sun had climbed past its peak and was moving toward the horizon once more, sweat had soaked clean through my shirt. I headed back toward Dolly’s, figuring if nothing else I could get some water and maybe ask around a little more carefully this time, without giving too much away.

The diner was busier than usual for supper. Every booth was filled. Dolly and her one waitress were both running themselves ragged trying to keep up with orders. I slid onto a stool at the counter. At first I was just waiting patiently, hoping Dolly would see me and come over. Maybe she’d seen Rhett. I sat there, playing with a stray napkin as I watched, snatches of conversation drifting over from the booth behind me.

“—found it just sittin’ right there on my porch this mornin’, like it never left,” a woman’s voice was saying, pure astonishment woven through every word. “My granddaddy’s pocket watch. I about cried right there in my housecoat.”

“That’s the same story Thomas told me,” another voice chimed in. “Said his tools turned up in the bed of his truck, neat as you please, like he’d just plain forgotten they were there for three months. But he swears he’s never put tools back there in his life.”

“You don’t suppose the thief’s got a conscience all of a sudden?”

“I don’t care what’s got into ‘em, long as my mama’s silver comes back. She’s been fit to be tied about that for weeks.”

I sat there frozen, the napkin folded in my hands, listening close as I could without looking like I was listening at all. More voices joined in from other tables, all of them trading stories, all of them saying some version of the same thing. Things were turning back up. Quietly, with no explanation given. They were just appearing back where they belonged like the whole town had dreamed up the thefts in the first place.

My heart was hammering so hard I thought surely everybody could hear it. Rhett. This had to be his doing. He’d listened to me. He’d chosen me. And he’d been working through the night to put it all back, leaving the entire town none the wiser. That’s why Rhett never came home.

I didn’t stick around long enough to even ask for water. I left the folded napkin on the counter and was out the door before Dolly even noticed I’d been there, my mind already racing through every place I hadn’t thought to check yet.

And that’s when it hit me, like a gunshot splitting the air. I’d looked everywhere in town. But there was one place I hadn’t tried. One place that had always been just ours, long before either one of us understood what we were to each other. Down by the creek at our special camping spot, the very one we’d been at just this past weekend.

If Rhett needed somewhere to disappear to, somewhere nobody else in this whole world would think to look, I knew that was exactly where he’d be.

The creek was at least a couple of miles outside of Sagebrush, close enough that Rhett could’ve walked there if he really wanted to. But I didn’t have that kind of time to waste. The sun was already dipping low in the sky and I didn’t want to be searching for him in the dark. So I hopped into my truck and peeled out of the diner parking lot, determined to find my best friend as quickly as possible.

The dirt road out to the creek had never felt so long in my whole life. Every rut and washboard bump in the gravel jarred up through the truck and into my teeth. I gripped the wheel tight enough that my knuckles had gone white, willing the old engine to go faster than it knew how to go. The sun kept sliding lower, throwing long shadows across the pastures on either side. I found myself praying in a way I hadn’t done since I was a boy, just mumbling under my breath for Rhett to still be there when I pulled up, for him to not have gone and done something foolish in all that shame he’d been carrying.

By the time I turned off onto the little path that cut down through the Gilderoy land toward the cottonwoods, my heart was so far up in my throat I could hardly swallow around it. I parked the truck crooked, not caring in the slightest, and took off down the bank on foot, my boots sliding some in the loose dirt.

And there he was.

Rhett sat right at the edge of the water, same spot where we’d tangled ourselves together not three nights before, knees drawn up to his chest, staring out at the creek like it might have some answer written in the current if he looked hard enough. His shoulders were hunched in, his hair a mess like he’d been dragging his hands through it for hours, and there was a duffel bag sitting in the grass beside him, half packed, just like it always had been beneath his bunk.

He heard me coming before I said a word, his head jerking around until our eyes met. For a second neither one of us moved. We just stood there staring at each other across that little stretch of grass like we were both scared the other one might disappear if we so much as blinked.

“West,” he said, voice cracked and rough, like he’d been crying out here alone for longer than I wanted to think about.

“I heard what you did,” I said, my own voice not too steady either. “Folks in town down at the diner. Everybody’s talkin’ about things just showin’ up again, like magic.”

He looked down at his hands, picking at a blade of grass he’d twisted up tight around one finger. “Took me all night and most of today,” he said. “I… I had to be careful about it. I couldn’t just walk up and drop things on people’s porches in broad daylight.” He let out a shaky breath. “I gave it back. All of it.” He finally looked up at me, his blue eyes red-rimmed and exhausted. “Even the cash. Put it back in people’s mailboxes, slid some under doors. Didn’t keep a single dime of it, West. I swear to you. Mike can vouch for that. He helped me pull it off.”

I walked closer, my legs feeling unsteady under me, and sank down into the grass beside him, close enough that our shoulders almost touched but not quite. The creek rushed along, same as always, indifferent to the both of us and everything that ever happened in this podunk little town.

“Why didn’t you come home then?” I asked. “I been lookin’ for you all day. I walked nearly every inch of this town.”

“Didn’t think you’d want me there,” he said quietly. “After everythin’ I showed you. After everythin’ I am.” His throat worked as he tried to swallow. “Figured the least I could do was fix what I broke before I came crawlin’ back to you, if you’d even have me back at all.”

I reached over and took his hand, the one still twisted up with that blade of grass, and pried his fingers open gently until I could lace mine through his.

“I told you,” I said, “you had a choice to make. Looks to me like you made it.” I stared at him, feeling my heart race in my chest. “And I’m proud of you, Buttercup. Real proud.”

Rhett’s breath caught, a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh, like he didn’t trust either one to come out right. “You ain’t mad?”