Page 15 of Tempting Wyatt (Triple Creek Ranch #1)

I stand and lift my plate. “I think I’m going to call it a night.”

Willow glares at her brother. “See what you did?”

Isaac opens his mouth to protest, but I speak before he can.

“No one did anything, I promise,” I tell them. “I’m just super full and exhausted from today.”

“I can take you down to your cabin in just a minute,” Isaac tells me.

“No rush.” I gesture to the half of a steak remaining on his plate. “Finish your dinner.”

Isaac lets out a soft laugh. “Yes, ma’am.”

My face heats. I didn’t mean it as an order. I meant he didn’t need to cut his meal short to get me back to the cabin.

“You know what I mean. Take your time. I’ll go help clean up in the kitchen.”

I join Laurel, where she’s lining up clear glass jars on the counter. Sutton is nowhere to be seen. I gesture to my half-empty plate, wondering if I should rake the remains of my dinner into the garbage.

“Do I just throw this away or—”

“You can put it in that bowl over there,” Laurel says, wiping her hands on her cherry-covered apron and gesturing to a large oval bin at the end of the opposite counter. “Isaac will take it down to the dogs. Sometimes, they eat better than we do.”

I hadn’t seen any dogs today, but I do as I’m told then glance around at the clean kitchen. The dishes from dinner must be in the dishwasher already.

“Anything I can do?”

Laurel hands me a strainer full of raspberries. “You can rinse these if you’d like. Last batch of the season. I’m about to make jam.”

Grateful for something to do with myself, I rinse them thoroughly.

“Sutton okay?”

Laurel sighs deeply. “She will be.”

After I rinse several strainers of berries, we switch places.

“Pour them in that big pot on the stove,” she tells me.

I do, and then I watch as she stares out the window above the sink. I can’t help but wonder if she’s worried about Wyatt too. The nagging feeling that I’m the reason he isn’t here won’t stop tugging at the edge of my awareness.

“I’m sorry if my being here is causing any issues,” I tell her when she hands me a large spoon to stir the berries.

She waves away my concern with a hand. “Trust me, hon, our issues go way back. It’s lovely having you here. And I hope you’ll continue to join us for dinner, but don’t feel obligated. We’re . . . a lot.”

I can’t help but smile. “I like it,” I tell her. “The banter, the big family.”

Trying not to pour my heart out the way she’s pouring sugar into the pot, I continue.

“I grew up moving around a lot. Apartments. My mom is not . . . ” I start to say maternal, but that doesn’t feel fair.

My mom did the best she could, but she never wanted a kid, and then I disrupted her life and got her kicked out of her house.

“Let’s just say, making jam was not her thing.

We survived on diner food from wherever she was waitressing at the time.

And I ate a lot of TV dinners home alone.

” I nod to the dining room, where Isaac and Willow’s conversation is a steady hum.

“This is like the real-life version of the shows I used to watch.”

She smiles warmly. “I’m glad we haven’t scared you away yet.”

I try not to gape as she pours more sugar in the pot, nearly covering the berries completely. Then she pours a little more. No measuring cup. Just measuring with her heart.

I kind of love her.

The fact that everyone in this family is so fit and non-diabetic while consuming this much sugar is a miracle.

“You know, I was worried about renting the cabin,” Laurel says as she washes her hands. She points to the pot. “Keep stirring. Let me know when it boils.”

I nod. “I was worried it was a fake listing, and I was coming here to be murdered.”

Her smile widens. “Probably didn’t help that my oldest son greeted you with an axe.”

“It was a memorable experience, to say the least. He’s an intense guy.”

“He’s definitely something,” she mumbles.

I glance toward the window above the sink while still stirring. “He’s probably fine out there, right?”

Laurel watches me more closely than I’d like for a drawn-out moment. “I’m sure he’s okay. Just a workaholic. Like his father.”

Sutton indicated as much.

“Do you think him showing me around might have put him behind?” I don’t want to be a bother or cause him to have to miss dinner.

She sighs gently. “No, sweetheart. Wyatt is dealing with everything in his own way.”

I think about Sutton’s outburst earlier, about Isaac and Willow covering their pain with humor and sarcasm. About me fleeing here instead of facing Malcolm and Heidi.

“Guess we all do that,” I say just as bubbles of sugary goo splatter out of the pot. “Oh, it’s boiling.”

After I help Laurel get the jam into the warm jars and we seal them tightly, Isaac asks if I’m ready to head to the cabin.

Truthfully, I hoped Wyatt would make an appearance, but he’s still a no-show when Isaac and I climb into a side-by-side.

When he drops me at the cabin, he rubs his neck and gives me a sheepish grin. “Sorry everyone around here has been so touchy lately. Just been a rough couple of months.”

“I get it. And if I haven’t said so, I’m sorry for your loss.”

He nods as he walks me to the door. “You close with your parents?”

“Parent,” I correct gently. “My biological father was never in the picture. My mom is . . . we don’t really keep in touch. I’ve tried, but she was pretty grateful to have her life back once I was old enough to fend for myself.”

Which, in her opinion, was around the time I turned seven.

Isaac tilts his head like a confused puppy and gives me an odd look. With a mom like Laurel Logan, he probably has no clue what I mean.

“I was thinking,” he says as I open the door, “you shouldn’t have to wait on me or Wyatt to drive you around the ranch. How about, tomorrow, I teach you how to drive this thing?” He tips his head toward the side-by-side.

“I’d love that.”

I’d also love not feeling like an inconvenience. Though a strange sense of loss hits me suddenly. My stomach hollows, and I realize I’ll miss riding behind Wyatt on the ATV. My body has already started craving his body heat in a way I can’t make sense of.

I yawn, and Isaac grins.

“Looks like being a hand wore you out after all.”

“I feel like I could sleep for a week,” I admit.

And there’s a soreness between my thighs that’s new and not from the activities with his brother that he might assume.

“I’ll let you get some rest. We’ll have that driving lesson tomorrow,” he says, stepping off the porch. “Night, Ivy.”

“Good night, Isaac. And thanks.”

As exhausted as I am, it takes far longer for me to fall asleep than it should.

Mostly because thoughts of why Wyatt missed dinner keep plaguing me.

I don’t want to admit it, even to myself, but I’m equally upset about the possibility of him being dead as I am about him having hooked up with someone.

That probably says a lot about my current mental state. And here I am, telling other people to go to therapy.

Hours later, in the middle of the night, I hear footsteps on the porch and worry that I overslept. But when I blink myself awake, it’s still dark out. Pitch-black dark.

The time on my phone says 1:24. I still have a few hours before ranch-hand duty starts, but my mind can’t fight the curiosity of who or what was on the porch.

I untangle myself from the covers, use the bathroom quickly, and make my way to the front door. Peeking out the window, I see nothing and no one. Maybe I should be worried, but I feel safe despite the unfamiliar surroundings. I open the door just an inch. Then another.

Cool air hits my bare legs.

A paper sack with handles sits on the welcome mat.

Figuring it’s more baked goods from Laurel, I bring it inside and peer at the contents. Atop a large shoebox sit three neatly folded T-shirts. A white one, a black one, and a gray one, all bearing the Triple Creek Ranch brand.

Inside the large box, labeled Lucchese, is a pair of mahogany and caramel-colored cowgirl boots with intricate designs all over them.

They’re gorgeous. They’re my size.

Wyatt.

In that moment, I know exactly why he wasn’t at dinner.

And I smile.