That did little to make her feel better. She’d always thought of herself as the last person to be taken in by a quick smile and a false intimacy. She had long relied on her intuition to help her navigate the world since she didn’t have anyone else to guide her. Will had done more than hurt her pride—
He’d undermined her confidence in her own judgment.
Even worse, she couldn’t seem to find a job, and there was a limit to the charity Wye was willing to accept. Without telling Cass, she’d begun to answer ads for positions in Billings and Bozeman. She kept telling herself it wouldn’t be the end of the world to move to the city away from all her friends.
So why did it feel like it?
Wyoming squashed her dark thoughts. There was no time to feel sorry for herself. She had a wedding to help with. A job to find. A life to get on with.
So, she didn’t have a mother who communicated from beyond the grave like Cass’s mom seemed to, or a father who would send her a husband, like the General did—handsome, wonderful husbands—to each of his daughters. She had her independence. Her self-respect.
Wasn’t that more important?
Her phone buzzed. She wouldn’t have heard it if she hadn’t fished it out of her ridiculous hoopskirt and placed it on the counter a few minutes earlier. Her brother’s name flashed onto the screen. Wye wiped off her hands and took the call, plugging her other ear so she could hear above the noise as Cass directed the setup of the dinner buffet.
“Ward? What’s up?”
“You haven’t heard from Mindy, have you?”
“Mindy? No.” She moved across the room to the back door to try to get away from the noise, but it wasn’t much better.
“She’s missing. She said she was going to the grocery store this morning, but she never came back.”
“Where’s Elise?” Wye asked quickly. Ward and Mindy’s daughter was only ten months old.
“With me. Mindy wasn’t supposed to be gone long.”
His petulant tone made Wye sigh. She had no doubt if she wasn’t at a wedding, Ward would try to lure her over to help. Not that it would take much luring; she loved her niece. This wasn’t the first time Mindy had stayed away from home longer than expected, though. Wye tried not to judge, but Mindy wasn’t the most maternal woman around.
“Did you call Mindy’s friends?”
“Yep. No one’s seen her. I called the grocery store. Hell, I’m about to call the sheriff.”
Something twisted inside Wyoming, and she began to take the situation more seriously. “Do you think she got in an accident?”
“Wouldn’t someone have called? I don’t know what to do. She’s got the car—it’s a hike to the center of town with the baby, and it’s cold outside. Could you—?”
Normally she could and would have taken over from here, running to the grocery store to check for Mindy there, then driving to her friends’ houses, heading to the hospital, even, but she was needed here, and besides, it was barely half a mile from her brother’s house to the grocery store—and the sheriff’s department.
“No, I can’t,” she said firmly. “Call Cab Johnson and tell him everything. Call the hospital, too. If you need to get somewhere, take a taxi. Ring me back when you get news.”
“But—”
“Ward, I’m at a wedding. You’re much closer to the grocery store than I am.”
“Fine.” He cut the call, leaving Wye to sigh again. It was obvious her sister-in-law wasn’t happy with her lot as a small-town stay-at-home mom. Wyoming figured she’d driven right by the grocery store this morning and gone on to Billings to do some real shopping. She and Ward needed to work that out. It wasn’t up to her to fix her brother’s marriage.
Somehow Ward seemed to think it was, though, the same way he thought she should be available at a moment’s notice to watch his baby daughter. It was like they were back in seventh grade. After their mother had left their father—left all of them, actually—Wyoming had been the one to pick up the slack. Her father hadn’t sobered up for weeks, so she’d raided what little cash Randi had left in the cookie jar and walked to the grocery store every few days. She’d cooked meals that Ward had gobbled up and that her father had left mostly untouched. She’d done the dishes, the laundry…
And she hadn’t stopped until she’d moved out.
A loud pounding sounded on the Reeds’ front door and startled her out of her thoughts.
Someone was arriving late to the wedding.
Cass, carving one of the turkeys, groaned. “Who could that be?”
“I’ll go get it.”
Wyoming put down the phone and hurried to answer it. Her bulky skirt hindered her progress around the large kitchen table and chairs and made it hard to get past the other men and women who’d volunteered to help set out the meal, but she reached the front hall at last.
When she tugged open the wide wooden door, she laughed, some of her worry over her brother’s missing wife slipping away.
“Emerson? What on earth are you doing out here?”
The sergeant stood in the doorway, his rangy, muscled body catching her eye like it always did. She hated to admit she’d been too infatuated with Will to notice Emerson much when she’d first met him, but these days she couldn’t tear her gaze away—especially after those kisses he’d stolen. All day today she’d been aware of him whenever he got near and had held her breath, wondering if he’d kiss her again.
She admired the efficient way he completed each task. He wasn’t as young as she’d first thought. Probably in his mid to late twenties. There were lines around his mouth and at the corners of his
