Instead, he said, "It feels like that right now.That doesn't make it permanent."
She let out a slow breath."It feels permanent."
He glanced at her profile again.Her eyes looked too bright, glassy with tears she was refusing to let fall.Her mouth shook once before she pressed her lips together hard enough to stop the trembling.
"Last night, I had a home," she said quietly."I had guests sleeping in rooms I had prepared for them.I had bookings stretching out for the next three months.I had a pantry full of food and a ledger that at least pretended to balance if I squinted hard enough."Her fingers flexed at her sides, curling and uncurling."Today, I have a bag of clothes that aren't mine, a toothbrush Bree picked up at the drugstore, and the knowledge that someone wanted me wiped off this hill."
Heat surged up the back of his neck again, hotter this time.He swallowed it down with effort.Anger would not help her.Not now.
"You still have your land," he said.
She made a small, rough sound."A field full of debris."
"It's more than that."
"It doesn't feel like more."
"I know," he said softly.
She tilted her head back, eyes fixed on the skeletal lines of what had been the second floor.For a moment, he thought she might cry—the tears were right there, shimmering at the edges of her lashes.She didn't let them fall.He had watched her break the night before, sobbing into his shirt until she had nothing left to give.Now there was only a hollow tightness in her expression, like she had wrung herself completely dry.
"What now?"she asked.
The words dropped between them, heavy and honest.
He could have given her a list.File the insurance claim.Talk to structural engineers about what could be salvaged.Sit down with Diaz and go over everything she remembered about Gavin.Make a plan, then make another plan when the first one falls apart.He knew the steps.He had seen people walk them before, watched them put one foot in front of the other through the worst days of their lives.
But that wasn't what she was really asking.
She turned her head, finally looking at him head-on.Her eyes searched his face."What am I supposed to do now, Colby?"
He held her gaze."Right this minute?"
"Yes."
"Right this minute, you stand here as long as you need to."He kept his voice steady, an anchor in the wreckage."You let yourself see it.You let yourself hate it.You let yourself feel whatever you're feeling without trying to push it down or package it up into something manageable."
"And after that?"she asked.
"After that, we take it one piece at a time."He lifted his chin toward the ruins."We figure out what can be cleared.What can be saved.What needs to be rebuilt or torn down or left alone."
"We," she repeated.
"Yeah," he said."We."
He didn't dress it up.He didn't qualify it with conditions or timelines.The promise sat there between them, simple and solid as stone.
She looked back at the ruins.Her shoulders were still hunched beneath the weight of everything that had happened, but the line of them changed, just slightly.Less like she was bracing for the next impact.More like she was shifting under the load to see if carrying it was even possible.
"What if I don't have it in me?"she asked, barely above a whisper.
He answered without hesitation."Then I'll have it in me for both of us until you do."
Her fingers flexed again at her sides.He watched them, watched the way they relaxed by a fraction, the white-knuckle grip on her own palms easing just enough to let blood flow back.
The ruins stayed the same.Black, broken, unmoved by anything they said or felt.
The question she had asked did not disappear.It lingered in the air around them, heavy with everything it contained.
