“Sure,” he says dryly. “Could be Santa. But until I see proof otherwise, I’m assuming the man you watched at your window last night is the same one dropping cutesy nicknames in your inbox.”
The base of her spine thrusts against my thigh when she bristles. I rest my hands on the edge of the table instead of where they want to go—on her shoulders, anchoring.
“So what’s the call?” she asks. “We mute him? Let him keep talking? Say nothing? Say something?”
“We close the laptop,” Brady says immediately. “We let state tech boys poke at the logs. You go to Cotton’s and watch Hallmark movies.”
Tallulah makes a noise like he just suggested she eat her own computer.
“I am not going to Cotton’s to mainline meet-cutes while Henry monologues without me,” she says. “Youcalledme, Jack. You asked for Nightjar. You don’t get to put that genie back just because you’re uncomfortable with how dirty the bottle is.”
Brady scrubs a hand over his face and mutters something about smart women being hell on his blood pressure.
“Look,” he says finally. “You’re right. I asked. You helped. But that was years ago. The situation changed when he showed up in person. You’re not just the girl with the sharp brain anymore, Twig. You’re also a target. That changes what I can live with.”
Her voice softens, just a fraction. “I became a target when I agreed to help Shiloh years ago. I was a target when we found the cabin. I was a target when I put my name on that affidavit. This is nothing new.”
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “It is. Before, you were just a line on a list. Now he’s knocking on your glass, calling you special. It looks like he came back specifically for you, Twig.”
She goes quiet. Her weight shifts just enough that she leans more against my leg than away from it.
She probably doesn’t even realize she’s doing it.
I do, though. Her heat sears through my jeans, burning my thigh and causing an uncomfortable pressure inches north of her rounded ass. I’m hard as a fucking steel pipe right now, with nothing I can do to help my situation out.
My fingers twitch with the need to curl them around her hips and pull her back into the vee formed by my legs, tug her tight against me and alleviate some of that pressure, but she’d probably run screaming straight into Henry Thurston’s arms when she got an inkling the effect she has on me—
“If you tell me I’m benched,” Tallulah says, “I’ll do it anyway. Only difference is you’ll know less when I’m done. That doesn’t make either of us safer.”
I groan, closing my eyes against Tally’s curious look.
Cotton nods, already on her side. “She’s not wrong.” Her lips twitch as she looks beyond Tallulah, at me, and I narrow my eyes.
I should argue. I should back Brady, draw a hard line, make them both mad at me and walk out with Twiggy’s laptop under my arm.
What comes out of my mouth instead is, “Then we stop pretending she’s not part of this and start figuring out how to keep her aliveaspart of it.”
Tallulah shifts, her ass brushing against me, and freezes. I wait for her to bolt.
Brady levels a look at me. “You were supposed to be my ally in this conversation.”
She doesn’t bolt. I struggle to focus.
“I am,” I say. “Which is why I’m telling you: if we yank the only control she feels like she has, we’re going to spend the next week chasing her around the internet as well as town. I’d rather have her where I can see her.”
He glares. I stare back. I’ve been glared at by worse.
Finally, he sighs and throws up one hand, shifting his attention to Tallulah. “Fine. Ground rules. You don’t answer him alone. Ever. I want one of us with eyes on it. Me, Kelly, or Brodie. You don’t give him anything about your life he can’t already see in the paper. No schedules. No ‘it’s late, I’m tired, what a long day at the station.’ You do not confirm or deny anything about the investigation, even by implication. You do not get cute.”
“Define ‘cute,’” Tallulah says.
“Anything you think is clever,” he says. “If you find yourself enjoying outsmarting him, log off.”
She jerks her head back, offended on principle.
“Okay,” she says. “Fine. I can live with that.”
“And if you break the rules,” he adds, “I go to a judge and get Nightjar subpoenaed into my evidence locker where nobody—including you—touches it until after trial.”
