Page 30 of Snowbound Threat

Caleb led the horse out of the stall. “Whoever this FBI agent is, they’re not going to stop me from finishing this. I need to get the phones I took off those men to a private forensics lab.”

“You don’t need to leave to do that.” She shook her head. Maybe Godhadordained some of this.

She said, “Do you remember Meg from school? She married a guy who is a scientist, and he runs a forensics lab in North Carolina.”

“Your best friend Meg?”

She nodded. “You could just use a delivery service to send the phones to his company. Meg says they’re the best, which of course she would because she’s probably biased. But I also Googled them a few times and they really are excellent. Maybe they could even find out what happened to your parents.”

Again that tendon flexed in his jaw.

“But if you are going to leave, don’t let me stop you. You should be free to do whatever you think is right.” She lifted her chin, trying to be dispassionate about the whole thing.

What did he expect? It wasn’t like she was going to fall at his feet weeping when they’d only spent a few hours together at most.

“The threat here is real.” He held onto the reins of a brown Mustang Pops had broken years ago. A dangerous business, taking something wild and taming it. Maybe not even really taming it. More like requiring obedience and giving the horse no room to decide a different fate. The animal was still wild, but chose to yield.

Except that this horse had been broken already before he got it. Pops had nursed it back to health. He taught the horse that life could be peaceful and good.

When the horse got its wild streak back, Pops went to work teaching the animal how things would be.

She didn’t know Caleb well enough to figure out where he fell on that spectrum, and if Pops had done the same thing with two recalcitrant young boys. But she got the sense there was something wild in him and surrendering his life to the Lord had given him a shot at finding something good here on this land.

But still, part of him would likely never give up that wildness even if he yielded.

Maybe it was in his blood.

Caleb said, “If I leave it’s only so that you guys don’t find yourselves in danger anymore.”

“I can’t say I’m in any hurry to have a gun pointed at me again.” So it wasn’t as if she was going to argue with him for wanting to keep them safe. She wanted to be safe, but that illusion had shattered when her father was taken.

As far as she was concerned, keeping secrets had put all of their lives at risk.

She wanted to push back and fault them all for putting lives in danger, but it would only be because she was scared.

She said, “I can send you the recording of the conversation. That way you can hear what that FBI agent said for yourself.”

His head tipped to the side. “You recorded it?” When she nodded he said, “That was clever thinking.”

“Thanks.” She nodded.

Tessa turned away, not sure what else she could do. She didn’t even want him to stay if it meant more bad guys would show up and come after them. If he took the envelope and left then surely that would solve their problems. It would make them safe.

But what about him?

“Tessa.”

She stopped at the door and glanced back over her shoulder.

“Do you want to go out riding with me?”

It was the look on his face that meant she wasn’t able to say no or walk away. He was the one who was going to leave. She lived here and would always be here no matter what.

Maybe that made her restless or looking for change. Maybe that made her the woman who would sit around waiting for him to come back. Pining forever until he returned.

That didn’t sound like a good deal, but what else was she supposed to do? She didn’t know who else to be.

“One last time. For old times sake. What do you say?” He walked toward her, leading the horse. “I’ll saddle Rex.”