Page 72 of Stay for Me

This was the last thing I needed today. “What the fuck happened?” I growled.

“Just answer my question and we can go from there.”

“Ask me tomorrow,” I bit off, pulling Midnight’s reins. “Got work to do today.”

“There’s work to do every day,” he countered.

I looked over my shoulder at him. “Ask me tomorrow. If I answer today, then your brother would be down two ranch hands.” I left him with that, snapping the reins and taking off.

Thesmallscreenofmy flip phone lit up, the device vibrating on my work table. The sound filled the space, breaking the deathly silence I’d been sitting in.

I’d been in my workshop for the last six hours, since the sun set. While the moon rose, I waited for this call—my lifeline. Slowly, I set the bottle of whiskey down next to my boots, the glass clanking against the concrete floor. As I rose from the rocking chair I’d just stained three days ago, my body ached, needing rest, but sleep was the last thing my mind needed.

If I went to sleep, I would be sucked into a new version of hell, the one where I break my firefly’s heart over and over, her tears a constant stream as she crumbled before me.

I swiped up the shitty phone, flipped it open, and put it to my ear, saying nothing as I stared the only project I’d never finished: the desk sitting in the corner.

“Mags?” Grayson called, concern laced in his voice.

“Sorry to bother,” I grunted, leaning back against my worktable.

“You never do,” my friend said. “What’s going on?”

There was so much I wanted to say, to confess to him. I’d told no one about Diana, which was typical of me, but not telling Grayson was something else entirely. Thankfully, my silence was all he needed.

“Distraction or mission?” he asked.

I couldn’t handle the mission right now. In fact, I had half a mind to tell him to drop it. Years ago, when Grayson started up his company, Red Snake Investigations, I’d asked him to find someone for me. Grayson and his team were the best private investigators and bounty hunters in the country. They had a reputation even in the most powerful of circles, and if I wasn’t so fucked in the head, I knew I’d be a part of his team.

But those weren’t the cards I was dealt.

And Grayson, despite being the best, still couldn’t find my half-brother. After pushing Diana away, I wasn’t in the mood for more disappointment.

My answer was rough. “Distraction.”

“Carrie wants to come see you.”

My jaw tightened as the knife in my gut twisted, my head dropping. I closed my eyes, seeing Grayson’s fiancée curled up in the snow, half frozen to death and leaning against Valerie’s mother’s grave. It was last winter when I found her, and Grayson, according to his team, fell to his knees when I radioed to tell them the news. Carrie was a light in my friend’s life, giving him something no one else could.

Love.

“She’s welcome anytime,” I replied. “You both are.”

Grayson was silent for a moment. “We were planning on dropping by in the fall…” He trailed off, leaving the option for them to come sooner hanging in the air.

“I’m alright,” I lied.

“I can send her down tomorrow morning, you know? She’s finished up the gallery wall for the bookstore yesterday, and her boss is finally back to work after her maternity leave,” he offered, clearly reading me. He didn’t want me alone. “I could come down on Saturday, but I gotta finish unpacking the Portland office.”

“Got plenty of company down here.”

He clocked me then. “But at night, you sit in the damn cabin with your demons and drown, Mags.”

“Been doing it for years now.”

“No, you were healing, Mags,” he argued, his voice gentle. “You were fuckin’ healing, settling into the life you’d built for yourself, and now—”

“—nothing has changed,” I growled, cutting him off.

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