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“Hashtag Wyoming,” I deadpanned.
Then he turned back to me, all traces of humor gone. “Let me show you what I’ve got on the town.”
I followed him to the desk, my heart pounding with a mix of curiosity and dread. What had he been working on here? What did he know that I didn’t? He dragged in a chair from outside and placed it next to the office chair. Then, he switched on the laptop, going through a series of security levels at such speed that it was a blur.
As he started pulling up files on the laptop, I took the seat he’d placed next to his. He had folders of files on the screen, names I recognized, and everything on the town I thought I knew inside and out.
Connor opened a file on his laptop, the screen's glow casting a pale light across his face. “Okay,” he said, his tone all business. “Micah Lennox.” But before he double-clicked to open it, he turned to me, his eyes searching mine.
“Micah said he talked to you,” Connor added, his voice measured.
I kept my expression neutral, not giving anything away. I knew where this was heading, but I wasn’t ready to lay all my cards on the table yet.
Connor waited a beat, then continued, “About his part in the death of Callum Prince at the Brothers of Chiron compound.”
“He didn’t have a part,” I shot back, maybe a little too quickly. “Whatever happened, he and his sister are safe in Whisper Ridge. They’re family. Okay?”
Connor didn’t flinch, but I saw the gears turning in his head. He’d already decided about something, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what it was. “There was a gun in the well,” he said. “The gun used to kill Callum Prince.”
My heart sank, a lead weight in my chest dragging medown. I’d made my peace with whatever Micah had done to get his pregnant sister and his nephew away from that hellhole—the awful end that everyone else had met there. But this? A smoking gun?
I remembered my dad’s words, echoing in my mind like they always did when I was faced with an impossible choice: To police a town, you had to know a town. And I knew Micah. I knew Rachel and the kids. They’d fought hard for their new life, and I’d sworn that the ghosts of the past wouldn’t touch them again.
But a gun in the well was something I couldn’t ignore, no matter how much I wanted to. If we had to excavate the site around the well, if we couldn’t find the answers we needed without digging deeper—what would we uncover? How far would I go to protect someone who was my responsibility?
Connor was watching me, his gaze steady, waiting for my response. He was giving me a chance to come clean, to say something that might ease the weight pressing down on my chest. But what could I say? That I knew what Micah had done? That I’d looked the other way because I understood why he did it? Or maybe that I suspected he was covering for his sister—that she’d been the one who’d killed Callum?
I knew whoever had done it had killed him in self-defense.
“Connor,” I started, but the words stuck in my throat. I didn’t know how to finish that sentence.
“Sometimes, doing the right thing isn’t so clear-cut,” he murmured. “Sometimes, the lines are blurred, and wehave to make a choice we can live with, even if it isn’t by the book.”
“I know.”
He didn’t push. He waited, letting the silence fill the room. The only sound was the laptop’s low hum, and the file was still unopened on the screen.
After a pause, I sighed, rubbing a hand over my face. “If we have to dig around that well, if this leads somewhere, we don’t want it to…”
Connor gripped my hand and laced our fingers. “I need to know how far you’re willing to go with this, Neil. Because I’m telling you now, Micah and his family are under my protection. And I’ll do what it takes to keep them safe.”
I didn’t hesitate. “I know,” I said.
“Then let’s figure out the next steps together.”
The weight in my chest eased a little. We weren’t at the end yet, not by a long shot. But at least I wasn’t facing whatever this shit show was alone. And maybe,just maybe, that would be enough to get us through whatever was coming next.
He tugged me closer, our hands still entwined, and then he cradled my face and kissed me before easing back. I chased for another kiss because I could forget everything else when we did that, but he’d already moved to face the screen and had his mouse poised to click.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Okay.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
CONNOR
The kiss waseverything I wanted to say to Neil, everything I couldn’t put into words. It was more than a physical connection; it was a promise. A promise that I had his back, as much as I did the rest of this town. It was an unspoken acknowledgment that I understood him and saw the weight he carried every day as sheriff and respected him even more for it. Neil policed his community with care, always putting others before himself, and I’d caught feelings for him because of that—deep, undeniable feelings.
