He sighed.He wanted to be resentful she was essentially putting pressure on him to do it.But he knew she wasn’t… being manipulative.Someone had come to her for help, and she wanted to help.
That was who she was.And no matter what shitty thoughts her aunt had put in her head, it was agoodperson who wanted to help.Who cared about the truth.
“Thanks, Sam.”
She shrugged, held out his keys for him to take.But he didn’t just take the keys, he wrapped his fingers around hers.He gave her hand a squeeze.Then ran his thumb across her knuckles before he’d fully thought the gesture through.
But it was a totally friendly gesture.
And maybe he was watching a little too intently to see how that friendly gesture was received.
She left her gaze on their hands for a few seconds.She didn’t pull away.Didn’tdoanything.
Neither of them everdidanything.
“Since I’m already coming by in the morning, let’s just skip getting your truck,” she said, her hand still in his.“I’ll give you both a ride to the courthouse.United fronts and all that.We’ll get everyone’s vehicles sorted after.”
He didn’t want to make her feel like he was trying to get rid of her, because God knew it wasn’t that.He just… didn’t want her putting herself out for… well, him.“You really going to keep Honor’s Edge closed for the whole trial?”
“Notclosedclosed, but the offices don’t need to be open.Unless something comes up.I need to be at that trial too, Nate.”She made sure that was said firmly.“It matters to me.”
He supposed sometimes it was a little too easy to forget that.Since Benjamin wasn’t her father.His mother wasn’t hers.She didn’t have all the Bennet bullshit running through her veins.It seemed she was separate sometimes, or he let himself think that anyway.
But her life for fifteen years had been trying to prove this very outcome.It mattered to her in a deep, important way, even if she wasn’t a Bennet.
So, he went with instinct—an instinct he probably would have avoided if he hadn’t had that final drink at Cal’s insistence.He used the hand he was holding to pull her closer, then leaned down—because no matter how she exuded all that strength and confidence she was a tiny thing—and wrapped her into a hug.
It was a friendly hug.Nothing… sexual about it.Just two friends in the middle of a shitty year…huggingon a cold, dark night.A little beacon of warmth here in all this frozen.Because they were in the middle of some kind of shared trauma, and that was all a person could do sometimes.Hold on to the warmth.
Maybe sliding his hand down her spine was a little… more than necessary, but she didn’t stiffen or flinch.
If anything, she sighed.But she also pulled herself back on that sigh.Gently.Aneasing.
“Night,” she said, taking a step back without breaking eye contact, leaving the keys in his hand as the only point of warmth on his body now.
“Night,” he replied, not making a move to do anything but stand there.
For a moment, that was it.They both stood there, in one of those staring moments even an extra drink couldn’t convince him was something tohandle.
Then she turned away and walked to her car, and he let out a long, slow breath.He’d taken a few steps before he’d realized it, then stopped himself.And watched her drive away.
“Don’t know why you’ve got to be soLandonabout it.”
Nate slowly turned to Cal lounging in the doorway.
Everything inside of him was tied tight and tense and even the alcohol he’d ingested couldn’t smooth that out.Still, there was enough soldier still in him to sound blank.Toappearblank.“About what?”Even though he knew about what.
“Her.”
“I’m not following,” Nate said, brushing past Cal into the warmth of the cabin.
“Yes, you are.”
But he wasn’t about to address that with his big brother, so he just walked to his bedroom to get ready for bed.
He wasn’t being Landon aboutanything.
He was just being… smart.
