Page 4 of Forever Finds Us (Wisper Dreams #7)

Chapter Three

Roxanne

“So,” Tabitha said. “You’re a Wisper transplant too?”

“Huh?” I asked, watching as Abey got down on her hands and knees to distract Stuey away from the cake. She wasn’t the kind to care about getting her outfit dirty.

Stuart Lee had recently decided he’d rather be a dog than a human, so sometimes the only way for the adults around him to “talk” to him was to pretend to be a dog too.

If Abey were a dog, I figured she’d be a white shepherd, with her pale-blond hair and her noble stature.

Stuey was definitely a yapping Chihuahua. Or maybe a corgi.

“Abey tells me you moved here from Oklahoma.”

“Oh, right,” I said, focusing on Tabitha’s pretty face again, noticing her perfectly symmetrical features and the adorably nervous habit she seemed to have of sweeping her auburn hair over her shoulder with one perfectly polished finger.

Man, I really needed to stop comparing myself to her. I’d done it like six times already in my head, and I was starting to piss even myself off.

But, gah! She had gray eyes the color of sexy smoke, which I imagined had the ability to lure men from all corners of the US with only a wink.

Had she used her powers on her boss? That was what I really wanted to know.

Desperately. But like, how was that fair?

I’d only spent ten minutes with the man.

But he was just so sexy! God, just the sound of Brand’s voice in my truck the other night…

Brand Lee had an air about him I didn’t usually run into around here, like he was someone.

Like he knew what he wanted and how to get it, and if anybody had plans to get in his way, they better watch out, and the thought of this Tabitha drooling all over him in his office made the insecurity inside me rage.

You’re not good enough, rich enough, pretty enough, smart enough…

One-two-three.

It didn’t matter. I’d get over it. I’d feel jealous and wistful for a few days, but then my daydreams would fade away and I’d resign myself to being alone again, like I always did. Maybe Dan’s default-hookup pact had some merit.

For a while there, I’d gone on dates with every single man I could find in the tri-state area, but all that had gotten me was a lot of creepy first-date stories—one where I’d strongly considered using my Taser—no second-date stories, and many blocked cell phone numbers.

When that got old and severely disappointing, I just tried to settle down.

I spent time with my friends and focused on my job.

I’d taken up crocheting and had gotten surprisingly good at it.

Ughhh. Now all I needed was ten cats, and I’d be set for life. Even my four-year-old nieces were sick of the crocheted bunnies and unicorns I kept sending them.

“Yeah,” I answered Tabitha. “I’ve been here a couple years. Before I came to Wisper, I worked Yellowstone, but I’m from the Oklahoma City area. Born and raised, actually. Where are you comin’ from?”

“Joplin, Missouri. Do you know it?”

I shook my head. “Sounds familiar though.”

“It’s near the northeast corner of Oklahoma.

Anyway, I’ve been in Sheridan now for about two years and at Lee Construction for almost a year.

When Brand announced he was selling his contracts up north, he asked if I wanted to make the move down here to help him set up shop in his hometown.

I love the mountains and the small-town feel, don’t you? ”

“Yeah,” I said as my phone rang again. “Sure do. S’cuse me for a sec.”

Grabbing my purse from the table behind me, I yanked my phone out.

Oh yeah, I thought, I just love the small town, where there’s a sum total of one eligible guy, and this Tabitha, with her tiny hips and plump lips, is probably sleeping with him.

Seriously, without some kind of liquid rubber filler injected into them, how did any woman have lips so perfect?

Had she been born with those luscious sex pillows?

“Yeah?” I clipped at Dan at the end of the line when I answered his annoying and repeated calls.

“All hands on deck,” he said. “Lost hiker.”

Aw, shit. “You call the boss? She didn’t say anything.”

“She didn’t answer,” Dan said. “You still at the party?”

“Yeah, I’ll let her know.”

“10–4.”

I hung up and slipped my phone back in my purse, searching over the tops of the wedding goers’ heads for Abey.

“Everything okay?” Tabitha asked.

“Uh, no, actually. I’ve gotta go. Do you see Abey anywhere?”

Tabitha pivoted on her feet, still in her cute, champagne-colored ballet flats, and I noticed her rack when she faced away from me. Dammit. Her double Ds made me officially hate her.

