Didn’t move.
He watched her standing there in the middle of it all.
* * *
The birthday party had settled into that easy mountain rhythm of music, laughter, and bourbon by the time headlights swept across the open barn doors.
A black Escalade rolled to a stop outside.
A few people glanced up automatically.
Others looked away just as fast.
Wade Hollis stepped out first.
Not flashy.
Not loud.
But the air shifted around him anyway.
Dark sport coat over crisp white cotton. Expensive boots dulled by actual wear. Silver-belly hat pulled low enough to shadow his eyes. He carried himself like a man who had spent forty years being the richest person in every room he entered.
Cal climbed out behind him, younger and easier in the same polished world.
Across the barn, Burton Scott’s head snapped up.
“Well,” Burton muttered beside the fire barrel. “Hell finally froze over.”
Wade smiled when he reached him.
“Burton.”
“Wade.”
The handshake looked friendly enough.
It wasn’t.
“You’re late,” Burton said.
“I had business to deal with.”
Burton snorted. “’ Course you did.”
They stood shoulder to shoulder near the edge of the crowd, talking low while the band played another fast song.
Then Wade’s attention shifted.
Luke Hale was dancing with Izzy near the center of the floor.
Teal silk moved when she laughed, the fabric catching the warm barn lights every time she turned. Her dark hair brushed bare shoulders. She looked polished, expensive, and entirely out of place in the middle of boots and denim.
Which only made people look harder.
Wade watched her for a long second.
Then he said quietly,
