She rolled onto her hands and knees, uncaring of the mud because it was already everywhere, and struggled to get to her feet. The pain might have temporarily hidden the anxiety, but it was still there, rolling dangerously under the surface. She made it to her car and got in, trying not to think about the grime dripping off her clothes.
She peeled out of the long driveway, hoping to get to her newly rented cabin before she came undone. The roads were wet and slick. The winding drive through the hills was more treacherous than anticipated. She drove slowly despite the need to put distance between herself and the horrible memories. She was too stubborn to die in a fiery car crash. She surely wouldn’t give her kin the satisfaction. They’d all be killing each other for the fortune she’d earned doing the very thing they’d mocked through the length of a truly terrible childhood.
Little did they know—uncles, brother, even her mother—they all had the right to jack shit if she bit the bullet. It would almost be worth dying to see the looks on their faces when they found out. She might’ve considered it if she knew God would give her the satisfaction of a peek.
And with that morbid thought, Tabitha realized she wasn’t going to make it back to the cabin. She pulled off to the side of the road and opened the car door. She fell onto the embankment on her knees. Hidden in the wildflowers that grew everywhere this time of year in Garnet, she puked her guts up.
She retched so hard and for so long, she felt like she was ripping all the pain of her soul out through her stomach, and even then it wasn’t enough. The rain fell harder, soaking her hair as the thunder rolled. Lightning cracked in the distance, illuminating the gray sky. It’d be just her luck to get struck. She certainly didn’t see how things could get much worse than they were at that moment.
As soon as she formed the thought, it was shattered with the short, impatient sound of a police siren. The flash of red and blue colored the pretty lavender and white flowers around her. The groan of a big police vehicle pulling up behind her car made it obvious she wasn’t going to be left to wallow in her misery. Welcome back to Garnet, where nothing was private and everything was up for public entertainment.
This was truly unbelievable, and Tabitha found herself saying a prayer, out loud, just to make sure any celestial being in the near vicinity heard her, because the situation was
that
desperate.
“Please don’t let it be him,” she whispered frantically, her voice hoarse from all the throwing up. “Please, please, please. Anyone but him. If there is a God, you
will not
do this to me.”
She sat there on her knees, shaking in exhaustion and pain as the sound of a car door being opened and shut actually made her jump. She kept her back to the intruder on her private meltdown, because she just couldn’t bear to look. Life could not be this cruel. It just couldn’t, even to someone born with the last name McMillen.
Her stomach rolled once more, and she fought to hold back the urge to be sick again. The sound of boots squishing in mud and grass had her silently wishing for the earth to open up and just swallow her whole.
“Tab?”
Tabitha stiffened when she heard the low, stunned voice of Wyatt Conner, the man who was impossible to get over.
It was official—there was no God.
She squeezed her eyes shut and hung her head. She was sitting there, covered in mud, throwing up in the grass after driving nonstop from Key West to Garnet. If there was a worse way to see him again after thirteen years, she couldn’t think of what it could be.
“Are you okay?”
Tabitha answered his question by leaning over and retching again. Her stomach was empty. She hadn’t eaten all that much in the past twenty-four hours due to nerves. Now she was actually shaking, though if it was the exhaustion, the low blood sugar, or the trauma of coming back home again, she didn’t know. Wyatt fell down on his knees behind her as her stomach continued to rebel, and she didn’t have the strength to argue.
“I’m gonna call Tommy. He and Frank Duffy take turns running the ambulance up to Mercy General.” Wyatt stroked her hair, his other hand resting over the small of her back as if she’d never left.
“God, no,” she choked out, because that was the very last thing she needed, to get hauled to Mercy General in an ambulance driven by the former quarterback from her graduating class. “I’m fine. Just nerves.”
“I ain’t buying it. You’re hurt.”
“No.” She shook her head frantically and wiped her mouth as she struggled to pull herself together. “I’m fine, Wy.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“Just the dumb bottom step back at my old place. I slipped. It’s nothing. I’m okay. I just need a moment. You don’t have to—”
“I do have to,” Wyatt said firmly. “Is your stomach better?”
