“If you need more bodies, you say so,” he adds. “I can get you two more men by tomorrow. I know you like playing lone wolf, but this isn’t the job.”
“More men spook the town and make Tallulah feel like she’s under arrest,” I say. “We’re better off invisible where we can be.”
“For now,” he agrees. “Keep me posted. And Kelly?”
“Yeah.”
“Hands to yourself,” he says. “Don’t make me come down there.”
The call clicks off. The laptop screen goes dark, my reflection ghosted in it—eyes shadowed, mouth a tight line.
How attached are you?
Too much to walk away.
Not enough to be allowed to touch her.
IfindTallulahinthe kitchen with Cotton and Saoirse. There’s flour everywhere.
I mean that literally. It’s on the island, the floor, Tallulah’s hoodie, in Cotton’s hair. Saoirse has a streak across her nose like war paint and is wielding a cookie cutter like a weapon.
“What in the name of all the saints exploded in here?”
“We’re making sugar cookies,” Cotton says. “Duh.”
“It’s pretty obvious,” Tallulah agrees, elbow-deep in dough. “Flour, sugar…child. But I do think we deviated a little from the recipe. It said ‘lightly flour the surface,’ not ‘summon a blizzard.’”
Saoirse grins up at her. “I’m helping.”
“You are,” Tallulah says. “You’re my chaos goblin.”
The warmth in her voice does something to my chest I don’t have a name for.
She glances up, and her smile shifts, grows smaller, sharper. It hits like a punch.
“Hey,” she says. “You survive whatever Kael just served you?”
“More or less,” I say.
She studies my face like she’s reading a code, fingers still working the dough. Cotton’s gaze flicks between us once, quick and knowing.
“Gentry,” I say, before I can overthink it. “Can I talk to you? Alone.”
Cotton’s brows lift, just a fraction. Saoirse is too busy stabbing the dough to notice.
Tallulah stills. Her hands are white to the wrists. “I get the surname treatment. This sounds ominous,” she says lightly.
I shake my head, just a fraction, but it’s enough to let her know that I’m not joking. I can’t joke.
She wipes her hands on a towel, dusts flour off her hoodie. “Don’t burn anything down while I’m gone,” she tells Cotton.
“I make no promises,” Cotton says. As I step back from the doorway, she adds, “Put a sock on the doorknob if you need to, Gallagher.”
“It’s not that kind of talk,” I mutter.
“Uh-huh,” she says, unconvinced.
I lead Tallulah down the hall to a quieter stretch, past the mudroom, stopping in a little alcove between the back stairs and the side door. No portraits. No windows. Just a piece of wall and a bench and enough privacy to make this worse.
