She whispered, “Eric…”
I cupped her cheek, forcing her to look at me. “This ends. Now.”
Her throat bobbed. “I didn’t want you dragged into it.”
“I’m already in it,” I asserted with a certainty I had never felt before.
I pressed my forehead to hers. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
She exhaled against my chest, and it sounded like a mix of surrender and exhaustion all tangled together. I pulled her close.
“You’re staying with me tonight,” I murmured. “No arguments.”
She nodded against my shirt.
As Harmony and I reached the cabin door, movement at the far end of the gravel drive made me freeze. A dark SUV idled just beyond the fence line, the stretch of road only family and orchard workers ever used. A man leaned against the driver-side door.
Noah Tremblay. Watching the cabins. Watching us.
I saw the glint off his sunglasses, a deliberate shine, not an accident. When he realized I’d spotted him, he straightened like he hadn’t been caught, gave a small, too-casual wave, and moved to open his door. Becket stepped down from the porch behind me. He stopped cold.
“What the hell is Tremblay doing here?” Becket muttered.
“Good question,” I said tightly.
Noah climbed into the SUV, like he hadn’t just been lurking near our cabins, and rolled slowly down the drive toward the main road.
Becket’s jaw flexed. “He didn’t check in with Dad. Or with me. No one gives themselves a self-guided tour of Maple Valley. Not even the Community Trust guys.”
“He’s been around town too much lately,” I said quietly. “Hanging around the festival grounds. Asking questions.”
Becket nodded once, clipped. “I’ll talk to Dad. And I’ll make a note of this. He doesn’t get to walk onto our property without clearance.”
Harmony hadn’t seen Noah; she was busy pulling her sweater tighter, trying to thaw her hands. Becket looked at her, then back toward the road where the SUV had disappeared.
“He wasn’t lost,” Becket said. “He was watching.”
My stomach tightened. Noah Tremblay didn’t jog anywhere from here. He didn’t stumble onto our property by accident. He showed up with a purpose. And he left the second he knew the wrong Thorne had noticed him. I didn’t believe in coincidences anymore. And neither did Becket. Harmony stepped inside the cabin the moment I unlocked the door, but she did not move far. She hovered near the small table with her arms wrapped around herself. I closed the door behind us, my pulse still hammering from the sight of Tremblay on our property. Becket stayed outside a moment longer. He swept the tree line with the same focused attention our father taught us. When he finally stepped in, he shut the door and leaned his back against it, as if he were bracing for another blow.
“That was not nothing,” he said quietly.
“No,” I answered. “He was watching us.”
Harmony flinched.
I crossed the room and let my hand glide gently down her arm. “Sunshine, look at me.”
When her eyes lifted, the fear I found there cut straight through me. It was not loud or frantic. It was quiet and settled, the kind that had learned how to live inside someone for years. Seeing it in her made something in my chest pull taut.
Becket pushed off the door. “You want to tell us what is going on? Because Dad is already tense with the break-ins, and now Tremblay is wandering around areas he has no business being in.”
Harmony hesitated for only a moment before nodding. “I’ll tell you everything.”
She sat down. I sat across from her. Becket took the chair beside me. The heater hummed softly, and the orchard wind pressed against the windows like it was trying to find a way in.
“I didn’t just walk away from my father,” Harmony said. “I ran. And he hasn’t let that go.”
She explained the files. The encryption. The quiet accounts. The favors she never agreed to but became responsible for anyway. She spoke about her mother, Rosalie, in a voice that wavered at first and then steadied as if she had tapped into something deep inside herself.
