She was pulling away. That was all Wyatt could think as he felt the ache in his knees, stood from his impulsive kneeling position and then sat back down on the couch.
That wasn’t how he had envisioned this at all. Wyatt had messed up. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name. After all this time of being patient, waiting to fall in love till he’d found the right person, he’d rushed once that had happened. Elsie was right for him. He was convinced of that.
“I, um.” He cleared his throat, wishing he could fast-forward through the awkwardness. “I’m sorry about that, I guess?”
“Don’t...apologize.” She stood up, started to walk around the room. Her eyebrows were scrunched together in a way he found adorable. “You just don’t even know me, Wyatt.”
He bristled. “Yeah, I think I do.”
She shook her head. “It’s been what, a week?”
“We’ve known each other for decades.”
“We’ve known of each other,” she corrected him. “It’s not the same thing.”
“What else is there to know, after everything we’ve been through together?”
At the moment, her expression didn’t indicate any kind of positive emotion toward him. But hadn’t they been kissing less than ten minutes ago? Had she told him she was falling for him, too?
Wyatt wanted to leave. The desire revealed something about his nature he didn’t particularly like. The old him walked away when things got difficult, and he didn’t want to be that guy. He wanted to be the kind of guy who could stick around through everything and work it out.
Besides, last time he’d left Elsie’s house to process alone, she’d ended up being dragged through the woods. While the threat against her appeared to be gone, he still wasn’t willing to take the risk.
She’d been choosing her words carefully. She said, “There’s so much more to someone than you can learn in just a few days. I want to be really known like that, not just have someone know a little bit about me and be attracted to me.”
Of course she did. He heard what she wasn’t saying. Her entire life she’d wanted someone to really know her, and who she was, and he’d messed up.
“I’m sorry. I can’t take the proposal back.”
She stopped pacing. “I think you need to go.”
His heart dropped. “Don’t, please. Let’s talk about it. I don’t want to run away from you, Elsie.”
Her eyes betrayed no emotion, but she was shaking her head. “Just go.”
It was the last thing Wyatt wanted to do. But he was trying to be a gentleman. She’d told him twice now, so he didn’t feel like he had a choice.
Breathing a quick prayer for her safety, and for God to do something with the mess he’d made of things, he opened her door, then shut it behind him.
Why couldn’t he have asked her on a date? Or told her she was beautiful? Or given her chocolate or a puppy? Anything to show his growing affection that wasn’t a proposal would have been better. He saw that now.
Wyatt exhaled deeply, squeezed his eyes shut.
And wondered if she’d ever give him—give them—a second chance.
It was strange, the way she almost felt like they’d come full circle. Elsie was in her bed again, sleepy but sleepless, unable to rest. Just like she had been before everything had happened. The man who broke into her house, the new search...Wyatt...
What had she done?
Earlier, she had been so sure that her decision had been the right one. It was better to chase Wyatt away if he didn’t really know her than to risk him becoming disappointed when he realized she wasn’t what he thought, right?
Apparently not right, because Elsie was miserable. Willow was annoyed with her and had already moved from her comfy spot on the end of the bed, where she’d been curled up on the blanket that usually stayed folded at the end, down to the floor, where Elsie’s restlessness wouldn’t wake her.
Night had finally fallen in the woods, the dim sky outside her bedroom a beautiful shade of twilight blue. She hadn’t shut her curtains tonight, and she could see the dark silhouettes of the spruce trees that surrounded her cabin.
Everything was peaceful, as it should be. Willow showed no evidence that any sense of danger was anywhere nearby.
This wasn’t at all related to her safety or to the events of the last few weeks. This was only related to Wyatt Chandler. The man whose heart she’d stomped on earlier.
And what about her own heart? Her life alone had been fine. Actually, it had been lovely. She loved being out in the woods, the freedom she had as a single woman to decide when she came and went, the way she was able to pursue her job. Yet she missed Wyatt.
