Page 62 of Wag More Bark Less

He winked. “I do my best.”

I followed him back to the checkout counter. Despite Ellie staying at my heel, she still managed to pilfer a pair of socks before I handed over my debit card. One perk of Luanne hijacking the wedding finances was that Ellie’s sock fund was practically bottomless. I’d buy Ellie ten thousand pairs of socks before I sent that woman a dime.

Joe packed my purchases into a paper bag, refusing to let me pay for the bag of trail mix he included.

“We’ll call it putting up with my son tax. Plus, you’ll need the fuel for that final stretch,” he insisted.

“That tax might bankrupt you,” I teased, accepting the bag.

Joe laughed. “There’s a soft gooey center in him somewhere. I just hope you don’t lose your patience trying to find it.”

TWENTY-THREE

LUKE

I tossed another unsalted peanut down the sidewalk, and the crow pounced on it. I hadn’t intended to feed the birds when I stopped by the Grizzly Grocer first thing this morning. I ran into Dana Wilcox while picking up takeout yesterday, and she kindly reminded me I owed her a new jar of peanuts.

Because I was the first one to show up at the Legion Hall, I decided to make a quick detour. A few blocks of walking might clear my head, and also get Mrs. Wilcox off my back. But the shortest route from the Legion Hall to her house went right past the church.

The same church I hadn’t stepped inside of for the better part of three years. I avoided driving by the place unless I was on duty. And even then, I refused to do more than give it a quick glance before I turned the corner.

Clearly I wasn’t in my right mind, or I’d have taken any other route.

Or maybe, I went this way on purpose.

The crow cawed at me, like a dog that’d waited long enough for the next handout. It was a wonder I didn’t attract a few of his friends. Because I wasn’t in a hurry—and I clearly wasn’t delivering an open jar of unsalted peanuts—I tossed the bird another and sat back.

I stared at the log and stone structure across the street for what might’ve been minutes or hours, still trying to piece together the moment everything went wrong.

“When Frank Mercer said he spotted you on a bench by the church, I told him he needed new glasses.”

Connor walked up to me, handed over a to-go coffee, and dropped onto the bench beside me. I wanted to be annoyed, but I couldn’t muster the energy for it.

We sat in silence for a stretch, Connor leisurely sipping his coffee, and me tossing peanuts to the crow. Hell, maybe it was the same bird that crashed through Mrs. Wilcox’s window the other day and caused me to be late meeting Maggie at the duplex. Unlikely, but a lot of unlikely things had been happening since Miss Mayhem arrived in town.

“Did you see her leave?” I finally asked Connor.

He followed my gaze across the street, and he just knew. “No.”

“How did she get out of that church without being seen?”

Raquel wasn’t a Bluebell Springs native. I met her while in the service, and when I told her I was separating and moving home rather than reenlisting and accepting orders to Wheeler Army Airfield, I expected her to break up with me. Instead, she insisted she wanted to move to Colorado with me, so I proposed. Within weeks, she’d charmed the whole damn town. Everyone knew her. Everyone recognized her. And yet, she somehow snuck out of a crowded church without anyone the wiser.

“If someone saw her, they would’ve told you by now,” Connor said.

“Well, someone did see her.”

One of my groomsmen, a buddy I served with during my first tour in Afghanistan, drove the getaway car. Or so we reasoned, since he also went missing around the same time. He’d conveniently checked out of his hotel room a day ahead of schedule and gassed up his car on the way to the church. Just another piece of evidence that pointed to Raquel’s escape being premeditated.

“You trying to find her or something?”

“No,” I said, meaning it. “She clearly didn’t want a life in Bluebell Springs.” A life with me.

It wasn’t cold feet that sent her on the run, it was some desperate desire for a whole new life I couldn’t give her. Or so her note said.

“Then, why have you been sitting outside this church for the better part of two hours?”

“Two hours?”