We’re close enough to hear one another’s breath. The kettle hisses. The old house creaks. He leans in and the air between us snaps.
We don’t rush it. He kisses like someone learning to be careful. His hands are work-hands, sure and warm; they find the small of my back and the line of my jaw. I taste rain and whiskey and something that smells like pledge and promise. My shoulders, tight for so long, drop as if someone picked off invisible lint.
It’s private and necessary and does not erase my hard-won independence. It’s an agreement—scent and touch negotiating language for two people who both fear losing too much. When we pull apart, the house feels different. The night presses close and the quiet holds us like a pact.
But safety has a cost. The social worker’s report sits in a file. The developer’s interest will not evaporate because two people in a farmhouse decide to be careful together.
We leave the diner after midnight. The town sleeps early and dreams in small, cautious rhythms. Neon from a late-night market paints everything in shards of red.
A man in a truck idles at the curb and watches the booth. He watches Ethan and he watches me. I feel the observation crawl under my skin. He doesn’t look local. He has a face like bad timing.
He pushes open the diner door as if by accident and walks toward us. He doesn’t smile. He sits a careful distance away, orders coffee, and then, as though rehearsed, slides a photograph across the counter when Jamie asks to show his wolf drawing to the stranger.
My stomach drops the moment my fingers brush the glossy paper. It’s a shot of Jamie—recent, close enough to see a smudge of syrup at his lip. On the back someone has scrawled: origins? Who’s the mother?
The man leans in. His voice is low and polite. “Where’d he come from?” he asks. “You say he’s your charge. You say that. But who’s the biological? Who’s the paperwork?”
Someone is actively compiling intelligence on us. My throat closes. Ethan’s hand finds the small of my back under the table. His palm is a hot, steady promise.
I smile too brightly and lie.
“He’s mine,” I say. “I’m his caregiver. That’s all you need to know.”
The man’s eyes flick to Ethan. His smile hardens. “You sure?” he says. “Because some folks round here like to know what they’re getting into.”
My fingers tighten on the photograph until it bends. Under the diner’s humming lights, with the county already circling and a developer calling, I feel watched in a way that goes deeper than curiosity. This is targeted.
The man taps the photo again and slides it back across the counter. “Keep your answers straight,” he says. Then he leaves, like a stone skipping off still water, leaving ripples.
I study the glossy print. The surface reflects my face and Ethan’s—both small, both hard. In the margin someone has written a phone number.
A number from a man who didn’t look like a neighbor. A number tied to a stranger who knows more than someone who happens to care.
I tuck the photo into my jacket. The paper feels like a seed: small, dense, waiting to grow trouble.
5
NORA HAYES
Rain came down like someone had ripped up the sky and was wringing it out over the valley. It hit the farmhouse roof in a staccato so hard the windows rattled. Lightning crawled in white veins across the hills, and everything outside blurred into gray. Inside, the house smelled like wet wool and coffee and Ethan Cole’s undercoat—sharp, wild, addicting—and it was all I could do not to lean into it.
Jamie slept on the sofa with the throw pulled to his chin, damp hair stuck to his forehead. Miguel sat at the kitchen table, arms folded, watching the curtain and listening for sounds beyond the wind. Rowan occupied the far chair like a stone, eyes narrowed. The others clustered in small groups, boots and knives and tension. Ethan moved through them like a worn-in coat—calm in a way that made me feel both safe and exposed.
“Perimeter held,” he said without turning. His voice was low, measured—enough to set the pack and the town straight. “No one crosses the line. Stay inside. Keep the child inside. Windows latched.”
“Can’t leave the stock,” Miguel said. His jaw worked. “Fence took the first hit. We lost a?—”
Ethan cut him off with a look that left no room for argument. He’d already thrown on a jacket and his hand was at my elbow before I could blink. His fingers were warm through denim. The contact was practical—steadying—but every part of me knew there was nothing ordinary about the way his scent filled my lungs when he was close. It wasn’t just musk. It was claim and hunger and an ache that hummed in my chest.
“We’ll check at daylight,” he said. “Right now, everyone stays.”
A crash of thunder answered him and the lights dipped. For a heartbeat the house went gray and my skin prickled. I told myself to breathe. I told myself this was shelter. That I was here to work. That I would not be owned by a feeling no more than I’d be owned by a storm.
Ethan’s hand tightened on my elbow and turned me toward the kitchen, to the table with mugs and a single small lantern. He didn’t let go. He set our shoulders so the space between us read as measured and professional, then stepped closer until my arm brushed the pad of his palm.
“You okay?” he asked.
I laughed because I was afraid to say the truth. “I’m fine. Jamie’s fine.”
