“True words, brother,” Archer said with a nod. “I feel the same way.”
“Me too,” Sawyer said.
“One question.” Wilder gave voice to a niggling idea. “Any chance the fireman who pulled Quinn from the house was Garret King?”
Sawyer blinked. “Yeah. Why?”
Wilder ground his teeth. He’d been thinking about who the arsonist could be for weeks and only one name kept repeating itself. “Because I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.”
“King? He’s an asshole, but that hasn’t changed since we were in elementary school, man. Remember when he ate the fish out of the fish tank in the school lobby?”
Wilder didn’t crack a smile. “Has the ATF given you an arson profile yet?”
Sawyer knit his brows. “Report should be coming in any day.”
“King’s a volunteer firefighter,” Grandma Kane butted in, joining the conversation.
“You think he is responsible?” Archer asked, puzzled. “But why?”
“Hero complex,” Wilder said tightly. “He gets to be a big shot. People buy him drinks at The Dirty Shame. Slap his back when he walks down the street. He likes to impress, always has.”
“There’s a hell of a big difference between being a show-off and putting lives in danger.” Sawyer crossed his arms, staring off in the distance, thinking. “I’m not saying you’re wrong but why target Quinn?”
“He’s pursued her, and he sniffed around her place not long ago, unable to get the memo that she wasn’t into him.”
Sawyer shook his head. “That means he’s a fucking creep, not a potential murderer. Arson is a serious accusation, man.”
“I’ve been at this a long time, brother.” Wilder clenched his jaw. “Where there is smoke, there is always fire. Something with Garret is off. There’s a connection.”
He and Grandma got into Sawyer’s truck while Archer and Edie followed behind. For once, Wilder was glad to have them close. The woman he cared about was in danger.
It didn’t make sense that this would happen. Why would she be targeted? Sawyer was right—arson wasn’t an allegation to be thrown around lightly. But he had a gut-deep certainty King was connected to these fires.
The drive was tense, quiet, and when they got to the Brightwater Hospital, Grandma’s huffy breath puffed out in the cold air as she threw open the door. “Not looking forward to seeing the inside of this place again.”
“That was a long two months,” Edie said, nodding sympathetically. Grandma had been hospitalized from July to September with a broken hip and complications from pneumonia. Since then, she’d scaled back her duties on the ranch but didn’t show any signs of slowing down in the busybody department.
They walked into the emergency room and Wilder pulled up short. There was Trixie Higsby, one of Quinn’s cousins, sitting next to none other than Garret King.
The room vanished in a red haze. Wilder’s hand flexed, clenching into a tight fist.
“Easy, brother,” Sawyer said, resting a hand on Wilder’s elbow. “Even if what you say is true, and I’m not saying it’s not, starting a fight here isn’t going to help Quinn. It’s only going to land your ass in hot water.”
“I’ll handle this,” Grandma snapped, storming over.
“Shit,” Sawyer said. The three brothers stood shoulder to shoulder, powerless in the wake of a crotchety old woman.
“Mrs. Kane,” King said, looking solemn. “News travels fast.”
“I want to see that girl.”
“Family only.” Trixie glanced at Garret under downcast lids, her lower lip giving an attractive tremble. “With her daddy in his bad way, Garret called our house as next-of-kin and I volunteered to come right down.”
“How is she?” Wilder ground out.
“Oh, I haven’t been able to bear going in yet.” Trixie gripped Garret’s bicep as if to absorb his strength. “I get white-coat anxiety. Hospitals make me all kinds of scared.”
“You mean to tell us that you haven’t been back to check on Quinn?” Wilder stormed forward. “Is she . . .” He couldn’t bring himself to say the words flashing red in his brain. Hurt. Scared. Or worse.
She shot Wilder a suspicious look and scooted closer to Garret, practically crawling onto his lap. “The doctor came out about a half hour ago and said she’d be perfectly all right. They were just going to run a bunch of tests.”
Grandma Kane lowered her chin and steam was almost visible from her flaring nostrils. “Trixie Higsby, you get your milksop, pansy butt back there and tell us how our girl is doing.”
Trixie’s mouth opened and closed as if she was in charades and had been assigned the role of “goldfish.”
“I don’t give a fig about your white-coat whatchamacallit. There is a weakness in the Higsby line. Your people might be long-lived, fertile, and loyal, but Quinn is the first one of you that’s shown any real spine or gumption.”
“Now see here, Mrs. Kane.” Trixie pulled a tissue from her sleeve and dabbed her nose. “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh? Oh!” The young woman looked triumphant. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“She doesn’t know,” she repeated to Garret. “It’s hard to see what’s right in front of you sometimes, isn’t it?”
“You fool of a Higsby, spit it out.”
“He’s got some nerve showing up here.”
Wilder glanced around before realizing Trixie’s finger was pointed directly at him.
“Me?”
“Lucky the sheriff is here because this freak should be arrested.”
“On what charges?” Sawyer approached, a muscle twitching in his temple.
“Arson.” Garret stood up, his hands balled into two big fists. “You almost killed an innocent woman tonight, you fucking animal.”
Chapter Eighteen
“CAN I PLEASE go home now? It’s almost three a.m.,” Quinn said to the nurse. “My biggest problem is that I’m exhausted and you’ve sucked me dry with all those needles.”
“Do you have a place to go?”
“Yes. My friend’s house. Boyfriend actually.” When she got to the hospital, she asked Garret to notify Wilder of her whereabouts. He hadn’t been back to see her yet but the nurse had said visitations were restricted to family only.
“Boyfriend?” The nurse looked troubled.
“Wilder Kane.” Saying the words out loud felt a little strange, but it’s what he was for better or worse. In fact, he was a whole heck of a lot more. She wasn’t going steady. He wasn’t a crush. In his grumpy, quiet way he’d stolen her heart and she didn’t ever want it back.
The nurse’s eyes widened. “So you don’t know.”
The warmth ebbed from her chest. “Know what?”
“He was taken to the sheriff’s office. Didn’t anyone call you?”
“My phone was burned in the fire, no one can call me. What happened?”
“Oh my, there was almost a big fight in the emergency waiting room. Sheriff Kane took two men into custody. One was his own brother and the other was the guy who saved you, Garret King.” The nurse paused. “I thought he was your boyfriend, seeing as how you’re so pretty and he’s so handsome. The other one. He’s, well, he’s sort of scary with all those scars and that attitude. Wait, what are you doing? You can’t leave—”
“Says who?” Quinn yanked out her IV and slid from the bed, beelining to her clothes folded on a plastic chair in the corner.
“The doctor hasn’t discharged you.”
“I didn’t suffer a single burn. I might be deaf from the smoke alarm, but it saved my life. The house is the one in trouble.” And all her belongings. She pushed the thought from her mind. Who cared about stuff? Comic book collections and board games meant nothing when Wilder was at the sheriff’s office. What was Sawyer thinking? Obviously Wilder didn’t set the fire. He’d left her house to take his Grandma home after helping her clean up the dinner dishes. She’d taken a mug of rum cider to bed and was playing around on her phone waiting for him to return. Instead, she dozed off and woke to the high-pitched whine of the smoke alarm. When she got to the bedroom door, the knob was hot to the touch.