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The door clicked shut behind him. “Neither did you, cowboy.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Marvelous. Two grown adults. Multiple phones. Unlimited calling and texting. Absolutely no useful communication whatsoever.”
The irony brought another laugh, although this one carried more relief than disbelief. “How long ago did she leave?”
“A few hours.”
Grady automatically started running the timing through his head. “What flight is she on?”
Fen pulled out his phone. “I have it right here. I booked the damn thing.”
He rattled off the flight information, and Grady checked its status on his phone. She was due to land in twenty minutes. But now he had hours more travel ahead of him to catch up to her.
At least he knew where she was. Once she was safely on the ground, he’d call her. There was no point letting her drive all the way to Antelope Rock expecting to find him there, especially since Rissa might not be home.
He saved the flight information, then slipped his phone back into his pocket. “How much do you know about why she’s going back?”
“Enough to know you two have made the last five weeks exhausting for everyone around you.”
Grady followed him into the kitchen. Late-afternoon sunlight spilled through the windows, throwing long patches of light across the counters. After the noise of airports, traffic, and a day spent surrounded by strangers, the house felt strangely still without the one person he’d come there to see.
A bottle of white wine came out of the refrigerator first. After pouring a glass, Fen reached back in and pulled out a beer. “This is left over from an actual heterosexual man visiting the house. Just a friend, and not one with benefits, before that sheriff brain of yours starts running through worst-case scenarios.”
Grady snorted. “It wasn’t.”
“Sure it wasn’t.”
He accepted the bottle, but his amusement faded at Fen’s next words.
“She’s been miserable since she got home.”
He turned the unopened cold bottle between his hands. “She never sounded miserable.”
“Of course she didn’t. The woman has pride. An alarming amount of it.”
That sounded like Amanda.
And hadn’t he done exactly the same thing? Night after night, he’d answered her calls, asked about her day, told her about his, joked with her, flirted with her, and made damn sure she never heard how empty the house felt after they hung up.
Apparently, they were both idiots.
Across the counter, Fen took a sip of wine. “We had a little discussion about how much of her work she can do from anywhere. Once she stopped looking at me as if I’d suggested she abandon civilization and live in a cave, she started thinking about it.”
For weeks, Grady had been afraid to ask Amanda what she wanted because he couldn’t see a solution that didn’t require one of them to sacrifice too much. His job was in Antelope Rock. Hers had always seemed firmly rooted here.
Maybe he'd been approaching it all wrong.
“So what does that mean?”
The wineglass rim tilted toward him. “That is where my involvement ends, Sheriff. She wants to see you. Anything beyond that, you two are going to discuss yourselves because I refuse to become the relationship interpreter.”
Grady appreciated the answer more than Fen probably realized. He didn’t need Amanda’s assistant to explain her plans or speak for her.
Right now, she was minutes away from landing in Wyoming while he stood in her kitchen holding a beer he no longer wanted.
He set the bottle on the counter.
