stomped on the lever, but nothing happened.
She didn’t answer.
Stupid to call her instead of 911, and still he gripped his phone with one hand, while desperately trying to take the curves of the dark road ahead of him. Screeching tires, increasing speed as the road dipped, entire car shuddering.
“Gracie,” he shouted into his phone when her voice mail beep sounded. “I need your help.”
But he couldn’t explain beyond that because he had to drop the phone to grip the steering wheel with both hands. Except that didn’t seem to help. His steering had gone the way of the brakes and now he was careening toward another curve, this time with no hope of doing anything but catapulting over the edge and into a grove of trees.
Paula’s trees.
Gracie chewed her lip as she stared at her phone. Maybe Will had been calling to apologize. Maybe she should have answered.
He was dealing with such complicated emotions and—
Well, no, the problem was he had complex emotions, grief and betrayal, and for two years he’d run away and hermited away from them rather than face them, deal with them, accept them.
And she’d placated and enabled him at every turn. She chewed harder on her lip, staring at the voice mail icon.
“Here. Turn that frown upside down.”
Gracie looked up at Laurel, who had slid a bottle of beer in front of her at her little corner table where she was sitting. By herself.
“Sorry I’m not reveling.”
“Don’t worry. The Carsons are doing enough reveling for all of us,” Laurel said, smiling fondly at the motley crew around them. Delaneys lined the outskirts of the crowd. Most looking a little sour faced, though a few had imbibed enough to mingle with Carsons.
Gracie looked back down at her phone. She should put it away and celebrate her cousin’s engagement. Celebrate the fact the town wasn’t imploding over a Carson and a Delaney getting married.
Yet.
“What’s up, Gracie? It isn’t like you to mope.”
Gracie shook her head, gesturing at the crowd. “It’s so not important. I’ll tell you about it later. Enjoy your night.”
Laurel took a sip from her bottle of beer then glanced around the room, her smile going soft when it landed on her fiancé, Grady Carson. He was laughing with his cousins Noah and Ty behind the bar. They made a handsome, dangerous trio.
Gracie glanced down at her phone again, that obnoxious voice mail icon staring at her.
“So, who’s the guy?”
Gracie’s head jerked to Laurel. “What?”
“I know everyone you know, Gracie,” Laurel said with a smile. “They’re all here. So the only reason you’re staring at your phone and not talking to anyone is...well, a guy.”
Gracie tried to laugh casually, but it came out sounding forced even to her own ears. “There’s no guy.”
“Then what’s with the phone staring?”
“I’m in a deadly battle of Candy Crush.”
Laurel laughed. “Liar.”
“It’s not a guy...per se. I just finally told Will I’d stop...” Gracie shook her head. “This is not engagement party talk.”
Laurel reached across the table and patted Gracie’s arm. Laurel had never been shy about her disapproval of Gracie’s odd relationship with Will. As a sheriff’s deputy, Laurel didn’t take kindly to accusations that the department wasn’t doing its best because the victim had been a Carson, or any of Will’s other accusations over the case.
So, it made Gracie feel silly and small bringing it up, especially at Laurel’s party.
“He’s not my favorite person, but I know you felt a kind of obligation to him, and cutting that off couldn’t have been easy.”
Gracie forced herself to smile. “And something we can discuss tomorrow.”
Laurel nodded. “Fair enough. Just one little piece of advice. Either cut all of it off for good, or accept you’re going to be a part of it. Don’t sit here in a back-and-forth. Make a choice and stick with it. You’ll feel a lot better.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me which choice?”
“You two look far too serious for a party,” Grady said, coming up to them and taking Laurel’s hand in his. “On your feet. You’re going to dance with me.”
“I’m a terrible dancer,” Laurel returned with a laugh, but she let Grady pull her to her feet. She left her beer bottle, grinning as Grady gave her a little spin toward the small throng of people dancing to “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”
But Laurel smiled over her shoulder at Gracie. “You pick the one you can live with,” she called over the crowd and the music.
One she could live with. Gracie frowned. That was the worst advice she’d ever been given. She couldn’t live with either possibility. She had told him she couldn’t help him anymore because she was afraid she was making him worse. She meant that choice, but it didn’t make it easy.
She cared about Will. Had even said it to his face and watched him blanch outside this very bar. As if care was some kind of horrible disease she’d foisted upon him.
You decided to cut him off, so cut him off.
She nodded, willing herself to hit the voice mail button, which she did. Then willing herself to hit Delete without listening to a second. For that act, she paused.
She’d cut him off. He didn’t want a friend. He was allergic to emotion and she was no therapist, so she couldn’t possibly fix him. She couldn’t go after him and make things right because he was too closed off, too obsessed, too...
She hit Play, then berated herself. She wasn’t going to listen. She was not going to listen or get dragged into helping him with things that weren’t any good for him.
“Gracie.”
Oh hell, she had to listen.
“I need your help.” Said in a breathless, gritty voice, as if he was straining against something. Some horrible screeching noise went on in the background, so loud she could barely hear his voice over it.
“Laurel,” she yelled, already on her feet, already heading for the door. “Who’s on duty at county?”
* * *
WILL THOUGHT HE heard sirens. Which was weird. He couldn’t hear sirens in his
