I should say no. I should insist on meeting him at the station where I can control my exit, where I won’t be trapped in a vehicle with his scent and his voice and the memory of his hands on my skin.
Instead, I hear myself say, “Fine. Fifteen minutes.”
“I’m already on my way.”
The line goes dead.
I stare at my phone, heart pounding.
Damn.
Main Street is quiet at this hour, most of the shops dark. I pull out of the parking lot and head toward my small home. The roads are empty, streetlights casting pools of orange light on the asphalt. My mind sifts through the charges, already trying to work up a game plan. But it drifts—to the DA filing, to tomorrow’s meetings, to the way Stone’s hand felt on my hip?—
Stop. Just stop.
I turn onto Oak Street, passing the darkened windows of the hardware store, the closed bakery, the little park where kids play on sunny afternoons. Stoneheart is peaceful. Safe. The kind of place where nothing bad ever happens.
Which is probably why I don’t see the headlights until they’re already on top of me.
They come from nowhere—blazing through the Miller Road intersection. They gas through their stop sign as I hit the halfway of the intersection, aiming directly at me. No braking. No attempts to slow down. Just two bright points of light getting bigger and bigger and?—
MOVE—
I yank the wheel, but it’s too late.
Impact.
The world explodes into glass and metal and pain—so much pain, everywhere at once. My body slams sideways, the seatbelt cutting into my chest, my head cracking against hard metal. I hear screaming—is that me?—and the shriek of tearing metal, and then everything is spinning, tumbling, wrong.
I can’t breathe. Can’t see. Can’t feel anything except the fire in my ribs and the warm wetness running down my face.
Stone.
His name surfaces through the pain like a lifeline. Stupid. So stupid. He doesn’t want me, and I’m dying in a crushed Honda thinking about his goddamn eyes.
I never told him?—
Told him what? I don’t even know. Don’t have time to figure it out.
The darkness rushes in, hungry and absolute, and my last coherent thought is almost funny in its absurdity:
Well. This is inconvenient.
Then there is nothing at all.
2
STONE
The party’s still going strong, but I can’t focus on any of it.
Duck’s mayoral announcement has the clubhouse buzzing—brothers slapping him on the back, old ladies already planning campaign strategies, prospects running around refilling drinks like their patches depend on it. After the planning commission victory today, everyone’s riding high. Summit lost. We won. For the first time in months, the future looks bright.
I should be celebrating with them.
Instead, I’m nursing a whiskey at the edge of the room, watching the door like an idiot, when Kya drops onto the stool beside me.
“She’s not coming.” Kya doesn’t bother to specify who. “Texted me an hour ago. Still buried in paperwork.”
