He awakened to a light knock on the door. Wyatt cracked an eyelid and was surprised to find bright autumn sunlight streaming through the window. Judging by the angle, he guessed it was early by city standards, and likely midday in ranch time.
“Come in,” he croaked.
The door opened and Cara poked her head in. “Hey. I tried to let you sleep, but I couldn’t wait any longer.”
He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Feet planted firmly on the floor, he scrubbed the sleep from his face with his palm. “No. I should be up.” He checked the time on his phone. Seven thirty. He’d slept for a few hours, but it still didn’t feel adequate. “You get any sleep?”
She smirked and shrugged. “Some here, some there. Restless.”
“Fretting,” he corrected.
“I think I’m entitled.”
Her retort was sharp enough to jolt him fully awake. “Of course you are.”
“Sorry.” She glanced over her shoulder, then returned her temple to its resting spot on the door frame. “My mother always says I get snappy when I haven’t had a good night’s rest.” She paused long enough to roll her eyes. “I hate it when she’s right about me.”
“Parents. They think they know everything.” He pushed to his feet and stretched. “I suppose yours have been hard at work for hours?”
She nodded. “Dad said if you want, he’d take you out again later.”
Wyatt nodded and scratched his stubbly cheek. “I’d like that.”
“They left biscuits and sausage gravy for you.”
“Great.” Then he caught her wording and paused. “Left? Did your mom leave?”
Cara’s eyebrows shot up. “Was she under house arrest?”
“No, I thought...” He trailed off, his ears burning.
“You thought she stayed here all day making stew and doing the mending?” she teased.
“No. I mean, I know she handles the paperwork and such, I didn’t know she did, uh, work out there.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. He clamped his mouth shut. He was digging himself deeper with every single word. “I need coffee.”
Cara took mercy on him. “I’ll pour you a mug. Mama went to pick up some wire fencing they need for repairs. She’ll be back by noon, but I warn you it’s Daddy’s day to cook, so it’ll be cold cuts for lunch and something grilled for supper.”
Wyatt inclined his head to indicate her message was received. The Beckett Ranch was an equal opportunity operation. “I’m going to take a quick shower. Clear the cobwebs.”
“Go for it,” she said, pushing away from the doorjamb. “I only wanted to get my phone.”
“Your phone?”
“My cellular device?” she prompted. “I don’t want to take the chance of anyone tracing the landline, remember?”
“Right, but who are you going to call?”
This time, only one brow rose. “Do I have to clear it with you?”
The icy edge in the question had him straightening his shoulders. “No, but it would help things if you kept me in the loop.”
“I’d like to call my assistant, if you don’t mind,” she returned with a sniff.
As if on cue, the phone sang out its generic ringtone. Cara raised an eyebrow at him, then let her gaze trail over to the phone lit up atop the dresser. The display showed Zarah’s number. “Speak of the devil. It’s Zarah,” she informed him, swiping to accept the call.
“Put it on speaker?” He did his best to phrase it as a request rather than a demand, but it could have gone either way. Thankfully, Cara complied.
“Hey, Z. You’re on speaker and my pal Wyatt is here,” she said, darting a glance at him. They’d agreed to play their relationship to one another off as friendship in case someone was listening in.
“Cara! I can’t believe it,” Zarah said in a rush. “Is it true it’s a total loss? Your beautiful house. It was so adorable. I’m heartbroken.”
Cara’s eyes darted to his and Wyatt scowled. He tapped the mute button then said, “We need to think for a minute about how much you should say to people. Can you tell her you’ll call her back? Let me get a cup of coffee and kick-start my brain.”
She nodded, the tip of her tongue pressed against her top lip as she blinked rapidly, clearly trying to get her emotions under control before she spoke. He squeezed her shoulder, then stepped away, giving her space. “Hey, yeah, we’re actually on another call. Can I call you back? I’ll fill you in as soon as I can.”
“Of course. Call me if there’s anything you need me to do. I don’t mind driving down there,” Zarah offered.
“I appreciate the offer. I’ll let you know when I’ve wrapped my head around it all.”
Wyatt waved his arm to get her attention and when she looked over at him, he mouthed, “How did she know?”
“Yeah, um, Z? Did someone call you or something? I mean, how did you find out?”
She darted a glance at Wyatt and he gave an exaggerated nod. She’d hit exactly the right note of vague but focused calm. It wasn’t until he saw her take a slow, deep inhale that he realized it was because she was using the same voice she used for meditations on the app.
