Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Cabin
They left before dawn.
The mountains still slept beneath heavy fog while cold gray light barely touched the edges of Pine Ridge.
Kylie sat rigidly in the passenger seat of Nolan’s truck, watching rainwater slide across the windshield as they climbed deeper into the northern ridge roads.
Everything felt too quiet.
Too tense.
Wyatt followed behind them in a second truck with two ranch hands and one deputy despite Nolan insisting he could handle it alone.
Absolutely nobody trusted that statement anymore.
Especially Kylie.
Nolan drove one-handed carefully, his injured shoulder stiff beneath a dark jacket despite the pain medication Wyatt practically forced into him an hour earlier.
And somehow—
Even exhausted and wounded—
He still looked unfairly att
