“Sure. It’s that way.” She motioned down a small hallway off the living room. Wyatt walked that direction, despite the fact that he didn’t need it. What he needed was to kill a bit of time until the police officer left so he could talk to Elsie alone.
When he came back into the living room a minute later, she raised her eyebrows at him.
“Did you really just want to wait till he’d left?” The corners of her mouth were tugging into a smile.
Wyatt shrugged. “Maybe. Listen, let me help you, at least. I get it if you don’t want police involved. That would be intrusive. But you admitted earlier that this might not have been random, and the place the guy left his boat tells me the same. Let me help you.”
“And you wouldn’t be intrusive?”
“I’m the lesser of two evils.”
“Bet no one’s ever said that about you before.”
He jerked his head up, half-offended, and realized she was joking. Teasing.
Certainly not flirting?
He didn’t know how he’d begin to process that. Elsie was the last woman he’d expect to flirt with him, and despite the fact that she was gorgeous, he would never want just a fling with her. He wasn’t that guy anymore, the one who didn’t take anything seriously and knew what to say to get a woman interested for the short term.
Besides, he wanted her to know that he meant his offer of help.
Maybe, though, he had messed up too badly to ever change the way people thought about him.
THREE
If anyone would have appreciated a little intentional flirting to distract from a stressful night, Elsie would have thought it was Wyatt.
Instead he’d either ignored her lighthearted teasing or seemed almost offended, if the tightness in his jaw and around his eyes was any indication.
Huh. First coming here to help her, with no ulterior motive that she could discern. Now refusing to flirt back. She thought he flirted with every woman he met. Maybe she didn’t know Wyatt at all. At least, not this Wyatt. Maybe time had changed him, and why not? It was unfair to assume that he was the same person he’d been in high school.
“Hey,” she tried again, “I really appreciate your willingness to help. And like I said, I’m really thankful you came over, but...”
“Yeah, you don’t want to pursue it. And I’m probably the last person whose help you would want.”
No arguments there. But not because he’d been a player in high school. That had been years ago. It was that she didn’t know him, didn’t want him intruding in her life any more than she wanted a police officer prying. Keeping in mind how tense he’d seemed when she’d tried to flirt with him, she wanted to reassure him and explain herself. But Elsie didn’t lie, not even to spare people’s feelings, so she kept her mouth closed.
“I’m glad you’re safe.” Wyatt walked to the door, looked back at her once and stared at her with an intensity that burned and warmed her at the same time. “Please be careful. I’m worried about you, Elsie.”
And before she could respond, he opened the door and disappeared into the darkness.
Elsie blinked a few times, then locked the door behind him. She didn’t know how she’d wanted that odd encounter to end, and it was too late at night to figure out how she felt about any of this. For now, she’d send Lindsay a quick text letting her know she was okay, and tomorrow, she’d call her. Talking to her friend always helped her clarify what she was thinking and feeling. And right now the topic she was confused about her feelings on was...Wyatt.
Would that be weird, to talk to Lindsay about her brother? Just as soon as she wondered that, Elsie dismissed the concern. Lindsay would know she wasn’t thinking about Wyatt romantically.
Still on edge, Elsie checked the lock on the front door again. She could have sworn she had locked it before she’d gone to bed, but someone had broken in anyway. Still, it was funny how her desire to be in control dictated that she make sure the door was locked. She turned off the light, waited a second until her eyes adjusted and then walked through the small main area of the cabin, checking windows. All locked. She should be safe. Alone.
For once the idea of being alone didn’t appeal to her. She wondered, only briefly, what would have happened if she hadn’t all but chased Wyatt out. If she hadn’t refused to discuss his offer to help her. Would he have stayed for a while, maybe sat on the couch and had another cup of coffee, helped her wind down from the night? Just because he wasn’t the kind of man she would ever date—she could barely imagine what kind of man she would date—didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends.
Right?
She blew out a breath. He’d left, and it was her fault. She was alone in her cabin in the woods, with the lingering reminder of how many people had invaded this space tonight.
Which brought her back to her most-uninvited guest—the would-be...what? Abductor? Murderer?
What was his motive? She’d love to pretend it was a break-in gone wrong, that the intruder had made up threats that meant nothing. But she could find no evidence that anything had been stolen. She was forced to conclude that he’d been after her personally. The threatening words had been real and had likely tied to something in her past. Somehow.
She pulled the covers up to straighten them, then tugged them back and climbed into bed, thinking that Wyatt was more correct than he’d realized. She’d probably been in real danger. But at the same time, Elsie was convinced she was right, too—this had to be a onetime thing. She had no idea why anyone would come after her in the first place, much less attempt to do so again. Even if this whole thing was tied to her past, she wasn’t any kind of high-value target, wasn’t important or famous. Her photo and interview in the local paper was the closest to a claim to fame she had. And people didn’t abduct search and rescue workers in the happy aftermath of a successful rescue.
She thought again about his threatening words, the way he’d implied she was his target. That didn’t have to mean it would happen again. It couldn’t. And what if it wasn’t targeted at all? What if something like human trafficking was at play here? Then the threatening words had just been to frighten her, maybe subdue her into cooperating.
Ignoring the niggle in the back of her mind that said she was being too optimistic, and entirely too creative in her interpretation of what had happened, she tugged the covers up to her chin and called for Willow. The dog trotted easily into the bedroom and jumped with a grace Elsie envied up onto the bed. She settled herself down, her weight comforting to Elsie, who felt her breath ease and steady.
Was she entirely foolish to hope that she would wake up tomorrow to a normal life? And what did it say about her that human trafficking sounded less terrifying than other interpretations of her situation?
She’d rather face something awful like that than have this be related to her past in any way.
Almost without warning, she was cold, cold the way a three-year-old child would be if left in the elements of a rainy Alaskan summer day. She could feel beneath her hands the rock of the jagged ocean-side cliff where she’d taken shelter. Elsie could feel nothing else. No emotions, no sense of abandonment, anger or loss, just...nothing.
She’d seen counselors over the years, several of them because none had ever really stuck, and they’d had different explanations for her sense of emotional nothingness connected to her past. Elsie didn’t need to know why. She didn’t want to dig back into her old life at all.
If this situation required her to...
Wyatt was right—he was one of the last people she would want involved.
All through high school, she’d admired him from a safe distance. It was practically expected that she’d have at least a little bit of a crush on her best friend’s brother. And he’d always been unfairly attractive with his broad shoulders, sandy hair and easy smile. But she didn’t trust him.
Of course, the Wyatt of her memory had been selfish and never would have risked his own safety and comfort to come to her rescue in the middle of the night. Wyatt had done that tonight, so maybe Elsie didn’t know him. But that didn’t put him on the list of people she’d want to rehash her past with.
