Page 24 of Defiant Hearts

Him included.

He cleared his throat, sifting carefully through words and rejecting any that placed the blame of her disappearance on her. Because it was evident that Whitley Newman wasn’t the type of person to vanish from her life and leave a trail of worried people behind her.

“How much trouble are you in?” he asked at last. “What would make someone run from everything, alone, into the wilderness in the snow?”

She was quiet long enough that he started to think she might not answer at all. She picked at the edge of the blanket, and he watched the decision hit her eyes before she spoke again.

“It’s not what I did.” Her hands twisted in the blanket, knuckles going translucent with paleness. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

An invisible cord yanked inside his chest. He waited, but she didn’t offer more.

Her expression flipped through several emotions as she visibly worked through how much she could say without saying anything at all. Each calculation played out openly on her face, showing him that she hadn’t mastered hiding everything.

He watched her, suddenly aching to jump in and make it easier on her. It surprised him.

At last, she blew out a breath. “I have trust issues.”

“Obviously.” He almost smiled despite the weight of the matter. “And understandably, from the sound of it.”

A short, surprised laugh escaped her—one breath and then it was gone as fast as it arrived. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, eyes registering surprise at the sound she’d made.

“Sorry. I didn’t expect kindness in an interrogation.”

“It’s not an interrogation.” He held up the phone, showing the app still open on the screen. “It’s a search engine reading me the results and a bad bedside manner.”

The corner of her mouth twitched.

There. He’d almost gotten another almost smile.

Wyatt lowered the phone to his thigh. “You don’t have to tell me everything.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That’s not what your friend said.”

“Carson isn’t my friend.”

That earned him a longer look. “You let people who aren’t your friends pull my fingerprints?”

“It’s complicated. But in this case, he’s calling the shots.”

“That’s worse.”

This time Wyatt smiled.

She stared at him like his expression had caught her off guard too. For the first time since he’d carried her into the therapy lodge infirmary, some of the tension left her face.

It didn’t last.

Her gaze dropped to the phone in his hand. “Who else knows?”

The question came quietly.

“That you’re here?”

She nodded.

“Carson. Gabe. Hitchcock. Me.”

“And the police?”