Even bigger now that I was upright.
He blocked the sunlight streaming in from the window behind him, and the room dimmed—like his body determined the weather.
There went my heart again, beating so loud I could barely think.
But not so loud I missed him saying, “Good girl.”
I stilled. Did he really just call me a good girl?
Yes, he did. And he doubled down on it, regarding me with that soft expression and those intense blue eyes. “Bravest little thing I know.”
Brave. Not vacant.
I was fifty-six.
Fifty.
Six.
But my whole face—not just my cheeks—warmed under his praise, and I had the sudden urge to duck my head like a teenager.
Less than ten minutes later, I found myself sitting across from him, eating bland oatmeal with an absurd amount of raisins.
Boone looked ridiculous at my tiny table—like that bull from the children’s book Noelle used to make me read her every night, the one who was always getting stuck in delicate spaces not meant for him.
I wanted to talk. Explain. Ask every question I had.
But I couldn’t.
Dennis was gone now.
So was my couch. My rug. The things I’d bought to cover the warped wood floors. The air smelled like cleanser instead of Dennis.
Which told me Boone was… nice.
But also the kind of person who could kill and disappear a body overnight.
He’d said he was a smoke jumper, but was he violent? A criminal? Both? A violent smoke jumper criminal who somehow knew my daughters’… what had he called them—mates?
I set down my spoon, suddenly not hungry anymore.
“All done?” he asked, like he’d been waiting for me to finish.
I nodded.
“Can I touch you?” he asked.
I went still?—
—until he added, “Check your face?”
I couldn’t find a reason to say no, so I tightened my muscles and held myself still while he reached across the table to tip my chin gently and angle my face toward the light, thumbs barely grazing my cheekbones.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “Swelling’s down. Your eye looks good, too. No damage to the pupil.” He lowered his hands and grinned. “You got yourself back a beautiful matching set.”
I held still on the outside.
But inside, everything went still, too.
