Chapter 21

The production schedule required Garrison Sterling back to my house much sooner than I expected.

His dark pickup truck rolled up the gravel road shortly after lunch the very next day. The sudden, uninvited warmth that spread through my chest at the sight of him irritated me enough that I pretended to be very interested in rearranging coffee mugs in the kitchen.

He was here for work. That was all.

By four o’clock, however, the production notes had been abandoned on the kitchen table, and the majestic mountains outside had disappeared beneath a threatening wall of charcoal clouds.

By late afternoon, the Wyoming sky had turned the color of bruised steel.

The change happened so quickly that I almost didn't notice it at first. One moment, sunlight was slipping through the tall pines in long golden bands; the next, the peaks had vanished behind heavy storm clouds, and the wind was bending the trees hard enough to make the branches scrape against one anot