The tightness around her eyes. The stiffness in her shoulders. The way her smile faded too quickly whenever she thought nobody was paying attention.
And her hair.
The hair bothered me more than it should have. It was down for a reason. Not a vanity reason. Not a cute reason. Not because she had decided to stroll out looking like every bad idea I’d ever had in daylight. Something about it sat wrong in my gut, sharp and irritating, like a loose edge I couldn’t stop running my tongue over.
Today had been good. No, today had been fucking good.
This morning, she had tried to sell me some benefits-only bullshit with those big nervous eyes and that stubborn mouth, like I didn’t know a woman building a fence while handing me the gate code. I had let her do it because I wanted access more than I wanted to win an argument she wasn’t ready to have. Then she let me kiss her. Let me put my hands on her. Let me take what she said she wanted and make her admit it without once saying the word feelings.
Fine.
We could play it that way.
I could be patient.
But watching her step back into that yard with her hair down and fear tucked under her skin made something in me lose patience with the entire world.
“What’s up with you?” Knox’s voice pulled me partially out of it.
I blinked once and realized all five Bennett brothers were staring at me now from around the driveway while Daniel flipped burgers nearby pretending not to listen.
“What?”
“You look homicidal,” Ryker muttered.
“Like mad homicidal,” Emmitt added helpfully.
Kellen squinted at me. “You constipated?”
Normally I would’ve laughed, instead, my eyes tracked Pip automatically while she bent near the cooler, reaching for a drink. Her hair fell forward over one shoulder, hiding the side of her neck when she smiled at something one of the neighborhood women said.
Hiding.
My jaw flexed.
“Mercer,” Ryker said, voice dropping enough that the brotherly bullshit thinned out. “You good?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure? Because you look like you’re about to turn somebody into a Dateline episode.”
“I’m good.”
Kellen looked toward Pip, then back at me. His expression shifted slightly. “She okay?”
That was the problem with her family. They were loud and obnoxious and half-feral, but they loved her hard enough that even when they missed things, they felt the aftershock.
Before I could answer, the back door opened again and Luke stepped out.
And there was the reason. Old Glory Days himself, strolling back into the yard like he hadn’t just dragged all the warmth out of her.
He came into the yard like he owned the place, easy smile already locked in, shoulders relaxed, one hand dragging casually through his hair like the whole world had never once considered telling him no. Someone called his name from near the fence. He lifted his chin. Smiled. Blended right back into the noise like he hadn’t followed her into the house alone and come out after her looking smoother than any man with nothing to hide should look.
My body went still.
The kind of still that happened right before a puck dropped or a hit lined up perfectly and every useful part of me narrowed around one target.
Luke’s eyes found mine across the yard.
