There wasn’t any word from Angela or Connor, and nothing from Brandon, and so after breakfast, Levi suggested that they go up to one of the day hike areas on Mingus Mountain. It should be safe enough, since it was close to town and well within McAllister territory. That sounded like a good idea to Hayley; charming as Jerome might be, at the moment, the little town was only making her feel claustrophobic. Getting out into the forest and doing some communing with nature might help to clear her brain.
The spot they headed to wasn’t actually that far outside town, maybe a fifteen-minute drive up the switchbacks cut into the mountainside, the foliage that lined the narrow highway gradually shifting from agave and yucca and cactus to ponderosa pine and sycamore and oak. Levi parked his truck in
