Page 53 of Wyatt

“If she’s traveling,” Nat said, “she’d do it by train. You have no idea why she’d come here?”

“No.”

“So, we’ll wait for her near the station. Eventually, she’ll come back.”

She made it sound like they might be a couple wolves, stalking their prey. Maybe they were. And who knew how long they’d have to camp out?

But absent any other plan…

He watched as his tea shivered in the glass snugly fit into a metal holder. He’d eaten a hard roll with what might have been raisins inside. What he wouldn’t give for some eggs and crispy bacon—and not the raw version they served in the dining car.

He packed his gear as the train pulled into the station, a long yellow and white building with multiple tracks edging up to platforms. Greeting them in the center of the cobblestone square stood a bronze statue of Lenin. Pigeons scattered as travelers, some with rolling bags, others with duffel bags, moved toward the train.

None of them were Coco.

He hiked his bag onto his shoulder and followed Nat out of the train, across the platform, and into the building.

A light crowd of travelers sat on wooden benches, their bags tucked between their legs. An overhead ticket counter listed prices to various locations. A couple—a man in a leather jacket, a woman with a red plaid dress—sat at one of the round tables in front of a café.

None ofthemwere Coco.

“Let’s go outside, by the door,” Nat said and headed through the station.

They emerged to the other side and scattered more pigeons. Overhead, the sky had turned a bright blue, the sun still peeking over the horizon, the clouds wispy. A beautiful day for late August, the temperature cool enough to warrant his suit coat but with hints of heat. He got a couple looks as people passed him, and he considered that he could probably use a shower, a shave.

The train station overlooked a bus stop, a row of vendors in blue tin-sided kiosks. Nat gestured to one of them. “I’m going to get a chebureki. Want one?”

He hadn’t a clue what that was, but he nodded, his stomach a beast.

She headed out across the street, and he wandered over to the edge of a raised flower garden and sat down.

A bus pulled into the stop across the street and people streamed out, most of them headed toward the station. A woman with a pram strolled by.

Belogorsk had all the makings of a storybook village, no sense of the chaos and rush of the city.

Why Belogorsk?

Coco already had a sort of mystery about her. When she first showed up in Montana at age ten, sporting a Russian accent, she was the town curiosity. His mother had invited her old friend over to the ranch, and Wyatt found Coco in the barn watching the goats.

You can pet one.

She looked at him as those beautiful gray-green eyes widened.Won’t they bite?Only she said it in her accent.Von’t zhey bite?It sort of knocked him over.

“No,” he said and climbed over the fencing to pick up one of the skin and bones baby goats. He held it out to her.

She stared at him, and he reached out and took her hand. “Trust me.”

She considered him a moment before nodding, and he placed her hand on its body, the hair more wiry than soft. Then the goat shivered and bleated, and she yanked her hand away and laughed.

He’d only been twelve, but he was a goner for that laugh. High and sweet and it found his bones and never left.

Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he could still hear it.

Even—

Oh. He jerked, and yeah, laughter, somewhere—it came from ahead of him, across the street.

Just like that, there she was, walking along the cobblestone pathway as if she’d emerged from some side street.