She nodded silently, still refusing to look at him. This just felt too hard. It made the loss of innocence a little too much to bear if she actually had to look eye to eye at what she’d lost.
“Stay here. I got some water back in the car.”
Wyatt didn’t really give her a choice in the matter, just jumped to his feet and turned to go back to his squad car. She wiped at her mouth once more and pushed at her hair, tucking the wet strands behind her ears. As ridiculous as it was, she was trying to pull herself together.
She looked down to her navy-blue tank top and khaki shorts, now both covered in mud. Then she brought her leg up, finally acknowledging the cut from the rake when she fell. It ran nearly the full length of her calf, which was just perfect. She couldn’t imagine what her shoulder looked like.
Wyatt made it back in record time and silently offered her the bottle of water. She took it without looking up and rinsed her mouth out. She spit the water into the grass a few times, knowing her dignity was already in tatters. Then she took several long gulps of water. She was still working on washing the taste of fear out of her mouth when Wyatt dropped a blanket over her shoulders—one of those trusty police-issue brown blankets that were thick and scratchy but served their purpose.
Then, without further ado, certainly without asking or even warning her, Wyatt bent down and picked her up. She gasped from the shock of it. The water bottle slipped out of her hand and dropped to the ground as she flung her arms around his neck out of instinct. She blinked past the rain and finally stared up at him simply because she had nowhere else to look.
Tabitha had the same crushing breathlessness she’d experienced in the yard after falling on her ass, because she’d forgotten how good-looking Wyatt was in person. She’d seen him plenty over the years on television. His best friend, Clay Powers, was a UFC heavyweight champion. Since Wyatt was his right-hand man and training partner, he’d always been featured heavily in those pay-per-view fights. Tabitha had watched every single one. She enjoyed watching Clay fight. They’d been friends a long time, and she was beyond thrilled to see him become so successful. No one deserved it more. But the reason she saved those fights for years afterward was to play back the parts with Wyatt in them—like a lovesick fool. No mixed-martial-arts fan had mourned Clay Powers’s retirement quite as much as Tabitha. It’d cut off her lifeline to a time and a dream that was long dead but impossible to let go of.
Now here Wyatt was, all six feet five inches of him. He was much bigger at thirty-four than he was at twenty-one, stronger, more powerful and intimidating. His blond hair was longer, curling at his nape. Despite the rain, it still held the unnatural impression from his hat, which he must’ve recently abandoned. Without thought, she reached up and ran her fingers through golden strands, a habit thirteen years dormant rising to the surface as if she’d never left. His hair was as silky as she remembered, flowing through her fingers easily as she flattened it out.
Wyatt stopped his trek and stared down at her for one stunned second. She looked into his eyes that were the lightest shade of blue, like sun hitting the ocean on a clear day. They were haunted, filled with pain that was stark and cutting when she realized she was the one who’d caused it. She wanted to touch the fine lines at the corners of those beautiful eyes, and the worry creases on his forehead just to smooth them out and give his innocence back. He was still stunningly handsome, far more so than she remembered, because Wyatt was one of those men who just got better-looking with time, but she could still tell life was taking its toll.
“You shouldn’t have stopped.” She sighed. “It wasn’t necessary. I was just having a moment, and I know I don’t deserve—”
“I’m your husband,” Wyatt interrupted, his low voice filled with pain. “Taking care of you was supposed to be my job.”
Chapter Two
There was a quiet moment between them because Wyatt said out loud what neither of them had forgotten. Despite the long separation, they were still married, and not a single paper had been filed by either of them to change that fact.
Quite the opposite—Tabitha had gone out of her way to make sure everything had Wyatt’s name firmly in place. If something happened to her, Wyatt would get every dime, and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone in her family could do about it.
There had been papers and letters from Wyatt’s side of things over the years too, all business related. It’d been obvious early on that Wyatt knew exactly where she was and what she was doing. When his father had died, she’d gotten letters from Wyatt’s attorney listing her as his sole beneficiary. He never made a secret of tracking her from Garnet, to New York, then Portland and finally to Key West. In every new city, she could count on getting mail from Wyatt’s mutual funds and a sea of other investments that listed her as his wife.
