by Erin Wright
“Oh girl, I’m so sorry,” he whispered, mumbling into her fur, stroking her endlessly as he spoke. She laid her head on his shoulder and sighed contentedly, finally where she wanted to be. “I really screwed this one up. Yeah, maybe Dick deserved to get a busted up nose for driving drunk and then being dumbass enough to go buy yet more alcohol, especially because of how his sister died, but that doesn’t give me license to teach him using my fists. You’d be proud of me if you could hear me with the counselor. She’s really starting to help. You, though, you don’t deserve any of this. I’m so sorry…”
He heard his brother’s footsteps echoing, making his way back down the hallway towards him, and he hurriedly straightened up and flashed a forced grin at Declan as he came to stand right outside the cell door. He looked at Declan and then past him, down the cell block, wondering where Abby was. “Ready to head home?” he asked hesitantly. How was Declan supposed to take Maggie with him if Abby wasn’t there to unlock the door?
“Yeah. I’ll be back tomorrow around noon. I’ll see if I can get Betty’s Diner to make us some turkey and potatoes and I’ll bring that with me when I come. A regular Christmas feast.”
Wyatt couldn’t stand it anymore. “Where’s Abby? She has to unlock the door if you’re going to take Maggie home.”
“You’re going to keep her,” Abby said, her voice ringing out with warmth and joy at being able to give him the news. She came around the corner and flashed him a blinding grin. “At least until after Christmas. Maggie needs to gain weight, and she won’t if separated from you. Plus, it’s Christmas. I can’t take your dog from you at Christmas.”
Wyatt’s throat closed up so much with unshed tears, he was quite afraid he was going to unman himself. He could not, absolutely could not, cry in front of Abby. It would be bad enough to let a few leak out in front of his brother, but not in front of Abby.
Unable to speak, he finally just gave a jerky nod of acknowledgment, looking at her with all the gratitude in his soul. She gazed back, a small smile on her lips, and he dropped his eyes, unable to hold hers any longer. Unwilling to acknowledge the heat sizzling through his veins at the sight of her.
Not
Appropriate
“Well, I’m gonna head home,” Declan said into the silence. “I’ll be seeing you tomorrow. And you too, Maggie,” he said with a smile at her, who thumped her tail upon hearing her name.
Abby escorted Declan out to the front, and Wyatt sat back down on the cold concrete floor, Maggie settling herself down onto his lap like some grotesquely oversized teacup poodle. Maggie always liked to pretend that she was a lap dog, something she was definitely too large to be. Comfortably anyway.
Didn’t stop her from pretending.
Wyatt couldn’t stop running his fingers through her fur, noticing all of the subtle changes, wondering why Abby had been so nice to agree to this. It certainly hadn’t been because of his winning personality. If his mother had been able to see how he’d treated Abby these last few weeks, she would’ve rolled over in her grave. She raised him to be better than this.
Wyatt gently pushed Maggie off his lap so he could move, and crawled up onto his bunk, scooting over to the side so Maggie could curl up next to him. As she settled back into sleep interspersed with snores, he stacked his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling.
He had a lot of thinking to do.
Chapter 10
Abby
Christmas Eve. Abby stared at the pile of paperwork she needed to fill out and let out a huge groan. The very last thing she wanted to do was fill out paperwork on Christmas Eve of all days.
“Abby, get in here!” she heard her father thunder.
Okay, make that the second-to-last thing she wanted to do on Christmas Eve. The very last thing she wanted to do was get her ass chewed by her father.
She worked her way over to his office and stood in the doorway. “Yes, Father?” she asked, her tone dripping with artificial sweetness. He glared at her. Obviously, her sense of humor was not going to be appreciated today, no matter what day of the year it was.
“Why on God’s green earth is there a dog in my jail? I can smell the mangy mutt from here!”
She stepped inside his office and closed the door behind her. She wasn’t about to get into a shouting match with him where any ol’ stranger walking by could hear them. Much better to get into a shouting match where they at least had a little privacy.