The man himself, for who he really was.
Was it possible she could have been wrong? Did he know her better than she’d thought? Maybe there could be a way to fix this.
Morning would be the ideal time to figure that out. Surely she could go to his house, apologize, explain...
Then what? She still didn’t think the proposal was a good idea. But the way to change how little they knew each other was...to get to know each other. They could do that.
He’d said he loved her, and she did believe him. And then she’d sent him away, angry.
Probably no matter how much she tried to sleep tonight, she was going to keep chasing this thought, like a butterfly she could see but never catch, always off in the distance just out of reach. Her brain just wouldn’t stop, trying to work this out, which to her truly seemed unfixable.
She gave up on sleep somewhere in the middle of the night, before the light had started to come back, just at the darkest point, and grabbed her light jacket.
Willow looked up at her, eyebrows rising.
“I have to talk to him,” she told the dog. “I think I’m falling in love with him, too. I think it scared me. I think...” She heard her voice waver, felt the lump in her own throat grow. “I think maybe I don’t know how to do this.”
Willow stood, walked toward her.
“You’re coming, too, huh? Wouldn’t dream of leaving you.”
This was it, Elsie thought as she pulled on her boots and locked the door of the cabin behind her. She stood outside for a second, letting her eyes acclimate to the dimness. The moon was bright enough there was no need for a flashlight, but the shadows outside did take some getting used to. At least now there was no need to startle at the shadows. Troopers were investigating the cause of the plane crash, but if all their suspicions had been correct, she should be safe now.
She felt safe, too, all the way to her boat and across the bay. The ocean was calm tonight, accepting, it seemed, of her desire for safe passage to town, not fighting her in the least.
Was that what it would be like when she talked to Wyatt? Would everything go more smoothly when she stopped fighting against her feelings and her anxiety about not being in control, about not being sure whether or not she’d be any good at being in a relationship?
They’d both been right last night, Elsie thought. She’d said he didn’t know her well and he didn’t. But maybe Wyatt had been right, too, that he knew her anyway.
She wouldn’t know for sure until she could talk to him, see his eyes. She was ready to take a leap of faith, to take a risk. But she wanted to talk to Wyatt first. Even now her heart was hesitant. Afraid.
Elsie hated being afraid.
She docked the boat at Destruction Point’s marina. Remembering where Wyatt’s house was, she walked toward it, Willow trotting along beside her.
When she reached his house, it was dark. Not surprising, as it was late. But...Wyatt’s front door was wide open.
Her heartbeat started to pound in her chest, fear seemed to weight her legs, but she propelled herself forward anyway, wishing she had some kind of weapon with her, just in case someone was waiting for her, someone who wasn’t Wyatt.
Eyeing the door, practically willing Wyatt to walk out of it unharmed, Elsie pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed 911.
“Wyatt Chandler’s house has been broken into. His front door was left open and I’m afraid someone took him.”
“Location, please?”
“I don’t know his address.” Frantic, she looked around for the 911 numbers that even a small community like Destruction Point had. She finally found them, on the side of the mailbox, and read them aloud to the dispatcher. She quickly filled the dispatcher in about Wyatt’s last known whereabouts.
“We’ll be there within five minutes.”
“I’m search and rescue,” Elsie said. “My dog and I are on the way to find him now.”
Elsie hung up. Five minutes.
She hurried inside the house. “Wyatt?” The first room, a living room connected to a small kitchen, was empty. It was neat, with very little evidence he’d even been home.
The next room was an office, with papers and folders everywhere, but still fairly neat. No one had ransacked this place. They weren’t searching for anything and, Elsie thought, they didn’t seem angry. This felt more intentional.
Chills chased down her spine. Was it a trap? For her?
Wyatt would tell her to go home, that the risk wasn’t worth it, but as her search continued to reveal too little as to his whereabouts, Elsie started to feel more and more strongly that to leave was exactly what she couldn’t do. Not now. If Wyatt was in trouble, then it was because of her. She couldn’t abandon him now when he’d been so determined not to leave her alone with all of her troubles. She could feel the tension in Willow building as the two of them walked through the house together.
