She swiped at her eyes again, shoving her thick brown hair back behind her ears as the wind picked up and blew the strands across her face. “My stuff is back at Hanstech, so let’s stop there first.”

They started for his car, but she veered away from him and toward the viewpoint. He kept pace with her, his hand ready to grab her, steady her, if needed. She stopped at the edge of the canyon and glanced down, a little too close for comfort.

“What are you doing?” He gently took her hand and pulled her back from the edge a few steps.

“I need some space. I need to think.”

He gave her a few moments.

When she finally looked at him, he could see the gears tumbling in her head. She glanced around them. “Let’s get out of here.”

Once they were inside the car and buckled in, he maneuvered around the emergency vehicles and steered over the bumpy unpaved road to the farm road, then connected with the long driveway into Hanstech. The spring storm had blown in cooler air, so he flipped on the heat. At the Hanstech facility, employees spilled out of the buses, some heading back into the building and others directly to their cars. Alex left his cell in the car so he wouldn’t have to hand it off and received a visitor’s badge from the security guard at the front desk so he could accompany Mackenzie into the building. They stopped by her office to get her briefcase containing her laptop, then headed to the lockers near the women’s showers where he waited outside the door while she grabbed her purse and clothes.

They didn’t converse but moved in silence through all the tasks. At the front desk, she retrieved her cell phone. She said nothing as he drove the twenty minutes to Stone Wolf Ranch. He didn’t want to question her or push her for information. She needed space to process the events of this afternoon, but Alex had a feeling she knew something she wasn’t sharing.

What was new?

He switched on the radio, and Paul Simon sang “Kodachrome”—a happy, upbeat song to hopefully lift their moods. But somehow, even Paul Simon wasn’t changing the atmosphere in the car.

Raindrops appeared on the windshield as he turned onto the drive that would take them to Stone Wolf Ranch. Instead of driving toward the main house, he took a small road through the woods to the new cabins in the back.

She shifted in the seat, and he could feel the tension rolling off her. “Where are you taking me?”

She didn’t trust him? “Terra’s grandfather is adding guest cabins in the back for those who have a long drive or come from too far to make the drive in a day. They can stay for a week or more at a time.”