It’d been odd, a way for them to reach across the country and touch each other. For her part, leaving everything to Wyatt was a no-brainer. His reasons were more of a mystery, considering he had a sister he actually liked and a best friend who was more a brother to him than anything. Why would he leave everything to the woman who left him?
Tabitha found herself lost in thought as Wyatt resumed his trek back to his car, which was actually a big white SUV with the words
Sheriff, Garnet County
written across the side of it. It was a very nice vehicle, certainly much better than the old jeep Big Fred, Wyatt’s father, used to patrol in.
“I guess Garnet is moving up in the world,” she observed. “Nice car.”
“We’re doing all right.” Wyatt bent his knees as if Tabitha weighed nothing. “Open the door.”
Tabitha reached out and opened the passenger side door. She made an effort to look like she was crawling out of Wyatt’s arms and into the car herself in an attempt to preserve some dignity. She pulled the blanket tighter around her, finding it a nice shield from reality as Wyatt closed the door and turned to walk back to her car.
She saw him stop and pick up the water bottle she’d dropped, which was predictable enough to make her smile. Then he leaned into her car, retrieved her purse and keys. He looked to the backseat, obviously searching for luggage.
Tabitha’s heart was beating the hell out of her chest. If she hadn’t already done the puking thing, her stomach would be churning. She couldn’t believe she was sitting in Wyatt’s car. Her life was too surreal to deal with, and she looked around the vehicle that had the scary police glass separating the backseat from the front. It was tricked out with all the latest police tools, which was also different and sort of impressive when she considered the backwoods town she’d left behind.
Garnet really
was
moving up in the world. They had a new, fancy sheriff’s department and a new, handsome sheriff to match.
She glanced to the floorboard, and her heart dropped for a different reason. A hardback book peeked out from underneath the seat, and she reached down and picked it up, staring at the familiar cover.
The Vigilante, A Heroes of Sapphire County Novel by T.C. Rennoc
She opened the book that was heavily earmarked and well read to the point that the binding was weak. She flipped to the dedication page, and the first real tears of the day rolled down her cheeks because she was simply too overwhelmed to fight them. The dedication was deliberately cryptic. All of them were, and more than a few fans and reporters had attempted to decipher them.
Between pain and regret, the sweetness still lingers, and in that ray of light I cry out to you—Why.
The car door opened, and Tabitha looked up guiltily. Wyatt paused for a moment, staring at the book on her lap before he climbed into the car and handed over her purse. “I didn’t find any luggage.”
“I dropped it off already. Terry’s renting me that cabin of his on Winding Ridge.”
Wyatt stared at her, his gaze intense. “I heard.”
“Oh.”
Tabitha felt her cheeks heat as she absorbed that information, having the brief thought to kick Terry very hard in an uncomfortable place for meddling. Was it built into the genetic makeup of every Garnet resident to stick their nose in everyone else’s business?
“That one’s my favorite.”
Tabitha looked up at him curiously. “What?”
“That book.” Wyatt pointed to the book still in her lap, open to the dedication page that was as well-worn as every other page in the book. “It’s my favorite of the series.”
Tabitha set her purse next to her and then closed the book self-consciously. Her hands were less than clean, and she was worried she’d gotten it dirty, which was bizarre for her. Coveting something she had boxes and boxes of back home.
“I think it’s my favorite too,” she agreed, giving him a wan smile as she leaned down and tucked his book back where she’d found it. “It has, uh…a special place in my heart. I hope I didn’t get it dirty.”
Wyatt shrugged. “If you did, you could probably replace it.”
“I could,” she said quickly. “I will if you want me to. Replace it, I mean. Get you a better copy. An autographed copy.”
Tabitha winced at that last part, knowing it probably sounded uppity and presumptuous.
“I sort of like my old copy.” Wyatt pulled the car door closed and sat there with his hands on the steering wheel, staring ahead as rain splashed against the windshield. The silence was deafening, the tension pulsing off him nearly choking the air out of the car before he finally asked, “Why’d you come back?”