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That made Fen close his eyes and tilt his face up. “Oh, for the love of God.”

Any disappointment Grady felt at not finding Amanda on the other side of the door vanished as concern rushed in. “Is she okay? What happened?”

Fen’s eyes flew open, and he waved a hand. “Nothing happened. She’s fine. Put the sheriff face away.”

Relief came first, followed by confusion. “Then where is she?”

The way the younger man pressed his lips together said he was fighting a smile. “She’s on a plane.”

Grady frowned. Amanda hadn’t mentioned a trip during their call the night before, and she usually told him when work was taking her somewhere. “Where?”

“Wyoming.”

For several seconds, the response made no sense. Had he spent the entire day traveling to see her while she’d taken the reverse trip to see him?

“You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, honey, I wish I weren’t, because this is either incredibly romantic or proof that the two of you desperately need to work on your communication skills.”

“Why is she going back?”

The answer should have been obvious, judging by the look Fen gave him.

One eyebrow rose. “For you.”

Those two words knocked every other thought out of Grady’s head. Amanda was heading back to Antelope Rock for him.

He’d boarded the plane that afternoon wondering if he would be asking too much. He hadn’t known whether she saw a future for them beyond phone calls and occasional visits, or if what they’d had in Antelope Rock could survive once real life got in the way.

Now, some of those doubts were beginning to disappear.

Then the sheer ridiculousness of the situation caught up with him.

A laugh escaped.

He’d flown to Los Angeles to surprise Amanda, while she was somewhere in the air on her way to surprise him. Five weeks of talking every damn day, and somehow neither of them had seen this coming.

“I cannot decide which one of you I want to smack first.” Fen planted one hand on his hip.

“Start with Amanda.”

“Absolutely not. She signs my paychecks. You’re the safer choice.”

Grady laughed again. “I have a badge and a gun.”

“You’re also out of your jurisdiction, Sheriff.”

With a dramatic sweep of his arm, Fen stepped aside. “Come in before one of the neighbors sees you standing there and decides Amanda has secretly acquired a very handsome stalker.”

Still trying to wrap his head around what he’d just learned, he crossed the threshold.

The house was exactly what he’d pictured when Amanda talked about her life in California. Spacious but not showy, with books, photographs, and personal touches that kept it from looking staged for a magazine. Until that moment, California had mostly existed in his head as an abstract collection of things that belonged to Amanda—her house, her career, her friends, the routines she’d spent years building.

Standing in the middle of it made it all real.

And she’d left it today to come back to him.

“She never said a word,” he murmured.