There was one more room she and Willow still hadn’t searched. His bedroom door was closed and Elsie felt like she was violating his privacy by going in there, but at the same time, she didn’t have a choice but to search it, too.
She reached for the door. Knocked. “Wyatt?”
No reply, but she did hear something. A scuffling. At her feet, Willow whined.
She knocked again. “Wyatt?”
When there was still nothing, she eased the door open. Willow charged in, a blur of brown moved toward them, and before she could react, Elsie saw Willow, her bright white fur pouncing around the room with a brown malamute mix that she knew had to be Sven, Wyatt’s dog. He dwarfed Willow, but he seemed friendly, though obviously disturbed.
“You okay, bud?”
Elsie reached to pet the dog, then started to look around the room. Maybe Sven was the world’s friendliest dog, a definite possibility, but he acted as though he hadn’t seen anyone in hours. She searched the room, and not finding any clues, she shut the dog back in the bedroom.
Strange he would have been shut in there, rather than in the nice kennel she’d seen in the living room. That one was a brand she’d long envied but hadn’t quite gotten to spending money on yet. It didn’t make sense that Wyatt would have left the dog closed up in the room.
The intruder, then? That made more sense.
Where were his food and water bowls?
Finally, she found them in a little nook off the kitchen, near a storage closet, which she checked and found empty of anything alarming.
The food bowl was empty. That much, she’d expected. A dog didn’t get to the size Sven was without a healthy love of food.
The water bowl surprised her. Dry. Entirely. Elsie filled both bowls, her heart pounding as she put the pieces together.
If Wyatt had come home, he’d have taken care of his dog.
The door was open. But was it possible someone had come here to find Wyatt and discovered he wasn’t home? Then...what?
Waited for him?
Elsie texted Lindsay, asking if she knew where her brother was. Her friend answered almost immediately. She did not.
Anxiety flooded through her. As though she didn’t already feel awful enough about the way they’d left things last night, now she could imagine him leaving her cabin, walking through the woods...getting attacked where? His boat was gone, but she hadn’t looked in town to see if it was in its regular slip.
He could be anywhere.
And the police would be here any minute, and if she got caught up in talking to them, her opportunity to try to find him using Willow to search would be gone.
She scrawled a note on a paper towel, explained that Wyatt might be in danger due to the events they’d been investigating, and wrote her phone number. They could call her later.
Right now? She had someone to find.
Wyatt’s head throbbed, the thrum of pain the first thing he noticed when he regained consciousness. He remembered leaving Elsie’s, remembered their fight, and then things started to get blurred in his mind, the throbbing somehow hammering away at his memory.
Elsie was safe... Wasn’t she? As far as he remembered, she was, though that was no great reassurance with as questionable as his memory seemed right now.
He sat up, noting the crushing of spruce boughs underneath him. He was somewhere on the forest floor and the sky told him it was the middle of the night. There was enough light that he’d be able to find his way around without a flashlight, but not so much that he could see anything very well.
No one approached when he sat up, though Wyatt didn’t know if that was because he’d succeeded in moving quietly, or because no one was here waiting for him to wake up.
He rubbed his forehead, wishing he had access to pain medicine. It was difficult to think against the pain. Everything felt more difficult, and thoughts didn’t come as quickly as he felt they should. Once again, he tried to make his mind cooperate, and to walk through what he remembered.
Taking a deep breath, then letting it out, he tried to get his bearings. In the distance he heard...something. Voices?
He crept forward, toward the voices, hoping for some kind of hint as to where he was. The landscape was generic to the general corner of Alaska where he was from. Dark brown dirt and rocky ground. Salty air from the ocean. Dark spruce trees towering overhead.