“Dad, you told me that you wanted me to take care of Wyatt Miller without any input from you. ‘You have my full authority to act as you see fit, as long as you leave me out of it,’ I believe were your exact words.”
“I never expected you to—”
“And his dog was dying. You may not have much use for the man, but surely you don’t think his dog oughta die. She was starving to death – refused to eat or drink, just spent her days watching for Wyatt to return. She wouldn’t have made it another two weeks for him to come home, not at the rate she was losing weight.”
She didn’t tell her dad, but she’d arranged for Vet Whitaker to stop by the jail late last night and check on her. Paid for the vet visit herself. He’d said that she didn’t have much left to her and another week or so and she would’ve died from starvation. He’d put her on some vitamins to help her regain her bone density and put some shine back into her coat. He’d told Abby that she’d saved Maggie’s life.
No, she wasn’t about to back down, no matter what Sheriff Connelly thought.
“Well, just make sure she doesn’t infest the place with fleas,” her dad harrumphed. “Then I’d have to add the cost of an exterminator to Wyatt Miller’s bill.”
Abby tried not to roll her eyes, physically anyway. That was her dad’s way of conceding defeat without admitting he was wrong. At least he was going to stop shouting, which she considered to be a win in her book.
“When will Rios be here?” her dad asked, in an obvious bid to change the subject. “You going to be able to come home tonight to light the candle?” It was one of the few traditions that they still continued to practice every year – lighting a candle for her mom on Christmas Eve. She had to make it back to her dad’s place for that tonight. Officer Rios better be on time for tonight’s shift; she couldn’t stomach the thought otherwise.
“Hopefully. That storm hitting us doesn’t look like it’s going to end any time soon, and I don’t know how much it’ll dump on us today. I’ll do my best.”
“Good. See you at home, then.” He brusquely dismissed her from his office. She hid her grin as she headed for the door. Some days, she had to wonder if it’d cause her father physical pain to be affectionate towards her. She just wasn’t sure he was capable of it.
Except as the hours passed, the storm outside just got worse. After a dash across the street to the diner to pick up the evening meal, she’d hardly been able to see a foot in front of her face. By the time she got back to the jail, she was shivering uncontrollably from the cold. The flakes were whirling around in front of her face, making it hard to keep her eyes open without having the flakes sting them. It was dark, much darker than it should’ve been, even in a valley with mountains to the west, even with it being the dead of winter. She felt like she’d somehow moved to Antarctica without realizing it.
When she got back inside, she set the to-go containers down on the counter, noticing a flashing red light on the phone. She listened to the message with a growing pit of dread in her stomach. Rios wouldn’t be able to make it in after all. He lived down a long dirt road with several steep curves in it. Apparently, one had filled in with snow to the point of being impassable.
Oh God, Abby was stuck at the courthouse for the night. Not just any night – Christmas Eve. She felt tears pushing upwards and she willed them away. She would survive. It was just a date on the calendar. Her dad and her could light a candle on a different night and that didn’t mean that they loved her mom any less.
She snagged the take-out containers and headed to the
back, where she found Wyatt and Declan arguing over the rules of the Farming Game. Oh, the Farming Game. Abby wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that couples got divorced over that game. It was addicting and fun and everyone who played it ended up being bit by the Must Win at All Costs bug. A bug Abby was not immune to, either.
“When you land on that square, you can’t just hit every harvest between there and February!” Wyatt argued. “That isn’t farming like a pro, that’s hitting the jackpot!”
“Who’s hungry?” Abby jumped in, holding the containers aloft. She’d heard the Miller brothers sometimes got into fistfights. She really didn’t want to have to referee one in her own jail.
“Oh wow, is it that late?” Declan asked, shocked. “Dammit, I was going to go get us a Christmas dinner from across the street. Are they still open, Abby?”