“There she is,” she said, pointing across the party to where Abey stood talking to Tabitha’s boss and, I realized, the hottest guy I’d probably ever laid eyes on. Brand stared back at us as Abey held Stuey, laughing as she tickled his ribs.

“Nice to meet you,” I called over my shoulder as I rushed to Abey.

“Nice to meet you too. Maybe we’ll see each other around…”

When I was standing in front of her and had startled her, Abey arched an eyebrow.

“Dan called. He says they just got a report of a missin’ hiker. He tried to call you, but you didn’t answer.”

“Ah, dammit. Here.” She pushed her nephew into Brand’s hands, and Brand’s eyebrows rose, too, but he was still staring at me. “Stay here,” she said to me. “Let me go tell Bax and Bea I’m leavin’.”

“Sure.”

“Is the hiker injured?” Brand asked after Abey raced away, and Stuey tried to bite the side of his face.

“Dunno,” I replied. “My partner didn’t give any details, but a lost hiker is a priority around here. There’s just too much wild to hope they’ll find their way down the mountain on their own.”

“Right.” Brand pulled Stuey’s mouth away from his face, where the kid had left a slobbery red mark. “Anything I can do to help?”

Besides give me orgasms? “Nah. If it gets to that point, we’ll call for the public to help with search parties, but we don’t have enough information yet.”

Brand nodded, and suddenly ol’ Tabby Cat appeared next to him. Their arms were almost touching, and then Stu laid his head on his uncle’s shoulder. The three of them looked like the perfect family.

“Everything okay?” Tabitha asked.

How many times in a day could she ask the question? I’d just answered it not a minute ago. What, did she have some kind of quota to fill?

Roxi, your inner monologue is a bitch.

“There’s a lost hiker,” Brand told her as he looked down into her sultry eyes, which I now noticed had been perfectly lined with kohl liner. “Abey and Roxanne have to leave to help find them.”

Ughhh. Why do my nipples turn to steel buttons when he says my name like that?

Brand’s eyes slid from Tabitha’s to mine, and then they slipped down my dress and followed the long lengths of my legs to my bare feet. Shit. My shoes!

“Um, right, well guess I should go find my shoes. Nice to see y’all.”

Giving an awkward wave as I turned, I caught Lee Lake in my peripheral and hoped a tsunami would erupt from its depths and swallow me up. Or maybe a Kraken.

One-two-three.

“You look real nice,” Dan said, taking in a sweeping eyeful of my dress, when Abey and I barreled into the station.

On the drive over from the wedding, Abey and I had learned that the missing hiker was a sixteen-year-old girl, but that was all we knew so far.

Still dressed in black tuxedo-style pants, with a white, satin stripe down each leg, and a silky, white button-down tucked in, Abey tossed her bag on the front desk, and our receptionist scoffed at her, then grabbed the bag and hung it on the hook behind her.

Abey winced. “Sorry.”

Shelley was the kind of woman you didn’t want to find yourself on the bad side of. She was harmless, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if she was the reason “passive-aggressive” appeared in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary .

Deputy Frank Sims was all business though, as usual. He’d already pulled out the maps and had scribbled all pertinent information onto the rolling whiteboard he’d set up in front of the shaded Main Street-facing windows.

“Thanks,” I said to Dan, but I wasn’t paying attention to him. My brain was already following trails in the Grand Teton National Park, which was where the hiker had gotten lost.

The girl had been picnicking with her family between Jenny Lake and Lake Solitude.

The trails around Jenny Lake were moderate difficulty at most, but the same couldn’t be said of the trail leading up to Lake Solitude, especially if the hiker had been injured somehow or was freaking out.

In that case, moderate could escalate to difficult in a heartbeat.

And if she’d veered off the trails, well then… Yikes.

Autumn was a beautiful time to explore the Tetons, but the temperature dropped quickly in the evenings, and nights could go well below freezing, depending on the altitude.

The area could be blanketed in snow, even in September if conditions were right.

And that was to say nothing about the wildlife.

I’d grown up outdoors. Although, Oklahoma wasn’t exactly known for its mountains, and I’d lived in a pretty flat area east of Oklahoma City in Choctaw, but when I took the Yellowstone job, I’d spent months hiking Wyoming on my days off.

