And somehow, this year it had also brought her foster sisters into the fold time and again. Putting them in jeopardy along with those Wyatt brothers—and then culminating in true love, against all odds.
All of their tormenters were in jail now, and Rachel wanted that to be the end of it.
But something about the dreams left her feeling edgy, like the next dangerous situation was just around the corner.
And that you’ll get thrust into the path of one of the Wyatt boys and end up...
Rachel got out of bed without finishing the thought. Just because four of her five foster sisters had ended up in love with a Wyatt didn’t mean she was doomed. Because if she was doomed, so was Sarah. Rachel laughed outright at the thought.
Sarah was too much like Pauline. Independent and prickly. The thought of her falling for anyone, let alone a bossy Wyatt, was unfathomable. Which meant it was inconceivable for Rachel, too. She might not be prickly, but she had no designs on ending up tied to a man with a dangerous past and likely even more dangerous secrets.
So, that was that.
Rachel went through her normal routine of showering and getting ready for the day before heading downstairs. She didn’t have to tap her clock to hear the time to know it was earlier than she usually woke up.
She was—shudder—becoming a morning person. Maybe she could shed that with the coming winter.
It was full-on autumn now. Twenty-three was creeping closer and while she knew that wasn’t old, she was exactly where she’d always been. Would she be stuck here forever? In the same house, on the same ranch, nothing ever changing except the people around her?
Teaching at the reservation offered some respite, but she was so dependent on others. If she moved somewhere with more public transportation, she could be independent.
And yet the thought of leaving South Dakota and her family always just made her sad. This was home. She wanted to be happy here, but there was a feeling of suffocation dogging her.
Maybe that was why she kept having those dreams.
Weirdly, that offered some comfort. There was a reason, and it was just feeling a little quarter-life crisis-y. Nothing...ominous.
She held on to that truth as she headed downstairs. Inside the house she never used her cane, even after the fire this summer. They’d fixed the affected sections to be exactly as they had been, which meant she knew it as well as she knew Pauline Reaves’s ranch next door, or her classroom, or Cecilia’s house on the rez where Rachel stayed when she was teaching.
She wasn’t trapped. She had plenty of places to go. As long as she didn’t mind overprotective family everywhere she went.
Rachel stopped at the bottom of the stairs, surprised to hear someone in the kitchen. Duke’s irritable mutterings alerted her to the fact it was her father before she could make out the shape of him.
Big, dark and the one constant presence in her life, aside from Sarah—who was the opposite of Duke. Small, petite and pale. She couldn’t make out the details of a person’s appearance, but she could recognize those she loved by the blurry shapes she could see out of her one eye that hadn’t been completely blinded.
“Daddy, what are you doing?”
“What are you doing up?” he returned gruffly.
Rachel hesitated. While she often told her father everything that was going on with her, she tended to keep things that might worry him low-key. “I think my body finally got used to waking up early,” she said, forcing a cheerfulness over it she didn’t feel.
“Speaking of that...” He trailed off, approached her. His hand squeezed her shoulder. “Baby, I know you’ve got a class session coming up in a few weeks, but I think you should bow out. Too much has been going on.”
Rachel opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Not teach at the rez? The art classes she held for a variety of age groups were short sessions and taught through the community rather than the school itself. She only instructed about twenty weeks out of the year, and he wanted her to miss a four-week session? When teaching was the only thing that made her feel like she had a life outside of cooking and cleaning for Dad and Sarah.
“Just this session,” Dad added. “Until we know for sure those Wyatt boys are done bringing their trouble around.”
It felt like a slap in the face, but she didn’t know how to articulate that. Except an unfair rage toward the Wyatts.
Rachel took a deep breath to calm herself. She never let her temper get the better of her. Mom had impressed upon her temper tantrums would never get her what she wanted. “I don’t have anything to do with their trouble.”
“I might have said the same about Felicity and Cecilia, but look what they endured this summer. It won’t do.”
“Dad, teaching those classes—”
“I know they mean a lot to you. And I am sorry. Maybe you could do some tutoring out here?”
“I’m an adult.”
“You’re twenty-two. I know this is a disappointment, but I’m not going to argue about it.” His hand slid off her shoulder and she heard the jangle of keys.
Rachel frowned at how strange this all was. Maybe she was still dreaming. “Are you going somewhere?”
There was a pregnant pause. “Just into town on some errands.”
Her frown deepened. Sarah took care of almost all the errands now that it was just the two of them left living with Duke. Her father almost never ventured into town. And he never gave her unreasonable ultimatums.
“What’s wrong, Dad?” she asked gravely.
“I want my girls safe,” he said, and she heard his retreating footsteps as though that was that.
She fisted her hands on her hips. Oh, no, it was not. And she was going to get some answers. If they wouldn’t come from her father, they’d just have to come from the source of the trouble.
TUCKER WYATT HAD always loved spending nights
