Page 86 of Roaring Fork Wrangler

“Actually, what I am is the guy who went after Cord on your behalf, had it out with him, and all that’s left is for the two of you to kiss and make up.”

I shot him a look and got out of the SUV.

“Hey, hold up,” he hollered after me as I ran up the porch steps. “Will you wait?” he addedwhen I didn’t stop.

I ignored him and knocked. Sam must’ve been waiting in the foyer because the door opened a second later. I stepped inside and closed it behind me.

“Isn’t Gray with you?” she asked at the same time he knocked, then walked in.

“Nice, Juni,” he mumbled as he brushed past me.

“Ready to get started?” I asked, not wanting to talk about my brother or Cord or my uncle—pretty much every man was on the list. Even my dad, not that he had any reason to be.

“Sure. I moved the journals from upstairs into the library yesterday. I decided it would be easier to go through them if they were on a shelf in date order.”

Why did she have to say the library? If there was any one room in this house I didn’t want to set foot in, that was it. I just prayed Cord didn’t come looking for us, find us there, and think it was my idea.

On the other hand, I had to agree that making the journals easier to identify by date would be helpful, and looking through them to see what I could find relating to Cord’s mother was the reason I was here.

I groaned inwardly. Or thought I had until Sam asked if I was all right.

“I’m fine.”

“If you say so,” she said, pulling a journal from the shelf and handing it to me. “This is from the year Patricia graduated.”

“Have you read it?” I asked.

“I have, but I don’t remember any mention of her. It could be that I skimmed over it, thinking it was irrelevant.”

Irrelevant.I almost laughed at her word choice. If she’d said it in front of my uncle, he’d probably suggest she become a lawyer too.

Sam had closed the door, and when someone rapped, I almost knocked the water bottle I’d brought with me off the table.

My brother peeked his head in the door. “Decker asked if you could please join us.”

Sam stood and motioned for me to follow her. I kept my head mostly down as we walked into the main dining area, where everyone was already seated. There were three open chairs, but Gray’s stuff was already on the table near one of them. Another one was next to Beau, and the third was beside Cord. Given it would be weird and awkward if I sat next to Sam’s fiancé, I walked over to the chair Cord had stood to pull out for me.

26

CORD

“It’s nice to see you,” I leaned in and whispered, breathing in Juni’s scent. I hadn’t slept at all last night once I got into my head that she’d been the one to put fresh sheets on my bed and I’d snuggled into the pillow, pretending it was her.

It should’ve been. It probably would’ve been, had I handled things differently.

I’d missed her so much I ached. But, like all the time I spent in the hospital with her by my bedside, that was me thinking selfishly rather than what was best for her. It was probably a relief for her, each time she went home and slept in her own bed.

I scrubbed my face just from thinking about the ever-increasing list of things I wanted to apologize for.

I glanced in her direction, unable to keep myself from looking at her, and her eyes met mine. I wished I’d had a few minutes, at least, to talk to her alone when I arrived.

“Let’s get started.” Decker stood at the head of the table. “Before we do, I want to remind everyone that everything said here today, and in subsequent meetings, is one hundred percent off the record and is not to leave this room. Metaphorically speaking.”

He looked directly at each person seated at the table and waited for them to agree before moving on to the next. It was a conversation he and I had had earlier after we’d left the Goat, where we’d met Pete. When he got to me, I nodded anyway.

“First, I’ll run through what we know so far.”

Most of what he said was a repeat of what I already knew. The kid who’d tried to kill me, Joseph Wilkins Jr., was the only child of Joseph Sr. and his wife, Brianna. Both parents had a connection to my mother. Deck had stumbled upon a website for high school reunions where multiple years’ worth of yearbooks from the local high school had been uploaded.

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