Chapter 59

59

Dixie was doing her innkeeper duty and grabbing a rogue luggage rack someone had so helpfully left in the parking lot before she headed over to Shane’s to watch his beautiful but slightly diabolical children. The cart had rolled almost to the edge of the far parking lot—the family lot. The family lot was off to the side of the main lot and wrapped around the side of the family wing at a slight slope.

Dixie stepped into the family lot and then stopped.

Dylan’s car was still there.

Dylan had left half an hour ago. She’d told Dixie all about plans to make dinner for the men helping Fletcher unload those precious drones of hers. Dylan was forever going on and on about what the software could do. She’d been playing with it, had even brought the laptop with it loaded to show them all.

She’d put tiny sensors in potted plants in the lobby when she’d arrived tonight and then had ordered Dorie to “fly” a drone prototype no bigger than a cell phone around the room several hours later so that Dylan could get readings on the plant’s soil composition at different distances.

Dylan had been thrilled when it had worked exactly as she’d wanted it to.

Even their father had been excited. It was the first time Dixie had ever heard him show any enthusiasm for what Dylan was doing with Fletcher and those companies out of Texas and St. Louis now at all.

It probably had something to do with Dylan enrolling in another class. Her father was big on Dylan getting that business degree. Even if Dylan now planned to finish out her remaining credits with ranch management and agronomy classes instead of investment classes like he’d originally demanded. Dylan was going to finish her degree. Her father was thrilled with that.

Or maybe it was that the people out of Texas were going to pay Dylan to work with them that had convinced their father to behave himself.

Or maybe he just genuinely wanted Dylan to be happy? How the hell should Dixie know?

Dixie had so many mixed feelings where her father was concerned. She probably always would.

She rolled the luggage cart back to the rear door of the inn. It would need to dry out a little under the portico before it was used again. She made a mental note to have some of the staff polish all the carts again—they got so slushy and fingerprinted during the colder, wetter months. That was not the look the Talley Inn wanted to convey.

Then she headed to the sidewalk that would lead to the long drive. That would then lead to the road. She was going to walk the rest of the way to Shane’s.

Shane .

He was becoming a problem. She was going to have to figure out how to deal with that man eventually. But she didn’t want to think about him now.

She passed in front of Devaney’s little two-door she’d been so proud to buy all by herself and then so irritated when it had started acting up a week later. There was Dylan’s. She must have gotten waylaid inside.

Dixie kept walking.

Then she saw something on the ground. Right next to Dylan’s car.

She stepped closer.

That’s when she realized—Dylan’s door was wide open. She’d missed it before—the light in Dylan’s interior hadn’t worked right for years. She’d told Dixie before that it gave her car character. Like three-foot Band-Aid decals over body damage to the exterior weren’t enough for character …

Dylan needed a new car. No denying that.

Dixie stepped closer. There was no reason her sister’s door should be open unless Dylan had run back inside and just hadn’t realized the door wasn’t shut all the way.

Dixie froze when she saw something lying in the lot right next to that door. She recognized it immediately.

It was a Wonkus McBubbles hat. Quade had given it to Dylan right in front of Dixie just a few days ago. Her sister collected everything Wonkus she could find, and Quade was a steady supply of new merchandise. No surprise there.

But it was Dylan’s keys on the ground that terrified her the most.

“Dylan? Dylan!” Dixie yelled her sister’s name as she searched the area around the car as fast as she could.

Then ran back inside.

Something was wrong.

Where was her sister?