“I have worse ones.”
“Please don’t,” she chuckles.
I smile then. None of this is funny, but if I don’t thread humor through it, the weight of it will simply be too much.
She watches me like she’s starting to understand that. “You’re doing that thing again,” she says.
“What thing?”
“Making all of this lighter.”
I shrug a shoulder. “Itislighter.”
She arches a brow.
“Structurally,” I clarify. “Two bones versus an entire body is measurable progress.”
“That is the least romantic thing anyone has ever said to me after sex,” she grumbles, rearing my head back playfully.
“Wow. Tough crowd.”
She can’t even help it this time, a real laugh spilling out of her before she can stop it, and I find myself reeling her in out of instinct.
“We’re okay,” I tell her confidently. “It’s working. No one’s coming. Nothing ties back to you.”
“To us,” she corrects me, her tone softer and more thoughtful.
The words hang there.
To us.
I hold her gaze a second longer than necessary and tuck a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “To us,” I agree.
Outside, the trees move with the wind like my world hasn’t been tipped on its axis. Inside, we stand there—wet hair, yesterday’s clothes, murder logistics folded between something that feels suspiciously like possibility. And I realize the only truly unpredictable variable in this entire situation isn’t the pit.
It’s her.
And I’m not nearly as calm about that as I pretend to be.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
CREW
I should’ve knownshe couldn’t sit still.
After spending the day doing virtually nothing—other than trying to keep my hands off of her—she begged me to take her to the pit. I obliged, but only because I knew she’d panic herself into a downward spiral if I didn’t. By the time we’re on the short hike back, the sun is already sliding down behind the fir trees, turning everything around us golden.
Alma walks beside me, quieter than usual. I’d be worried, but it feels more thoughtful than anything else, like she’s absorbing and digesting it all. She did so good this time. So fucking good. She didn’t look away when we reached the edge or when I pointed things out. Not when we used the shovels to shift what needed a little extra help, either.
Maybe it’s because she could actuallyseeprogress versus me just relaying it to her. There’s already far less left than there was when I checked on it this morning. The sulfur is doing exactly what sulfur does. If this were a job site, I’d call it ahead of schedule.
“You okay over there?” I ask as the cabin comes into view.
She nods and absentmindedly reaches for my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “I was just thinking that if anyone hadtold me a week ago that I’d be repositioning skeletal remains in a sulfur pit, I would’ve assumed they were pitching a horror comedy.”
“It would test well with niche audiences,” I chuckle.
