"I miss him so much."
"Me too."
He reaches across the table and takes my hand. Our fingers intertwine, his scarred and calloused, mine smooth and delicate. We're so different. And yet, in this moment, we're exactly the same. Two people who loved Marcus Harris. Two people trying to find their way without him.
"He would have approved," Max says quietly. "Of us. I didn't believe it before, but I do now."
"What changed?"
"You." He brings my hand to his lips and presses a kiss to my knuckles. "You changed everything."
My heart swells until it feels like it might burst.
"Max."
"I know it's fast. I know we barely know each other as adults. But I feel like I've been waiting my whole life for you, Claire. Like everything that happened, every mission, every scar, every nightmare, led me here. To this moment. To you."
"That's the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me."
"I'm not romantic."
"You're a little romantic."
He scowls, but I can see the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Take it back."
"Never."
He lunges across the table and I shriek with laughter as he pulls me into his lap. His mouth finds mine, and suddenly breakfast is forgotten. Coffee grows cold. Muffins sit untouched.
None of it matters.
Because I'm in Max's arms, in Max's home, building something I never expected to find.
And for the first time in longer than I can remember, I feel like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MAX
Two weeks.
Two weeks of waking up with Claire in my arms. Two weeks of learning the sounds she makes when she comes, the way she steals the covers at night, the habit she has of humming while she makes breakfast. Two weeks of happiness so sharp it scares me.
I should have known it couldn't last.
The bell above my shop door jingles, and I look up from my forge expecting to see Claire. She went to Hilda's for groceries an hour ago, promising to bring back supplies for the dinner she insists on cooking tonight.
Instead, I see a man I've never met.
He's tall. Well dressed in a way that screams money and entitlement. Gray suit, expensive watch, shoes that have no business on the dusty streets of Grizzly Ridge. His hair is silver at the temples, his face hard with the kind of self righteousness I've seen before.
In drill sergeants. In politicians. In men who believe they know what's best for everyone around them.
"Can I help you?" I set down my hammer but don't move from behind the forge. The heat radiates between us like a barrier.
"I'm looking for my stepdaughter." His voice is cold. Controlled. "I believe you know where she is."
Stepdaughter.
