“Paul failed?”
“You would be correct.” Jason’s tone was icy. “When I find her, she’ll answer for this.” His words were quiet but precise—the kind of threat that lingers. She thought she could escape.
But Jason West always got what he wanted, and he would crush anyone to remind her.
Chapter 24
Ghosts
Burke
The fire on the back deck snapped and popped, sending a steady glow through the cabin windows. Burke straightened the table, smoothed the edge of the placemat, then chuckled at himself. He wasn’t the kind of man who fussed over details, but tonight felt different. He’d thought about her all day. Hell, he’d been thinking about her since the moment she kissed him on the courthouse steps two nights ago. He could feel the brush of her lips, the way her hand had trembled against his arm before she leaned in. It wasn’t the kiss itself that undid him—it was everything it lit inside him.
Burke Scott had kissed plenty of women—easy flings that filled the quiet—but none had gone deeper than skin. Company, not connection. That kiss had struck something he hadn’t felt in years—maybe ever. A hunger, yes, but also something softer, more dangerous. He wanted her. Not just her touch, not just her beauty. He wanted her laughter, her trust—the pieces she kept hidden behind those guarded eyes.
And she was hiding things. He knew it. He didn’t know what shadows haunted her, but he could feel the weight of them everytime she pulled back, every time her gaze shuttered for just a second too long. A younger version of himself might have run. It only made him want to stand between her and whatever she feared.
Protective. That was the word. Strange, foreign, but true. He shook his head, a half-smile tugging at his mouth. Burke Scott had spent years keeping his guard up, yet he was falling for a woman with secrets—and somehow, she felt like the most honest thing he’d ever known.
He glanced at the clock. She’d be here soon. And as he waited, his mind drifted—unbidden—to the night that had changed everything between them.
Two nights earlier, she had climbed the steep hill toward the courthouse, the lamps along Main Street glowing below like a scatter of gold. Burke had asked her to meet him there, had called it “a piece of Sylva you ought to see.” He hadn’t been sure if she would come, but when her silhouette appeared at the base of the 104 steps, something inside him eased.
He had waited at the top, hat in hand, the old brick building rising behind him like a sentinel. Briefly, he wondered if she saw what he saw—that somehow, someway, he belonged here. That the town, the history, the weight of his father’s badge stitched him into its fabric whether he wanted it or not.
The courthouse clock chimed eight as she climbed the last of the stone steps. From this height, Sylva stretched out beneath them—Main Street lit with amber lamplight, the Blue Ridge Mountains looming dark and endless beyond.
He had stood near the top, leaning against one of the old brick pillars. When her eyes found him, something shifted inside him.
“You’re late,” he’d said, though the grin tugging at his mouth softened the words.
“I had to see what the fuss was about.” She’d turned, gazing back down the steps. “This view is worth every step I nearly lost.”
He chuckled. “My dad used to say these steps separated the locals from the tourists. The locals know you take ’em slow.”
“Your dad?” she asked.
Burke nodded, his gaze drifting to the courthouse dome. “Burton Scott. He wore this badge before me. Sheriff of Jackson County for over twenty years. Fair. Hard when he had to be, but fair. People stop me on the street to tell me what he did for them. I don’t figure I’ll ever fill those boots.”
When she told him softly, “I think you already have,” the words had struck him deeper than she could have known.
They’d sat together on the broad steps, the night air cool against their faces. The courthouse bell tolled again, echoing across the town like a memory.
“Somebody once told me life’s too short not to take the joy you can,” his voice had softened. “Her advice sticks more now than it ever did when I was a boy.”
“She sounds wise.”
“She is,” he replied, leaving it at that.
He could feel her next to him, small but steady, and when he looked at her out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw the weight of something unsaid dragging at her shoulders. Secrets. Always secrets. He hadn’t pushed. Instead, he turned, catching her eyes as if he could read the war inside her.
“You’re quiet.”
“I’m just thinking,” she’d said, her smile trembling at the edges.
“About what?”
She’d hesitated, and then the words had slipped out—words that cut right through him. “About how sometimes the hardest thing is letting yourself believe you deserve to be happy.”
