"Honest," he corrected."I saw you last night when you were falling apart.I saw you today when we ran into your ex.I saw you out on that land, looking at ashes and seeing cabins.I saw you in my kitchen this morning, making breakfast like it was the most natural thing in the world.And tonight, just now, I saw you trust me when every instinct in you probably screamed not to."His voice dropped, low and fervent."You keep standing back up.Even when you're shaking.That's not weakness.That's the hardest kind of strength there is."
She searched his face, looking for any sign that he was saying what he thought she wanted to hear.Any hint of performance or manipulation.
She found nothing but honesty.
"You make it easier to stand," she said finally.
"That's the idea," he said.
She rested her palm over his heart again, feeling the steady beat under her fingers, and let herself believe, just for a moment, that this was real.That she could have this.That wanting didn't have to end in disappointment or pain.
They lay there in the quiet, wrapped around each other in his half-finished house, in the spare bedroom with its bare walls and minimal furniture, and the truth settled over her with surprising clarity.
They weren't just two people sharing space because the worst had happened.
They were choosing this.Choosing each other.In the middle of the wreckage, in the aftermath of fire and fear and years of being told she wasn't worth choosing, they were building something new.
She let her eyes drift closed, her body sinking into the mattress, into his warmth, into the strange, fragile, solid thing growing between them like a seedling pushing through scorched earth.
For the first time in longer than she could remember, wanting didn't feel dangerous.
It felt like the start of something.
Outside, the night continued its slow progression toward dawn.Inside, Sabrina pressed closer to the man who'd walked into her disaster and decided to stay, and let herself imagine what it might be like to wake up without fear.
Not healed.Not fixed.Not magically transformed by a single night.
But not alone.
For now, that was enough.For now, that was everything.
ChapterNine
Colby saw Diaz's name flash across his phone screen just as he set two mugs of coffee on the counter.
Morning light streamed through the kitchen window, catching dust motes in the air and painting everything gold.He'd been up for an hour already, moving quietly through the house, making coffee, checking the locks he'd installed the day before.Old habits from the firehouse, the inability to stay in bed once his body decided it was time to be awake.
He glanced toward the hallway.The bedroom door stood open now, the soft sounds of movement drifting out.Sabrina sat on the edge of the bed, her back to him, tying her hair up in that loose knot she favored.His T-shirt draped over her shoulders like it had been made for her, the faded Copper Moon Cup logo stretched across her back, the hem hitting mid-thigh.
Something in his chest turned over at the sight.Domestic.That's what this was.Domestic in a way he hadn't experienced in longer than he cared to count.
She caught his eye in the mirror propped against the wall and lifted her brows in question, reading the tension in his posture.
"Diaz," he said, holding up the phone."I'll put her on speaker."
Sabrina rose and padded down the hall toward him, bare feet silent on the wood floor.She'd gotten used to moving through his space already, navigating around the boxes and the mismatched furniture as if she belonged here.Maybe she did.
He hit the speaker button and set the phone on the counter between the coffee mugs."Sergeant."
"Morning, Landon."Diaz's voice came through brisk and alert, the cadence of someone already two cups of coffee into her day and halfway through a mental checklist."Is Sabrina with you?"
"Yes," he said."You're on speaker."
"Good.Saves me a second call."There was a faint shuffle on the other end, like Diaz was moving somewhere more private, away from the background noise of the station.A door closed."I went down to Main Street yesterday after you called.By the time I got there, Hartley wasn't anywhere in sight."
Sabrina's shoulders tightened, the muscles in her neck going rigid.She wrapped her hands around the back of the nearest chair, knuckles whitening against the wood.
"So he was just...gone," she said."Vanished."