“Find out? The news. It’s all over the news,” she cried. Then she caught herself. “Oh, wait. It’s probably not making the local news there, is it?”
Cara pulled a face, then shook her head as she wrapped up the conversation with promises to call back.
Wyatt pulled up the browser on his phone and typed “Cara Beckett house fire” into the search engine. Within seconds he had all the information he needed. Without a word, she took the phone from his hand, her lips parting in shock as she took in the photos of what used to be her picture-perfect home.
Wyatt stared too. Though he had been the one to deem the posts a credible threat, he hadn’t truly believed someone had done the deed. But they had. Whoever they were. They set fire to her house. The house he’d looked up on a popular real estate site the night before. To a guy from the mid-South, the California cottage looked high-end. Sleek, clean lines. Solid surfaces. It looked like it was built to withstand anything Mother Nature could throw at it.
Too bad there was no way to guard against the darker side of human nature.
Beside him Cara emitted a guttural groan.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, knowing the words to be wholly inadequate.
“I have to...” She fumbled with her phone. “I’m calling Zarah back.”
He reached for her hand, but he wasn’t sure if he was trying to stop her or steady her. “Hang on a second.”
“I can’t. I can’t hang on,” she insisted, her voice rising with agitation. “I have to get back.” Zarah must have answered because Cara snapped into planning mode. “I have to get back. Can you book me a flight?”
Wyatt had no idea what Zarah’s response was, but he started shaking his head. “No. You can’t.”
“I’m a couple hours from Little Rock, so I’d need a flight tonight,” she continued, undeterred.
“Not a good idea,” Wyatt insisted. He reached for her elbow, but she spun out of his grasp.
“Maybe look at flights out of Springfield, Missouri. Or the regional airport in northwest Arkansas?” she persisted. “Or even Memphis.”
“Cara, it’s not safe for you to go home right now,” he said, raising his voice in a vain attempt to break through her stubborn streak.
She spun on him, her eyes bright with fear and fire. “It’s not safe here, either.”
He stepped closer to her, hoping to force her to back off from a bad plan. “You know it’s better here than there. No one knows where to find you here. And even if they did, they’d have to go through me to get to you.”
Their gazes clashed and locked. She lowered the phone from her ear, and for a split second he thought maybe he’d gotten through to her. But rather than pressing the button to end the call, she switched the audio to speaker.
“I can get you out of Little Rock after seven tonight. You’d connect through Dallas and get into LAX a bit after midnight,” Zarah reported.
Cara continued to drill holes into him with her laser-like focus. For a hot second, he fooled himself into thinking she was coming around to seeing things his way.
Lifting the phone close to her lips, she looked him dead in the eye and said, “Book it.”
She ended the call, then stepped calmly around him and stalked back to her room.
“Cara,” he called, whirling on his heel. “I know those photos are awful, but you have to think this through.”
But he was speaking to an empty hallway. He skidded to a halt in his sock feet, gripping the frame of her bedroom door to slow his momentum. She was riffling through one of the plastic bags of clothes.
“You can’t go to California.”
“I’m not going to California,” she replied in a tone so placid he wondered if he’d imagined the whole phone call.
“But you—”
“I asked Zarah to buy an airline ticket,” she interrupted. She pulled a pink hooded sweatshirt from the bag and snapped the tag off with a vicious yank. “I didn’t say I’d be on the plane.”
He blinked twice. “You’re not going?”
“I’m not a fool,” she said, shrugging into the hoodie.
Narrowing his eyes, he assessed the woman in front of him. “I would never mistake you for one, but do you care to clue me in on your plan?”
She started pacing the room, phone clutched in her hand and movements jerky with pent-up frustration. “I don’t have a plan. All I know is some joker posted my private information for all to see, and my neighbor got attacked in front of my house. I try to get out of town for a few days, and a random guy I’ve never laid eyes on tries to kidnap me. I get away from him, but then, said random guy ends up dead. Meanwhile, back on the coast, someone set fire to my house, Wyatt. I don’t know if they thought I was in it, or if they even cared—”
“They know you weren’t in it,” he interjected.
She whirled. “How do you know?”
“We’re monitoring the chatter online.” He pressed the heels of his hands to his eye sockets in a vain attempt to quell the throb building in his brain. “Can I please take a shower and have some coffee before we play twenty questions? We need to talk, and I can’t think,” he said, exasperated.