Hopefully he was still within walking distance of Elsie’s cabin, except... His boat. They hadn’t taken his boat, had they?
As he approached the voices, and studied the area up ahead of him, he discovered that the voices were in a clearing on the edge of the land, at the top of what appeared to be a cliff that fell away to the ocean.
Had no one been left to guard him? Was it because the landscape was inhospitable enough that they assumed that would keep him still? A cliff in front of him, mountain behind him... Why was he important to them, anyway?
“...kill him...?”
That...did not sound good.
“Will her dog be able to find him?”
“She’ll come. She found the dead woman, right? The one who was asking too many questions?”
“True... I just don’t want to drag this out any more. With the election coming up, I have too much to do. You and Reynolds should have been able to handle this. Then he...arrested...”
As he’d feared, he was being used as bait. Whoever these men were—they were men’s voices—they were setting up a trap for Elsie.
God, don’t let them get her.
He couldn’t let her be caught because of him.
He rubbed his forehead, trying to form a plan. If he was the one in danger, he could just run deeper into the woods. Evading the men who’d attacked him would be his main priority. But Willow would be able to find him no matter how well he hid himself, and the longer it took for her and Elsie to find him, the more they’d be in danger.
So maybe he was stuck here. At least until he could figure out where here was and how to get out.
His eye caught something past the men. A flash of white. He crept closer so he had a better view through the thick trees. There, on the shore, they had his boat.
If he could make it there, he’d have transportation.
“Don’t even think about it.”
The voice was low and gravelly, and before Wyatt could turn, pain exploded in his head again and everything went dark.
Guilt was Elsie’s companion as she ran through town with Willow, taking back streets and wooded patches of forest until she was at the docks.
As she had feared, Wyatt’s boat wasn’t in his slip. And she definitely hadn’t seen it by her dock, which likely meant someone had snatched him after he left her cabin. The wilderness around where she lived was vast and she’d only explored parts of it, but Elsie knew that was where she and Willow would go now.
The fact that Wyatt was likely being used as bait did not escape her. But what else could she do? Law enforcement needed to be involved, which was why she’d called them, but there was no way they’d be able to find him as quickly as she and Willow could. He’d already sustained a head injury within the past couple of days and Elsie shuddered to think of what they’d have done to him in order to get him under their power. She knew there was no way he’d have gone willingly.
She knew a lot about him for only having gotten to know him this week, Elsie realized. Enough that, really, she could see some of Wyatt’s points. Just because she’d have preferred he wait before broaching a subject like marriage didn’t mean he’d been thoughtless in his proposal. He’d rushed, majorly. Half of her wondered if it came from his desire to give her the chance to be part of a family. She didn’t know. All she really knew was that she’d have liked to have been asked to date him, not marry him.
Still, he’d made himself vulnerable and she hadn’t been sensitive to that at all. Elsie had messed up, too. Big-time. Now he was gone and she couldn’t even tell him she was sorry.
“We have to find him, Willow,” she said to the dog as they climbed into the boat. “We just have to.”
The ocean had grown moody from the peaceful state it had been in earlier. The swells were unpredictable and larger than usual. Elsie held the wheel, kept her gaze fixed straight ahead and headed toward the point where her cabin sat. This was Wyatt’s point last seen, she was almost sure of it, so this was where they would start the search.
They pulled up onto the beach and anchored without incident, and Elsie climbed out of the boat, then ran inside her cabin to grab her backpack of supplies and a thicker jacket, as the morning air was chilled and the ocean spray had dampened her clothes and hair.
“Ready, girl?” she asked her dog, strapping Willow’s vest on and holding out an old T-shirt of Wyatt’s that she’d grabbed out of what she guessed was his laundry pile beside his bedroom door.
Willow got the scent and stopped, meeting Elsie’s eyes.
Trust her dog. She had to trust her dog.
Wyatt was relying on her. She’d already let him down last night, when she’d refused to listen to him and had shut him out instead. She couldn’t let him down again.