She read on from the passage, turning pages with care. If Carson announced they were staying in these chairs all night long, letting Felicity read every book in her shop, Gabe wouldn’t complain.
He noticed more things about her now that he let himself look. The way she braced the book with one hand and turned pages with the other. The concentration in her brow when shehit a phrase she liked. How she found individual men in the crowd when she read a certain line, checking their faces to make sure they were still enjoying the reading.
The way her hair hung in a loose cascade to the tops of her breasts and a strand near her temple seemed to whirl in a direction of its own.
While he looked on, she reached up to smooth the lock as if she felt him noticing. She finished the passage with the image of the spring running on, season after season, while people came and went from the mountain.
Then she closed the book gently with her thumb tucked in to mark the place. “We’ll pick up there next week. Unless you all demand a car chase.”
“Water’s fine,” one of the vets near the front grumbled, and the room chuckled.
Gabe didn’t laugh. Not because it wasn’t funny, but because his mind had gone sideways. Away from the valley and the spring and back to the shop.
To the back door with its improved lock. The new cameras installed. The way the glass looked, glittering on the floor. And the expression she’d worn when she realized someone had gone through her things not for money but to wreck it.
Darkness pressed at the edges of his thoughts, old battles trying to replay themselves in a new setting.
He dug his fingertips into his knee under the table to pull himself out of it.
No. Not now. Not here.
A burst of laughter to his left pulled him back fully. People were standing, pushing in chairs. Someone called out from the doorway that the bonfire was going.
He waited for a beat to see what Felicity was doing. When she met Honor at the exit and headed out with the others, he followed the flow too.
Bonfires were important around here. What began as a place to sit and watch the flames dance while dealing with his haunted thoughts had morphed into a cozy gathering he looked forward to attending.
The scent of woodsmoke carried on the air, and the flames blazed bright in a circle of stones. The Malone ladies were already there, as if the ritual made them feel closer to the men in their lives away on some security detail.
Honor laughed, and Willow made a comment that made a couple of men snort. Aspen and Rhae chatted together while Juliette cradled a sleeping Navy in her lap, bundled against the chill of the spring night so only her little round face was visible.
He drifted to the far side of the fire where he could see everyone without being in the center. He wasn’t ready to answer questions about his reason for returning to the Black Heart—hell, he didn’t know himself.
Felicity stood a little off to one side, talking to one of the older vets. Someone loaned her a thick coat that hung almost to her knees, swallowing her frame. She smiled gently at whatever the vet said, and he could see her visibly relaxing as the flames shot higher into the air.
This—laughter and the crackle of burning wood—was the best medicine, and it seemed to be helping her too.
He listened to Carson speaking to Crew, a discussion about the ranch operations.
When he caught movement from the corner of his eye, he turned his head to see Felicity staring down at her phone, her lips flattened.
Before he thought about it, he crossed the distance between them. “What’s wrong?” He kept his tone low but even.
She looked up in surprise. “I just got a notification from the security camera at my house. Person detected.”
“Can I see?”
She angled the phone so he could see. “Gray set up a ton of security for us when Honor’s ex was lurking around. It’s probably just the postman.”
“Not at this hour.” The pleasant glow the fire burned into his nerves vanished in an instant, replaced by alertness and a level of suspicion blazed into him from years in the military. “Someone’s trying to break in.”
Her face paled. “It could be nothing.”
Carson appeared at his elbow. “Talk to me.”
Felicity showed him the screen. The frozen image from the doorbell camera displayed a blurred shape at her front door. Hood up. No package in hand.
She lifted the phone a little closer to her mouth. “You’re on camera.” Her voice was clear and firm. “The police have been alerted. They’re on their way.”