“Fine.” She waved a hand at his rumpled clothes. “Go take your shower. I’ll go brew a fresh pot.”
“Thank you.” He exhaled the words in a gust, then turned and trudged down the hall to gather his stuff. If they were going to go multiple rounds on how best to handle this fire situation, he needed to be as clearheaded as possible.
C ARA POURED STEAMING coffee into two mugs as she waited for Wyatt to shower and change. The scent of her mother’s fluffy biscuits still filled the kitchen. She lifted one corner of the tea towel covering the ancient iron skillet. Her stomach rumbled like distant artillery as a battle of will raged inside her. Cara knew the heavy pan had been greased liberally with the bacon drippings collected in the can on the counter. But the biscuits themselves were made from the same self-rising flour her grandmother had used, and fresh butter and buttermilk from a neighboring farm.
Nostalgia made her chest ache. The sight of those golden brown biscuits made her mouth water. Her stomach gurgled again, and she abandoned her principles.
“Desperate times,” she murmured as she pulled one from the still-warm pan.
She split the biscuit, slathered it with butter and drizzled fresh honey on top before taking an enormous bite. Closing her eyes, she hummed her appreciation as she chewed. It was a taste of her childhood. A bite of a time when things were simpler. Safer.
Absently, she licked at a drip of buttery honey oozing down the side of her hand.
Cara popped the last bit into her mouth, chewing slowly as she doctored the other half. This time, she nibbled at the edge of the biscuit, letting the butter and honey flow onto her tongue as she peered out the window over the sink. The land where the old house once stood had long since been reclaimed by Mother Nature, but it was still vivid in her mind’s eye.
“What’s your plan?”
She jumped at the sound of Wyatt’s voice, and the remains of the biscuit crumbled in her hand. Butter and honey oozed between her fingers. She’d been so deep in her thoughts, she hadn’t heard him approach. Her face flamed with embarrassment and a touch of shame as she shook the clumpy mess off into the sink.
“Sorry,” he said as he approached. “I thought you’d have heard me talking to Roscoe.”
“No, I was...” She turned on the tap and cool water rushed out, coagulating the goo coating her hand. She closed her eyes and drew a steadying breath as she waited for the water to warm. “I was in another world.”
One filled with biscuits baked in grease-coated cast iron and dusty memories. A world where she envisioned herself being the next Meryl Streep rather than an internet-famous—or infamous—voice-over artist being terrorized by internet trolls.
He lifted the corner of the towel and eyed the leftover biscuits still nestled in the pan. “These look great. My MaMaw used to make biscuits in a cast-iron skillet too. Refused to eat the kind out of a can.”
His use of the pet name for his grandmother triggered an involuntary smile. “Mine too. This was her pan.”
Wyatt eyed the pan covetously. “I buy the frozen ones once in a while. They’re better, but not like this.”
“They’re okay, but so full of preservatives.”
“Californian,” he muttered.
Cara chuckled as she wiped her hand on the dishcloth hanging beside the sink. “Plates are in the cupboard in front of you. Gravy is in the microwave.”
She scooped the remains of her sodden biscuit from the sink with a paper napkin and deposited the wad in the trash. Then, taking one of the coffee mugs, she retreated to the kitchen table. Settling into a chair, she warmed her hands on the ceramic mug as she watched Wyatt move easily around the kitchen. His dark hair was still damp from his shower, curling slightly at his nape. He had the lean build of someone who runs, and overall, he seemed fit. She remembered him mentioning a float trip on the Buffalo River, and wondered if he was a hiker. He looked outdoorsy.
He turned toward the table, plate and mug in hand, and caught her staring. “What?”
Rather than giving in to embarrassment again, she switched into interrogation mode. “Are you the outdoorsy type?”
Wyatt eyed her warily as he took the seat across from her. “Why? You planning on dropping me out in the woods with nothing but a compass and a water bottle?” He pointed the tines of his fork at her. “I have to warn you now, I don’t go anywhere without a laptop and a hot spot.”
She shook her head, though the image of him trudging through the woods using his phone as a compass and with his laptop bag strapped across his chest was amusing. “I was curious. You mentioned floating the Buffalo.”
“Oh.” He turned his attention and his fork on the plate of food in front of him. “Yeah, sure, I like floating. I prefer a canoe to a kayak, even though I know kayaks are cooler right now. I hike the trails at Pinnacle Mountain a couple times a year, but mainly because it’s so close to Little Rock and sometimes I need to get out of the office and out of my head, you know?”