I wanted to get to know my new home, and I wanted to be able to help people on the job.

Plus, being in the mountains, smelling the earth and communing with the trees and lakes and rivers had become a kind of religion for me.

My mind and all the ways I’d never measured up went quiet out there.

I’d been alone a long time, but out there in the wilderness, somehow it didn’t feel so lonely.

“How’d she get separated from her family?” I asked.

Frank sighed, probably putting himself in the missing girl’s father’s shoes. Frank had two kids and a wife, and they spent plenty of time hiking and camping.

“The mom and dad went chasing after the two younger kids,” he said. “The older daughter got stuck packin’ up the food, and they thought she was right behind them, but when they stopped, she’d disappeared.”

“But had she been right behind them?” I asked. “Or did she disappear from the picnic site?”

A teenager could have all kinds of reasons for disobeying her parents. Maybe she was pissed they’d left her with the lunch mess, and she’d wandered off to try to find a cell signal to call her boyfriend or post her annoyance on TikTok.

“They reported she’d been behind them. The mom, Angie, said she spoke to her daughter ten minutes before they realized she wasn’t behind them anymore. She said her daughter has a habit of wanderin’.”

“Are they experienced hikers?” Abey asked as she studied a map of the area someone years ago had permanently tacked to the wall.

Frank shook his head. “The dad says yes, the mom says not so much.”

“So no, then,” I confirmed. “Who’s workin’ this so far?”

“Teton County Search and Rescue,” Frank said. “Carey just got to Jenny Lake. He’s ready to call in dogs, but it’ll take a while for the handlers to get ’em there. They were loaned out to Idaho state the last few days for a homicide case. And then the Jenny Lake Ranger team has just clocked in.”

“How long’s she been missin’?” I asked.

“Four hours.”

“Four hours?!” Abey shook her head in exasperation. “Why the hell’d they wait so long to call us in?”

“The dad went searchin’ on his own, thought he could find her. Mom stayed put with the little ones, and then it took ’em a while to make it back to the ranger station on the other side of the lake. Cell service has been cuttin’ in and out today.”

“Damn,” Dan said. “It’ll be night soon. Not good.”

“Okay,” I offered, “then if they’ve got the search covered up there, what can we do down here?”

My job, the sheriff’s station, my co-workers, these were all safe spaces for me. I was confident on the job. Helping people was what I’d been born to do, but the other parts of my life lacked the same assuredness. Maybe that was why I was still single.

Why couldn’t life come with a set of instructions like a bookcase from Ikea? Of course, I didn’t speak Swedish and wouldn’t be able to read them, but at least they provided pictures: insert man here, part A goes into part B and repeat with remaining screws in holes.

“Carey wants us to investigate.” Frank tapped the top of his computer screen sitting on his pristinely organized desk, indicating that he’d already done some preliminary searching.

“The dad spent some time in jail before he had kids. It was a weed charge, so I don’t expect anything to come of it.

It’s just a precaution. The guy hasn’t had any run-ins with police in twenty years, but just to cover our bases.

” He looked right at Abey. “They’re stayin’ out at your family’s place in one of the rental cabins. ”

“Wait. You said the mom’s name is Angie?” She went totally still, a look of horror dawning on her face. “This is the Manning family? Natalie’s the missin’ hiker?”

Frank nodded.

“We had breakfast with them yesterday. Little Cody and Jamison helped us pick carrots from the garden after.” Abey pulled out her phone.

“I’m callin’ Bax. Shit. They’re still at the reception.

” She paused. “But maybe Devo or Brand will pick up. I can send them to the Mannings’ cabin.

Maybe Natalie caught a ride down the mountain and went back there.

” She punched her screen a few times, and as her call connected, she walked back to her office.

“Dan and I can scope out the cabin. Let me just get changed,” I said, and I hurried to the locker room to get my back-up uniform.

When I was dressed and mostly professionally presentable, I walked back to the bullpen on bare feet with my boring, black flats dangling from my fingers.

My socks and boots were in my truck parked out back.

Dan’s eyes zeroed in on my toes. Ew. Did he have some kind of foot fetish I hadn’t been aware of the last two years we’d worked together?

“C’mon then,” I said, trying not to gag. “Let’s get goin’.