“No, but I bought a dinner for you also, Declan. I figured it wasn’t nice to have the county buy food for Wyatt and I and then not serve you anything. And they served up some real nice grub today. Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, and even a small slice of pie for everyone. Said it was Christmas, so why not?”
Wyatt caught her eye, the first time they’d made eye contact since she’d gone back there, and said simply, “Thank you.” His eyes looked suspiciously moist, and she was sure he was pushing down emotions.
It wasn’t easy to be away from family at Christmas, and for the first time since grumpy, prideful, rough-and-tough Wyatt ended up in her jail, Abby actually felt pity for him. She’d felt pity for his dog; she’d felt pity for his brother. But Wyatt…he’d gotten his ass into this mess.
Yeah, maybe Richard would’ve gotten away with driving drunk because his father was the county judge. But maybe not. Either way, Wyatt needed to learn how to solve problems without using his fists. That wasn’t asking too much of a grown adult.
Except…
Maybe it was the season. Maybe it was seeing how sweet he was with his dog; that even now, she was lying next to him, her snout on his leg, watching the discussion with interest, or more likely hoping that some of that food in Abby’s hands would somehow fall into her waiting mouth.
But whatever it was, when she smiled back at Wyatt, it was with a little more warmth than she’d intended. His dark blue eyes were warm and friendly and…sexy.
Forcing herself to abruptly end that train of thought, she began divvying out the food along with utensils and bottles of water. While she was serving up the food, Wyatt and Declan cleaned up the Farming Game, ribbing each other good-naturedly about who would’ve won if only they’d been able to play a full game. When Wyatt started saying, “As the older brother, I know how to farm better than you, so of course I would’ve won the game,” Abby shoved his food into his hands, interrupting his little speech.
“Perhaps as a farmer, you’re also amazing at eating?” she asked sweetly.
He glared at her for a moment and then solemnly said, “I am amazing at eating. There is no one better at eating than I am!” Everyone cracked up laughing, including Wyatt, his stony face breaking into a beautiful smile.
Abby heard Declan say something about how this explained why Wyatt was getting a spare tire around his waist, and Wyatt volleying back, heckling his younger brother as only brothers could, but Abby wasn’t really listening to any of it. Her mind was caught on his smile. His gorgeous, high-wattage smile. Her breathing had stopped at the sight of it, but her heart had tripped into double-time.
She frantically thought back, trying to remember if she’d ever seen Wyatt smile in their entire lives – a genuine, happy, huge smile. With only three years between them in school, he’d always been this older, cute guy who was way too serious.
But now, seeing him smile…
It changed his face, his personality. He lit up like a Roman candle.
He was beautiful.
“Abby. Abby!”
“Sorry, what?” she asked, turning back to the guys with a blank smile.
“You okay? You disappeared there for a minute.”
“Oh yeah,” she said, forcing her blank smile to grow more genuine. As genuine as a forced smile could become, of course. “Just worried about everyone out on the roads tonight. It’s really bad out there. I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to drive home, Declan.”
“Is it that bad?” He put his fork down into his mashed potatoes, and then maneuvered his way out of Wyatt’s jail cell, a space only meant to house two men but instead was housing two men, a woman, and a dog with a damn loud snore.
She’d left the cell door ajar – locking herself in with her prisoner didn’t seem like a real great plan, and anyway, Wyatt wasn’t going to go anywhere, she’d stake her life on that – so Declan slipped out and down the hallway to stick his head out into the jail yard.
Abby looked awkwardly at Wyatt, not sure what to say without the buffer of his brother to pave the way between them, until Maggie let out a snort and began running frantically on the floor. Except her body was sprawled out, her head on Wyatt’s lap. She was in the grips of a very realistic dream, from the looks of it. Her face twitched as her body moved, her paws slicing through the air. Wyatt caught Abby’s eye and they began laughing together at the absurdity of Maggie’s movements.
“I think she’s catching a rabbit. Hopefully, she’ll be able to actually catch one in her dream, unlike when we’re out on the farm,” Wyatt said dryly.
