You’ve been using work as an excuse to avoid living.
You’ve sacrificed everything to prove you’re not your father.
He’d built a career on reading people. On understanding what they wanted, what they feared, what levers to pull to get the outcome he needed. Nobody had ever turned that skill back on him. Nobody had ever cut through his defenses with surgical precision and laid him bare.
His bear stirred, restless.Go to her.
It’s three in the morning.
She’ll be awake soon. She starts baking at four.
Cal closed his eyes. Opened them again.
He’d spent hours yesterday with the Torres family, trying to convince them to resume the honey supply to downtown businesses. They’d listened politely. Made sympathetic noises. And then Miguel Torres had looked at him with tired eyes andsaid, “Magnus Ironwood burned my cousin’s barn last year. Over a boundary dispute that was settled fifty years ago. I have children, Mr. Ursa. I can’t afford to be brave.”
Cal had left with nothing but promises to “think about it” and the bitter taste of failure.
But he’d also left with an idea.
The Ursa apiaries were still operating. The sleuth’s own hives, on sleuth land, untouchable by Magnus’s direct economic pressure. Miguel couldn’t help—but Cal could.
He threw back the covers. If he was going to lie awake thinking about Dahlia Moon anyway, he might as well do useful work.
The bakery wasdark when he pulled up at 3:47 a.m., but light glowed from the apartment windows above. She was awake. Getting ready to start her day, probably. Doing what she did every morning—rising before dawn to feed a town that didn’t realize how much it needed her.
Cal sat in his truck, hands on the steering wheel, and wondered what the hell he was doing.
This wasn’t a business meeting. This wasn’t a strategic play. This was... different. His bear understood better than his human mind wanted to admit.
He climbed out of the truck before he could talk himself out of it.
The stairs to her apartment creaked beneath his boots. He knocked—three quick raps—and waited.
The door swung open.
Dahlia stood in the doorway, barefoot in cotton pajamas, her brown-gold hair loose around her shoulders. Soft curves andsleepy eyes and a furrow between her brows as she tried to process his presence.
“Cal?” Her voice was rough with sleep. “It’s not even four.”
“I know.” He shoved his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for her. She looked soft. Touchable. His bear was rumbling with satisfaction at being this close. “I have a proposition.”
One eyebrow arched. “A proposition. At four in the morning.”
“The Ursa apiaries are still operating. Magnus can’t touch them—they’re on sleuth land, and even he won’t risk direct confrontation. Not yet.” Cal forced himself to focus on the words instead of the way her pajama top had slipped off one shoulder. “I can take you there. Today. You can harvest honey yourself.”
Dahlia blinked. The furrow between her brows deepened. “You want to take me to the mountain apiaries. Right now.”
“It’s an hour’s drive. We’ll get there at dawn—best time for harvest. The bees are calmer in the early morning.” He was rambling. He never rambled. “It’s not a permanent solution, but it’s a workaround Magnus can’t block. Buy you some time while I figure out the rest.”
She studied him for a long moment. Those keen hazel eyes reading every detail of his face.
“You couldn’t sleep.”
Not a question. Cal’s shoulders tensed. “Does it matter?”
“It matters.” Her face gentled. “Give me ten minutes to get dressed. And make coffee—there’s a pot in the kitchen. You look like you need it more than I do.”
She disappeared into the apartment, leaving the door open.
