The bar downstairs is already awake. I can hear footsteps, the low murmur of voices, the clink of glass.
Eventually, hunger wins. It usually does.
I drag myself up, tug on my boots, run my fingers through my hair until it looks intentionally messy, and head downstairs.
The moment I step into the main bar space, the atmosphere shifts.
Not in adangerway. In apeople are clocking meway.
Zane’s there, leaning near the bar with a coffee in his hand. He straightens when he sees me.
“Morning.”
“Afternoon,” he replies teasingly. Like we didn’t spend last night treating my existence as a security risk.
I hesitate, then say the thing that’s been forming in my brain since approximately three seconds after I woke up. “I was thinking about grabbing coffee. At the Coyote Cup.”
He nods immediately. “I’ll walk with you.”
“I don’t—” I start.
“I know.” He smirks. “I’m hungry too.”
Which is somehow worse, because now I can’t argue without sounding like I’m rejecting kindness instead of autonomy.
The walk across the street is short, but my brain uses all ten seconds to overthink everything. The air is crisp, the kind that feels like it’s doing me a favor. Zane keeps pace beside me without crowding my space, hands loose, posture relaxed.
Protective. But not suffocating.
Inside, the Coyote Cup smells mouth-wateringly delicious. Coffee and cinnamon and baked things that have never hurt anyone. Warmth wraps around me instantly, and my shoulders drop without asking permission.
Lani’s head snaps up the second she sees me.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” she says, already grinning. “You’re still here.”
I blink. “I… yeah.”
“I knew it when you were here the other day with Dottie, I thought,oh no, this one’s already been claimed by the town.”
My mouth quirks. “That obvious?”
“Sweetheart,” she says warmly, steering me toward the counter, “anyone Dottie Langford latches onto is either family, scandal, or about to be. Sit.”
I sit because resistance feels pointless.
“You okay?” she asks, softer now. “Dottie doesn’t usually trail people unless she cares.”
“She knew my grandma,” I say. “Pretty well.”
“That tracks,” Lani nods. “Evie was good people, or so I’ve heard. Stubborn. Kind. Had opinions.” She smiles. “So. That makes you my business now.”
“I didn’t realize that was a thing,” I say.
“Oh, it’s a thing,” she replies cheerfully. “Coffee first. Interrogation later.”
She pours me a mug before I can object. Extra cream. No question.
Zane takes a seat a few tables away. pretending he’s focused on his coffee and not casually scanning the room as a very quiet, very handsome sentry.
