Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 138588 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138588 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
“Which they won’t, and then they’ll march back in and start torturing him again.” Henry moved to stand beside Elisa. “I know it sounds bad, but all we can care about now is that he’s alive when we find him. If he’s the man I think he is, he’ll suffer through anything as long as it means getting back home. I should know. I’ve been in this position. I was the one with information someone wanted, and they didn’t care how they got it. Watch Sabrina. They’ll want her. She’s the one who can get him talking.”
“I’m shutting down until we’re safe again.” Every word Henry uttered made Sawyer think he was doing the right thing. He turned to Elisa. “But I’m going to ask you to keep me in the loop. Don’t hide things from us. I want to help. I know these guys.”
Elisa nodded, glancing back where Van and Hale were standing close to Poppy, both men watching the area around them.
She’d obviously trained them well. Elisa ensuring her men knew what to do was one of the reasons they would be safe in the valley. Everyone in the valley looked after each other. He loved his mountain home away from everyone, but it was good to know when he was vulnerable, he could shift down to the valley for a while and still be in a place he called home.
He wasn’t alone. He could depend on these people. If he called Lucy or River or Ty they would come running to help him.
He totally fucking blamed Sabrina because this feeling welling inside of him had to be emotion, and he didn’t have those. Or he didn’t use to. Had it been meeting Sabrina that kicked him into rolling down this hill? Or had Wyatt been the one to start the slow roll to Emotion Town? He huffed because he knew where it had started.
When he hadn’t been able to leave Bella behind. When he’d decided another creature’s needs were slightly more important than his need to stay where he was, to hide in the numbness that had come with losing his grandfather and then his brothers leaving and not coming home. For years after, he’d taken refuge in his reputation, shoving anyone away because all people did was disappoint a man.
And then Bella had stared at him with those big innocent eyes, her tail half wagging like she wanted to think she’d found a good place with him but she couldn’t quite believe it. It might have been the drooping tail wag that sealed his fate because something had opened in him when he’d taken her home.
A door. A door leading him to the future. A tiny crack Wyatt had pushed a little further, and Sabrina had blown the hinges off of.
Sometimes all it took to find your way out of darkness was a single crack of light.
Holy hell, he was never going to admit it to anyone but somehow his inner voice had gone all soft on him.
“We’re going to find him, and I promise it’s not going to take weeks,” Elisa said with a certainty Sawyer didn’t feel. “We’ve got all kinds of protocols in place for such an occasion. Nate’s been worried about Wyatt since the first day he came into town.”
The sheriff, it turned out, wasn’t such an asshole. “He really does worry, doesn’t he? This isn’t some way to investigate him further or anything.”
Henry’s head shook. “It’s not. We care about Wyatt because he’s part of the community, and a pretty decent one from everything I’ve learned about him. And you, Sawyer. I know you’ve got it into your head you’re the outcast of town, but it wasn’t ever true.”
Sawyer could see a lot more about himself now. It was probably the emotional maturity Sabrina had forced upon him. “I was ashamed. I was ashamed of that fucking tat and ashamed that after everything I went through, my brother still turned away from me. It was easier to distance than to face all those people who might see me as a criminal and not a dude trying to save his brother. So I made the decision for everyone. It was easier, I suppose.”
Henry reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “Of course it was, but it wasn’t true. We did not blame you. Your friends let everyone know exactly what was going on. They never abandoned you.”
Even after he’d left them. After he’d rejected their offers of companionship.
“I have good friends.” He was not getting choked up. Not in any way. It was the weather.
“You do, and more of them than you can imagine,” Henry said.
“I’m going to go see if Sabrina needs any help.” Elisa stepped away, giving Sawyer a nod before she turned.
“I think moving spaces is a smart play.” Henry glanced back, ensuring Poppy was still occupied. She was babbling at Bella while Hale and Van had taken up two different places on the porch, opposite ends where they could watch the road on either side. Van looked out to where most traffic came from—the highway. But if one was coming up from the valley there was a road that wound around the mountain and took the car to the other side. Hale watched that road. It was the one they and Henry had come in on.