My thumb hovered over his name.
For one brief second, I saw his face in my mind—the way he looked at me when he thought I might be threatened.
Then I thought of Victoria’s calm eyes.
I hit call.
23
MICAH
We were just leaving the bakery, boxes stacked in our arms like some kind of absurd care package, when my phone buzzed.
Joy's name lit up the screen.
I answered immediately. "Hey."
"Micah." Her voice was clipped. Tight. Wrong.
Every muscle in my body locked. "What's wrong?"
"Victoria came to the farm."
The world narrowed to a pinpoint.
Not the street. Not my brothers. Not the fucking pastries I was holding.
Just her voice and those four words.
"Are you hurt?" I demanded.
"No. But she?—"
"Stay there."
"I have work?—"
"Joy." My voice went hard. Command, not request. "Stay right there. I'll be there soon."
I ended the call before she could argue.
My brothers were already watching me, their expressions shifting from casual to alert in the space of a heartbeat. Years of training, years of reading a room, a situation, a threat.
They knew.
"We need a car," I said.
Caleb grinned—not humor, strategy. "We've got something better."
Ten minutes later, we were standing in the dugout of the Charleston RiverDogs baseball field, and I was starting to wonder if my brothers had lost their fucking minds.
Then I heard it.
The unmistakablewhup-whup-whupof helicopter rotors.
I looked at Caleb. "You're kidding."
He just grinned wider.
