He moved away first, toward the bunkhouse, but then swung back with the note held high in his hand. “What the hell is a spark plug dispenser doing in the Ladies?”
“It’s what the trainers call the tampon dispenser.”
Kye shook his head before sending another serious assessing glance her way. She felt him weighing and cataloging everything about her, as if she were a map he was only going to get one chance to memorize. “Are you okay?”
“As always.”
He stared a little longer, then turned away.
Yardley stared after him. He moved with an easy loose-hipped stride that was both liquid-smooth and ultra-masculine. It felt like a mistake, letting him go. But what else could she do?
She rushed back into the house and into the kitchen and snatched up her phone. It took what seemed forever to power on. And then she was staring at the main screen.
NO MESSAGES.
She blinked. Pushed the MESSAGE button again. Blank.
A chill splashed through her. A space hollowed out in her middle. The air suddenly seemed too thin.
She’d been so sure, so positively certain she would be the person David contacted when he got the chance.
She started typing a message on her phone but then paused. Just because she and the FBI thought she would be David’s primary contact didn’t mean that was true. Whatever he was into had nothing directly to do with her. The last she’d heard, he was overseas. Her mistake to think he’d turned to her in his time of need?
She put the phone down. Only time would tell.
CHAPTER NINE
An hour after she had plunked herself down before her computer to pay some bills and calculate expected income for the coming year, Yardley heard the sound of Kye’s SUV come to life. She went to the window and wondered why he was driving away without a word. When he had swung the vehicle around in an arc, she could see that Lily was in her crate in the backseat.
She sprinted for the door but by the time she got it open, the SUV had moved through the gates—when had he reopened them?—and onto the road. Her stomach lurched. He’d said he’d needed time to think. But he’d also promised he wouldn’t leave her. Where was he going?
She gazed up at the late-afternoon sky, trying hard not to feel any way about what had just occurred, but failing miserably. He had probably had time to realize she wasn’t treating him very well. Maybe he’d decided he’d had enough and just left. But that didn’t seem like Kye. He was the most direct and honest person she’d ever known. He’d have marched in here and said Screw you to her face before he left.
Her gaze refocused. Thick gray clouds with faint purplish undersides rimmed the northern horizon. The turn in the weather due by nightfall was on its way in.
Yardley moved back into the house. Oleg was curled up inside his crate dozing, even though the door stood open. No music, no TV, no other sounds. Her life was back to normal. She was alone. She felt … empty.
The day was quickly getting away from her. Not that it mattered. As New Year’s Days went, this one wasn’t worth holding on to. In fact, the sight of the spreadsheet she’d been sitting in front of made her shake her head. She ran an empire, a small one. But she ran it all alone, which meant every decision was hers, from what feed to buy to which breeder to buy from, how best to feed and house their handlers, and what cleaning products were safe. Exhausting. Her life nibbled away at by a thousand tiny pecks.
She turned from her computer. She didn’t feel like being productive anymore. She counted off the reasons. They were good reasons, too. Too much champagne the night before. Too many unpleasant surprises, starting with the obscene Christmas card.
The raw edginess of earlier in the day had given way to a dragging tiredness that felt like being harnessed to a tractor tire. But absolutely none of that had anything directly to do with the man who’d driven away.
And yet, he was all she could think about. When, if, Kye came back, she’d be nicer, more available. He said they needed to talk. They’d talk.
She rubbed her forehead, wondering why even eating felt like too much of a burden. What she wanted most at the moment was for this lousy holiday season to be over with. Once she was back to work, surrounded by the men and woman who looked to her for every major decision, she wouldn’t have time to think about anything else. She excelled at solving others’ problems. She just stank at handling her own.
She wandered into her bedroom and slipped into bed without really thinking about it. She’d take a nap. Just a nap.
Oleg followed her in and curled up by the door, joining his handler in sleep.
*
Wind shoved the house, hard. The scraping sounds of things being rearranged beyond the walls of the house woke her as the room filled briefly with brilliant jagged light.