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Althea opened her mouth.

And then Drayce Waryn was there.

Not across the boardwalk. Three feet away. He moved with a speed she hadn’t tracked, her attention elsewhere, positioning himself between her and the public sight lines, practiced, economical, as if this weren’t a choice so much as a reflex. He caught the burning banner in one hand, smothered it against the stall’s edge with enough controlled force to extinguish the flame immediately, and spoke two quiet words to the vendor, who complied at once. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.

Fifteen seconds. Crisis managed.

He turned to look at her.

Up close, his eyes looked sharper and more focused than they had from a distance, which she hadn’t expected. They scanned her face once — precise, methodical, with no excess — before settling on her hands. She became, inconveniently, aware of something she could not ignore: two feet wasn’t enough space. His presence created its own zone — warm, heavy, steady — impossible to overlook without invading his space. It wasn’t dramatic or aggressive, just there, undeniable in its existence.

Her pulse said something unhelpful. She ignored it.

He said nothing.

The silence between them was the loaded kind.

She pressed her palms flat against her thighs. The heat pulled back. Not gone — back. Like a tide retreating to consider its options.

“I’ve been in town for less than three hours.”

She met his eyes.

“And I’m already accidentally committing arson.”

The corner of his mouth moved. Fractionally. His gaze did not leave her face.

“We should step back from the stalls.”

His voice was quiet. Level. Absolute assurance — the kind that comes from no doubt he’d be followed.

She stepped back, unsure why, since she generally didn't follow orders without question. She made a mental note of it among her unexamined feelings, alongside her heartbeat and the awareness that this man’s eyes saw everything but missed nothing.

“I’m Gerri.” The silver-haired woman materialized at her side again and pressed the cloth bag into her hands as if she’d been waiting for this moment. “You’re Althea. You set my banner on fire, and you look like you haven’t eaten since Massachusetts. Eat the cookies.” Gerri patted her hand. “We’ll talk tomorrow. Tonight, you should eat something and go to sleep before you accidentally ignite anything else I own.”

Althea opened the bag. Cookies. She ate one because her hands decided before her brain did, then stopped and looked at Gerri, who watched Drayce manage the aftermath.

He had moved to speak with the vendor, his back to her now, his attention focused on the practical requirements of the situation. The crowd beyond him reformed around the cleared space, fluid and quick, people who had processed the incident and moved on.

He glanced back at her. Once. The storm-gray eyes found her without visible effort.

The heat in her chest caught his attention, alert, like it had been tracking him since he stepped onto the boardwalk and hadn’t stopped.

Absolutely not. As many times as she’d said it in the past twenty minutes, she was no more persuasive than she’d been the first time.

Gerri turned back to her, warm and satisfied, her read on the situation proven correct. “How are you finding Spelltide Cove?”

Althea gazed at the boardwalk as the lampposts settled back to their amber glow. The candle arrangements were restored to their correct spots. Below, the ocean continued its slow, unchanging rhythm, unaffected by what had occurred above, as if it didn’t care.

“Warm.”

Gerri picked the thread back up as if she’d never put it down. “The town’s been waiting for you.” She straightened her cardigan. “I have to say, after all that waiting, the fire was a very satisfying arrival.”

Across the space, Drayce finished with the vendor and turned. He looked at her for three full seconds — unhurried, focused, utterly unselfconscious about having decided to pay attention to her.

She held the look. She didn't understand why.

He turned away first. Not because the looking was done — she had the distinct impression it didn’t have an obvious stopping point, and he acknowledged that professional requirements existed and took precedence. The festival had needs. He had a job. Evidently, he honored that above almost everything.