“To check the cameras,” he whispers darkly.
Oh, crap. Right.
“Is that the message you got earlier?”
“Yeah, Faulk gave me an update. He hasn’t cracked your laptop yet, but he’s convinced something’s bound to happen at the site tonight. If there’s one gut instinct I’ll always trust, it’s his. He wants us to touch base as soon as we see something.” He holds up his phone. “I have the app on my phone, but the big screens downstairs can show us in better detail.”
“Right behind you,” I say.
Once we’re downstairs, he fetches us each a beer out of the small fridge behind the wooden bar covered with a thick shellac that reflects the overhead light. He then pulls up an extra chair next to the three wide screens, each with a split screen setting so all six cameras show with good visibility.
It’s dark by the airstrip. No surprise, considering the time.
There’s no movement, an eerie calm, nothing but a bug or leaf blowing across the nightscape now and then.
“Why do you have three computer screens?” I ask, suddenly curious if he makes it a habit to bail out strange, desperate women.
“I don’t. Only one’s a monitor, the other two are old TVs. Grabbed one from my bedroom and the other from the library. I figured I’d set them up so we could see all six cameras at once.”
I take a sip off my beer bottle before asking a question that’s been banging around in my head.
“So, um, while we’re waiting...why don’t you let the girls have pets? You have the perfect place for it.” My breath catches in my throat. “Sorry. I’m not trying to stomp around in your business, but I’m curious...”
“Don’t need the extra work,” he says coldly, leaning back in his chair.
“Sawyer and Avery would help. I’m sure of it after seeing how excited they get with Hank’s animals.”
“Same,” he agrees. “But they’re ten years old, and hopefully any animal I’d get them would have a good, long life. That means they’ll grow up in a flash, run off to college, and I’ll be stuck here with their leftover critters.”
Hmm. That makes sense, I guess, but I don’t believe it’s the whole truth.
Not by the dark edge in his voice.
“Where’s the harm in that?” I venture. “Pets would make good company when they’re gone and you’re home alone here on this big old farm.”
“Don’t need any four-legged company, that’s what two-legged friends are for. After so many years running my ass off, frankly, I’ll be enjoying my time alone.” His voice slips into a growl, too rigid and annoyed to not be hiding something.
I smile, refusing to believe him for a minute.
I also remember how lonesome my dad was when I went off to college, whenever he wasn’t on his trips. He almost stopped coming home at all except for holiday breaks we’d spend together.
Not like Grady, who’s here every day with his daughters.
I don’t say anything—don’t need to—not with the melancholy, unsure way he’s looking at me, like he’s wondering what I’ll fire off next.
He’s too good at reading my thoughts, and even better at hiding his behind that stoic mask of scruff and eyes like strong whiskey.
“Fine,” he says at last. “You really want to know, huh? Here’s the deal: I don’t want to get them a pet just to have it die.”
Wow, what?
My lips tremble. “I’m not sure I follow. Why would it die?”
“Who the hell knows? Dallas isn’t just the sleepy, quaint little place I’m sure you’re thinking from our outing for dinner. It could get hit by a car, eat poison, have a run-in with a coyote...any number of brutal, fucked up things.” The unexpected sadness in his voice guts me.
“I mean, sure. You live in a rural place. Risks are always part of owning pets.”
“Exactly why I don’t want my girls exposed to that,” he snaps.
For a second, our gazes lock.
His eyes might be hieroglyphics, guarded and unbreakable.
Then I realize what he doesn’t want them exposed to.
It’s not just innocent worries about a pet roaming around with coyotes or speeding cars or any normal kinds of big bad things.
He’s shielding them from death.
My heartbeat quickens.
This is when I should step back and hold my tongue, focus on the cameras, and leave this kind, closed off beast-man behind his barbed wire to brood away in peace.
But if you think I’m that kinda girl, if you think I’ve got that much sense, if you think I’m not hurting like hell for him, wellll...
“Grady...you don’t have to answer this, but is the pet thing because of your wife?” I whisper slowly.
His eyes sharpen, fully leveled, naked and vulnerable and ever so slightly pissed off.
A storm in a glance that makes my heart wobble.
“Watching someone die is pure hell, Willow Wisp. Death can get fucked,” he snarls, his knuckles turning white around his beer bottle.