a dangerous situation and there would be no way for us to know or to do anything about it because we were holed up in here just waiting.
I was trying to stay calm and keep it together. In all honesty, if I did rush out there and find Sawyer and some sort of danger, I would have had no idea how to help him. I might have even ended up putting him in even more danger because he would have tried to help me.
I had to stay in place. Even if I didn’t want to and wanted somebody there to help him.
The longer that passed, the more anxious I was. But right before I couldn’t take it anymore, the door to the bunkhouse opened. Sawyer appeared on the other side and took a breath before stepping inside. I sagged with relief, feeling like all the tension and fear that had swelled up inside me suddenly rushed out.
When he got closer, I saw that he looked a bit worn out. Maybe even a little bit sad. That wasn’t the expression I was expecting to see.
“What happened?” I asked.
He ran his hand back through his hair and let out a big sigh. “We’ve been having trouble with wolves over the last few months. Colt and I tried to run them off tonight, but they had already gotten to one of the cows.”
Remembering the caring and gentle way he had treated the injured cow, I felt a little bit hopeful.
“Is it going to be all right?” I asked.
Sawyer shook his head, making my heart drop. “She was too badly injured. They had really gotten ahold of her and the damage was too extensive for her to survive. We did the most compassionate and humane thing we could do and put her out of her misery.”
“You killed one of your own cows?” Cecilia asked in horror from where she was still sitting on the bed.
The glare that came from my eyes snapping right to her was so pointed and intense it could have cut through her like a laser.
Sawyer looked up at her and I saw his eyes go hard. “We did what we had to do. It’s just part of being on a ranch. It’s reality. Now everyone get to bed. We all need to go to sleep. We’ll move on in the morning.”
“Just like that?” Uncle Lucien asked.
“Just like that,” Sawyer said and walked out of the bunkhouse.
Colt watched after him for only a second, then made for his bed. It seemed he was perfectly content with letting Sawyer wander off by himself and deal with what they just went through. But I wasn’t. Grabbing my coat and throwing it on over my pajamas, I slipped out into the night.
Sawyer was still walking toward the fire pit, and by the time I caught up with him, he had crouched down in front of it to start the flames up again. That gesture told me that no matter what he said to us, Sawyer had absolutely no intention of going to sleep that night.
I couldn’t really blame him. After what he just went through and saw, I could absolutely understand why he wouldn’t want to try to lie down and rest. The types of images that might show up on the backs of his eyes would be enough to keep me awake. But he was also probably worried. The wolves coming that close to him and Colt, and probably the others on the ranch, wasn’t completely unheard of.
It was something they had dealt with before and they knew how to handle it. But the rest of us were completely out of touch with that sort of challenge. We had no idea how to cope with wolves and would be in extreme danger if we encountered them.
Sawyer would want to keep us safe. Staying out here might help him do that.
I reached down and rested a hand on his shoulder to let him know I was there. He glanced up at me, and after a brief second of confusion, he smiled. The sadness in his eyes was more obvious when I was that close, but it quickly disappeared.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” I said, crouching down with him.
“You should be getting to bed. It’s late. And it’s cold out here.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m fine. You shouldn’t be out here in the late and cold, either. So, we’ll break the rules together.”
It got the little laugh I hoped it would. Anything to help break up the