If Tucker ever looked at her with something other than quiet reserve.
Her gaze drifted toward him.
He sat at one end of the table, listening while Shane insisted the Royals would take two out of three from the Mariners that week. Seth disagreed just as confidently, and before long, the two of them were negotiating the terms of a wager.
Unlike Shane, who punctuated every story with animated gestures, Tucker rarely spoke unless he had something worth saying. More often than not, he listened while everyone else talked.
Tonight... something was different about him.
More than once, she'd caught him watching her.
Not openly. Never long enough for anyone else to notice. But enough to leave her wondering if she'd imagined it.
When their eyes met again, he held her gaze for a long moment before reaching for his iced tea. The movement seemed deliberate, but she told herself she was reading too much into it.
After all, she'd spent the last four days jumping at shadows, ever since Troy had knocked on her door.
Still...
Now and then, she'd catch him studying her again. His calm expression never changed, but something about it felt... wrong.
As if he were waiting.
Or deciding.
Conversation drifted on until the last of the dinner dishes sat empty. Everyone rose almost automatically, falling into a familiar routine. Seth gathered plates while Shane and Tucker carried serving bowls into the kitchen. Shylo stood to follow with the remaining dishes, but Paige smiled and relieved her of the stack.
“Guest privilege,” she said. “You can help another time.”
A few minutes later, with the table cleared and coffee brewing, Paige shooed everyone back to their seats. “Sit. I've got dessert.”
She returned carrying a homemade apple pie with a bowl of vanilla ice cream.
Paige set a slice of pie in front of everyone before taking her own seat. Conversation drifted back to the friendly wager Shane and Seth were making over the upcoming Royals-Mariners series, while Paige accused them of caring far too much about a game they had no control over.
Shylo picked at her pie, her appetite long gone.
Then Tucker laid his fork across his plate.
The faint scrape of metal against ceramic seemed to hush the conversation.
“So, Shylo,” he said, looking directly at her, “do you want to tell Shane why you're really in Hazard Falls... or should I?”
The words seemed to suck the air and every sound from the room.
Shylo forgot how to breathe, and her stomach lurched so violently that she thought she might be sick right there at the table. The pie in front of her blurred as a rush of panic swept through her, leaving her fingertips numb against the edge of her plate.
No.
No, no, no...
Not like this.
She'd spent four days trying to find the right moment to tell Shane herself. She'd promised herself it would be tomorrow, after breakfast, when there weren't so many people around, and she could explain everything instead of dropping it into the middle of a family dinner.
Now tomorrow was gone.
Three pairs of eyes landed on Tucker.
