Page 74 of Between a Rock and a Hard Cowboy

“And no one will be able to find him,” Linc agreed. Hopefully for a long, long time.

“I say we go look and see,” Ethan suggested.

“You mean check the apartment?” Linc asked.

“Yup.” Ethan had his cell in his hand and glanced up. “And see why Emmett was texting all of us to borrow a truck. I got a text from him too and didn’t notice. Seems like a man desperate to get out of town to me.”

“If we go down to town now and he’s still there, and desperate to get out, he’s going to want our help. A ride. A vehicle. Money for sure.” Linc glanced at the others in the room. “I’m not certain if I’m up for being an accessory in the eyes of the FBI.”

For one of his brothers, hell yeah. He’d do it and risk everything. For Eva—he’d do it for her, as well. But Emmett had made his own bed.

“We have to check. Family is family,” Wyatt, who apparently, did not feel the same, said.

“Jeezus. Okay, fine. So we check out his apartment.Ifhe’s still there, we’ll break the law, risk getting thrown in federal prison by the FBI and put him on a bus out of here. You better grab some cash from the safe so there’s no paper trail from us buying that bus ticket,” Ethan shot at Wyatt. “Bring enough to make sure he can get far far away and be good and gone for a very long time.”

Wyatt, mister upstanding and moral, actually nodded. Then, in the first logical thing he’d done since this Emmett debacle began, he turned to their father. “Dad?”

Never one to rush a major decision, he took a beat before saying, “We do this, put our family on the line by helping him, that business about John T’s will is as dead and buried as old John T. himself. No vote. No payout. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Linc and Ethan chimed in at the same time, then all eyes were on Wyatt.

Finally, he nodded. “Agreed.”

It looked as if Emmett was going to get something from them after all. Not half the estate, but a bus ticket and a wad of cash to get out of town.

Ifhe was still in town.

Was he? That was the big question.

ChapterThirty-Nine

The house was suspiciously quiet.

That’s what struck Eva first as she walked downstairs. That, and the familiar feeling that she should be wearing a ball gown and carrying a Victorian hand fan whenever she descended the sweeping grand staircase down to the marble-floored, wood-paneled front hall of the Wilder manse.

Darcy had been tucked into bed. Poppy, choosing practicality over stubbornness, had agreed to sleep in Ethan’s room tonight instead of driving to the hotel in the dark after indulging in some bourbon-laced nog. Olivia had been sufficiently entertained and tired out for the evening and looked ready for sleep.

It seemed like a good time for Eva to head back to the lodge—where Linc could tire her out in private. But when she walked through the rooms on the first floor of the house she didn’t hear or see anyone. That was until she hit the office.

There she found William, standing in front of the fireplace, watching a piece of paper burn in the hearth.

She walked closer and got a better look and damned if it didn’t appear to be the will—as inthewill. The one that had caused such strife since she’d discovered it. What was left of it anyway as it blackened and crinkled, consumed by the flames.

Still facing the fire, William glanced sideways at her. “Eva.”

“William,” she returned his simple greeting as she tried to figure out how to handle what she was apparently witnessing.

Before she came up with any other response he delivered a knowing glance in her direction. “So the FBI, huh?”

“Crazy, right?” she replied, playing innocent while she continued to watch the very last of the paper disappear.

“Mm-hm. Sure is,” he agreed.

He opened the screen and broke up the remains of the blackened pages with the fireplace poker until they disappeared amid the ashes, no longer identifiable as the one-hundred-year-old will that might have changed everyone’s lives.

She stood and watched him in silence. They didn’t need to say more. They both knew what the other had done and accepted it.

William replaced the poker, closed the screen and turned to face her. “You heading home?” he asked, as if this were some casual conversation at the end of a normal evening.

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