Page 109

This town is like one big soap opera. It’s fueled on the Seven Cs, the Rock Eagle casino, and gossip.
“I didn’t mean to pry,” Marty mumbles. “I just thought I could help.”
That has me sighing. “We used to be close,” I confide when we’re a few hundred yards away from the store. “Then Samantha happened.”
“Samantha, his ex?”
“Yes.”
“Ohhhh. You’re the reason they split up?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking. I warned him that he was making a mistake. He’s been pissed with me ever since because I was right.”
Marty whistles. “Funny. They said Theo and your brother had a falling out over a woman too.”
“Zee?”
“Nah, some city girl from Saskatoon.”
“Doubtful. Colt hasn’t been serious about anyone since…ever.”
“Fine line between love and hate.”
Unwilling to feed the gossip mill any more than I already have, I drawl, “Never heard that one before, Marty.”
His grin’s sheepish. “You want me to come into the store with you? She’s not always lucid. The reason she was there is... she still thinks you work at the store. Jill said it’s where she goes when she escapes the ranch.”
I grit my teeth as bittersweet sorrow fills me.
“Nobody told me she was...”
“You know how the Frobishers get.”
I do. Better than most. Obstinate should have been a part of their family motto.
Unable to brace myself because I know this is bound to hurt, I enter the store and find her sitting by the door.
I also see Tee.
Which makes this day so much fucking better. Not.
But there’s no pained distaste in her expression—no, if anything, there’s relief.
Crouched in front of Elena, who’s a hair’s breadth from a panic attack, Tee’s trying to soothe her but it isn’t working. Elena’s eyes are wild and she’s banging her fists onto her knees, yelling, “I want to see Cody! That bastard hit him last night. I need to tend to his bruises. He’s refusing to visit the doctor’s?—”
Tee gasps at Elena’s words, and the rest of the store pivots their attention off Elena and onto me.
One other thing I forgot about Pigeon Creek—sure, it’s forged on gossip, but there are ten people in this store and not a single one of them is here to feed the rumor mill. They’re here because they care. But that’s ten people who just heard Elena spill one of my secrets. Dammit to hell.
Mary, the wife of the owner, scuttles to my side. “She’s been getting...” A breath gusts from her. “We can’t calm her down, marshal.”
I can see that for myself.
“I think he broke his orbital bone,” Elena cries. “Why is nobody helping me find him? Did he run away? I wouldn’t blame him.”
“Elena, I’m here,” I call out, bypassing Mary’s concern as I stride over to the woman who patched me up too many times to count.
Colt thinks he took the brunt of the beatings and he’s not wrong. But I took my fair share—especially after Mum left, Colt went to college, and Cole stopped holding his tongue.