Page 63 of Runaway for the Grumpy Daddy

"I'm not—"

"Don't."

Cash stopped. His mother's green eyes found mine, furious and scared. I gave him one shake of my head.

Not here. Not like this. No more material.

Hutchins took the cuffs from his belt. "Turn around, please."

I did.

The calving barn stretched in front of me: amber lamps, straw dust, wet black noses over panel gates. The office cot where Josie had slept during the hard nights. Dad's writing on the board. Everything I was supposed to keep running with weather forty hours out.

I put my hands behind my back.

Hutchins fitted steel around my wrists carefully. Two fingers under each band. Double-locked so they wouldn't tighten.

Josie made that sound again.

I looked over my shoulder at Wyatt. "Generator regulator's on the office shelf. If voltage drops, kill the main before you switch it. Don't run the lamps while Cash installs."

Wyatt stared at me.

"Boone."

"Feed's staged four days. South shelter needs another half bale."

"Boone, stop."

"Storm won't."

That ended it.

Hutchins took my arm. Not gripping. Guiding.

I turned to Josie. She stood in the aisle with both hands over her mouth, tears running freely beneath them. Every instinct in me went toward her, and the cuffs allowed six inches.

"Little one."

Her hands came down. "I'm sorry. Daddy, I'm so sorry, I should've—"

"No." The word filled the barn without being loud. "You told the truth. Good girl."

She folded at the middle like praise was the cruelest thing I could have given her.

I couldn't touch her. That was the first part of the arrest that felt real. She was three feet away and coming apart, and my hands belonged to the county.

"Look at me."

She did.

"You did right."

"But—"

"You did right. Wyatt handles this. You stay with him. You don't answer Derek. You don't go anywhere alone."

She nodded too fast.