“She can’t catch rabbits out in the field?”
“Oh no, she’s way too dumb for them. They outsmart her every day of the week. Sometimes, I think they sit back on their back haunches and stick their tongues out at her as she goes chasing after them. As soon as she gets close, down a rabbit hole they go, and poor Maggie. She has no concept of object permanence. Like an 18 month old, as soon as the rabbit is gone, she can’t remember it ever even being there. One time, she went—”
“You weren’t kidding, Abby.” Declan’s voice broke into their conversation and startled, she turned towards him. She’d forgotten he’d even left the cell. She’d forgotten he was even there. She’d been so engrossed in Wyatt’s story, she’d forgotten about everything.
“Yeah?” she asked, trying to mask her surprise and worry at how easily her mind let her just forget about everything but Wyatt Miller for a moment.
He stepped into a bar of light and she could see him then – covered in a thick layer of snow, obscuring his light brown hair completely.
“How long were you out there?” she gasped, staring at him.
“You look like the Abominable Snowman,” Wyatt put in.
Yup, these two were definitely brothers.
Declan ignored Wyatt, which was probably a good plan, and instead focused on answering Abby’s question.
“Only a couple of minutes. I went for a little walk around the courtyard, propping the door open with my wallet so I wouldn’t get locked out there. But damn, it’s really coming down. I know the other deputy couldn’t make it in, Abby – I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a huge mess when this storm finally blows through. I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s a wall of white. I could barely see my hand when I stuck it out in front of me.” He wiggled his hand in front of him to demonstrate.
He came into the jail cell, clomping across it in his cowboy boots, until he could slide down into place against the far wall. His every step left a puddle of water behind.
Before Wyatt could raise a fuss about what Declan was doing to the floor of his cell, Abby scrambled to her feet.
“In the case of emergencies, I have a checklist of items to double-check. I’ll be back in a minute. If we end up losing power, I will have wanted to make sure all of this was taken care of when I could see where I was going.”
She headed out, pulling the cell door closed behind her this time, and headed for the front office. It was time to stop making googly eyes at the cute-if-total-pain-in-the-ass farmer in her jail cell and start doing her job.
Chapter 11
Wyatt
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br /> “Do you remember that? I didn’t think Mom would let me live to the ripe old age of 12 after that stunt.” Wyatt grinned at Declan, happy for a moment at the memory. Those were truly the “good ol’ days.” It was before their mom had passed away. It was before their dad had decided to give the whole Miller legacy to the youngest sibling in the family, instead of to the oldest like he should have.
It was before a lot of the shit went down between him and Stetson.
“At least you could walk after Dad’s paddling. I never thought I’d walk again after he found out I’d brought all of my frogs into Mrs. Westingsmith’s room and let them go. I tried to tell him it wasn’t on purpose but he paddled me anyway.” Declan shrugged with a sorry-not-sorry grin on his face.
“I always meant to ask you – was it on purpose?” Wyatt asked, laughing.
“Oh hell yeah. There was a science test that afternoon and I’d spent the night before riding my horse and preparing for a 4-H event and so I was completely unprepared. I figured I could get paddled for having let a whole passel of frogs loose in my teacher’s room, or I could get paddled for getting an F on a test. At least the frogs would be more fu—”
“Hey you guys, we may be in for it tonight,” Abby said, walking up to the cell and cutting Declan off. “I just tried to start the backup generator to make sure it was ready to go in case the electricity went out, and it won’t even pretend to turn over. I don’t know what’s going on, but if we don’t ready for the electricity to go out right now, we could be in big trouble if it does.”
She turned to Wyatt with an apologetic shrug. “I have to leave you in here, but Declan, I’d sure appreciate your help in rounding up supplies.”
“Sure thing.” Declan pushed himself off the floor and hurried to the cell door. She let him out and then locked it shut behind him.
“We’ll be right back,” she said to Wyatt, and with an unconsciously sexy sway of her hips, she and Declan hurried down the jail block to gather supplies.