“I get you,” she said before taking a sip of her coffee.
Using the side of his fork, he cut the gravy-smothered biscuit into bite-size chunks. “I’m not big on camping,” he said with a shrug and sheepish smile. “I’m fond of electricity.”
“Me too,” she assured him. “I mean, me neither.” She gave a short laugh then summed it all up. “I don’t camp.”
“So, why are you asking if I’m ‘outdoorsy’ when I ask what your plan is?”
“Oh, I wasn’t planning...” She laughed at the roundabout of non sequiturs they’d been riding. “Two separate trains of thought converged. Sorry.”
“Ah, okay.” He shoveled a bite into his mouth and chewed, closing his eyes appreciatively. After washing it down with a sip of coffee, he pulled a pained face. “I’m never going to be able to eat another frozen biscuit again.”
“Ruined, huh?”
He stabbed another gravy-slathered bite but met her eyes when he answered. “Completely and utterly.”
“My mama’s biscuits can have an effect on a man,” she cooed in an exaggerated drawl.
Wyatt only smirked as he chewed. She watched as he demolished half the plate before she spoke. “My plan is to stay here with you. Hunker down. Does your department have enough sway with Homeland Security to make it look like I boarded a flight?”
“We have sway, and we have, uh, other ways,” he answered without looking up. “You want it to look like you’re headed back.”
“I figure it will buy us at least a day or so, and maybe a little breathing room.” She wrinkled her nose. “What do you think?”
“Sounds solid. I’ll loop Emma in on the plan, she’ll let the others know.”
“I’m going to use my phone to make a hotel reservation.”
His approving expression morphed into a frown. “A hotel reservation?”
Wrapping her hands around the mug, she leaned in. “I need to make it look like I’m coming back to take care of the fire stuff. I can’t stay at my house, so a hotel reservation makes sense.”
“But they’ll charge you for it.”
Cara caught sight of the red flush creeping up his neck and opted to make light of his needless commentary. She might have money now, but it didn’t mean she lost the practical frugality of a born and bred Arkansan. “I know, but I think it’s important to sell whoever’s watching on the notion of my imminent arrival.”
He bobbed his head, but focused on his plate. “Right. Right. Good thinking.”
She watched as he methodically demolished the rest of his breakfast. The moment he placed his fork on the gravy-streaked plate, she spoke up again. “There’s more.”
“I figured the wheels were turning.” He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, a wary gleam in his eye as he sat back. “Hit me.”
“I’m going to call Chris and Tom today.” Abandoning her grip on the coffee cup, she sat up straighter. She waited as he slotted the puzzle pieces into place.
“Okay.”
She inclined her head. “I know Zarah sent texts letting them know I’m okay, but I need to talk to them. We have a lot happening in the next couple weeks and I need to be in the loop.”
He studied her closely, biting the inside of his cheek as he weighed her plan. The morning light streaming through the window brought out hints of gold in dark eyes fringed by unfairly thick, dark lashes. The intensity of his stare should have made her uncomfortable. But it didn’t. She felt safe with him. She could trust him. And, more important, he seemed to trust her.
“What do you plan to tell them?”
“Nothing in particular,” she hedged. “I want to get their thoughts on what’s been happening. They’re far more involved in the tech community. Chris with the investors and entrepreneurs, and Tom with the people on the tech side of things.”
Wyatt raised his arms and laced his fingers behind his head. She could see the temptation to rock her mother’s kitchen chair back on two legs. Watching him wrestle it into submission was amusing and more than a little endearing. She wondered if he got away with tipping his own mother’s chairs back. Something told her he didn’t.
“What’s their response been when you’ve had issues before?”
She shrugged. “Obviously, we’ve never had anything near what’s happening now. Until now all I got was the usual mix of sour grapes and good old-fashioned misogyny.” Thinking back on their cavalier dismissal of the vitriol slung at her day after day made her wonder if she shouldn’t have been slotting them in with the chauvinists.
As if reading her mind, he asked, “Did they take it seriously?”
“No.”
The answer slipped out of her before she could give the question more than a moment’s thought. But it was the truth. They didn’t take the chat room slurs and vaguely threatening messages posted by anonymous commenters to heart.
But now she couldn’t stop shaking all over. Someone had tried to make good on those threats. It was time for Cara to insist her partners take her contribution to the company and the threats to her safety more seriously.
“Which is why I need to talk to them now.”