“No, it’s not.” How could he make her understand? “You belong here, Syd.” You belong with me. “You can’t just leave like this. Not without saying goodbye.”

“Can’t you see that’s what I’m trying to do now?”

“I’m not the only one who cares about you.” He closed the distance between them, desperation clouding his voice into a mere hush. “Please. At least, don’t leave before Sunday. Don’t leave before we know Maggie’s going to be okay. Before you’ve seen her.”

He’d backed her into an emotional corner, he knew it. She knew it, too. Her shoulders dropped and she nodded.

And then left him standing there—more bereft than he’d known was possible.

“Neil?”

Officer Tompkins stood in the spot Sydney had just vacated. Why? Couldn’t he have just one minute to think? Just to breathe? Not that his ragged breaths were doing any good, not with his lungs so taut and his heart too close to breaking. Sydney . . . Maggie . . .

“This will only take a second,” Tompkins said, opening his notebook. “There’s just a few details—”

“I wasn’t even here.”

“I want to make sure accounts are matching up. That nothing is missing. That this was a one-time incident—”

He jerked. “The treehouse.”

Tompkins looked up from his notebook. “Say again?”

“There’s a treehouse. Far west field. Someone was in there tonight. I think they were looking for something.” Could it have been Micah? But why would he have looked for the ring there? And why couldn’t he bring himself to care?

“Huh. Neither of the men said anything about that.”

He took Wilder’s car keys from his pocket. He needed to get back to the hospital. He needed . . .

He didn’t know what he needed anymore.

Sydney lowered into the chair beside Maggie’s hospital bed, the quiet of the room, a hovering stillness, tugging on the fatigue that clung to her after a nearly sleepless night.

Maggie wasn’t expected to awaken for another couple of hours, at least. It was why Neil and the girls had finally returned to the house earlier this morning.

It was why Sydney had slipped away. Finally made herself come to the hospital, walk into this room, face the woman who’d come to mean the world to her.

Who was going to be okay. At least, that’s what Neil had said when he’d texted in the middle of the night after Maggie had made it through her emergency surgery. It’s what a nurse had confirmed when she’d spoken to her minutes ago.

“Dr. Lakeman expects a full recovery. Might be a few weeks before she’s up for a long walk on the beach, but she’s one strong lady.”

Strong. Yes. That was Maggie—even as she lay here, pale and unconscious, white hair billowing behind her head, blending into the bedsheets. Every day that Sydney had spent at Muir Farm, Maggie had shown her what true strength looked like.