Before the guys notice.
Before she notices too much.
Before she sees the truth burning in me:
She’s mine.
Even if she never wants to be.
Even if she never was.
Even if we’re a decade too late.
Right now isn’t the moment.
She’s been through hell.
She deserves gentleness, joy, something light.
Not a man made of smoke and regret.
So I swallow every reckless impulse and pick up a new fork.
I focus on breathing.
On eating.
On pretending I’m not two seconds away from breaking every rule I’ve ever lived by to take back the girl I lost.
But then she smiles at me.
Not at Torres.
Not at the room.
At me.
And that one small smile?
It’s enough to tell me this slow, burning, torturous thing between us?—
It’s not one-sided.
It never was.
And it sure as hell isn’t dying anytime soon.
Chapter Six
Savannah
Later that night the rental cabin creaks—old bones complaining, old wood flexing. I don’t mind it. The sound is honest. Mountain wind presses its cold face against my window, and the Phantom River chatters a low, steady secret behind the trees. I flip through incident notes at my tiny kitchen table, a mug cooling beside me, the lamp throwing a warm halo across the page.
My porch light flickers. Twice. Then steadies.
I glance up in time to catch headlights sliding along the snowbank at the end of my drive. A black truck glides past. Slow enough to count the bolts on my mailbox. Slow enough to know the driver isn’t in any hurry.
My heart gives an undisciplined thud.
