Page 25

When I run out, she's quiet for a second. Then, gently, because she's my best friend and she's been watching this house of cards go up all week: "And Wes?"

The barn gets very still.

"That's the part I keep dropping," I admit. "Every time I pick this up — and Junie, I want to pick it up, I want the whole ridiculous thing, that's the terrifying part — Wes is underneath. His best friend. His little sister. Both of us sneaking around behind the person who trusts us most in the world, at the exact moment his best friend is supposed to be objectively assessing my property for the county." I press my hands flat on the bar. "He said something last night. 'I can't undo this.' And he meant me, but I keep thinking — it's not just us on the bench, you know? It's twenty years of him and Wes. It's whether my brother ever trusts either of us the same way again. That's what we're gambling."

Junie reaches over and squeezes my wrist. "So don't gamble long. You want my read, as your best friend and this town's leading intelligence agency?" She doesn't wait for a yes. "That man has spent ten years being loyal to Wes at his own expense. Ten. Years. Whatever happens next, nobody — not Wes, not your mother, not the entire church parking lot — is ever going to be able to say he didn't take the friendship seriously. That's the safest thing about him, Sloanie. He knows exactly what this costs because he's been paying it the whole time." She squeezes again. "Secrets in this town have a shelf life shorter than my oat milk, babe. Bev's already at DEFCON piano."

"I know."

"Tell him soon. Wes, I mean. Together, on purpose, before he finds out sideways." She picks her sandwich back up, and her mouth quirks. "Because I've got news for you. A man who spends ten years suffering silently out of loyalty is not built for sneaking. He's going to walk around looking guilty as a dog next to a torn-open couch."

The text arrives at 4:52 p.m.

Brady: Confirming tomorrow 0900 for final outdoor verification. Fire tables anchored per spec?

I stare at it for a truly embarrassing amount of time. This man had his hands in my hair eighteen hours ago. 0900. Per spec.

"Danielle," I say, casual, dusting a shelf that's already dust-free. "Hypothetically. If a person texts you like a subcontractor the day after — after a significant professional milestone. What does that mean?"

Danielle, nineteen, does not look up from the register. "Is this about the fire guy?"

"It's hypothetical."

"Because you've rearranged the musk display three times since lunch, and he's the only person who parks facing out like he might need to leave in a hurry, which my mom says is either law enforcement or commitment issues."

"Your mom needs a hobby."

"She has one," Danielle says serenely. "It's you guys."

I retreat to the office with my phone and my dignity, one of which is intact. The office walls are thin, and I can hear Danielle out front cheerfully telling a customer that yes, the Mountain Man Musk is inspired by a real local figure, no, she can't say who, yes, there's a waiting list for both. I type and delete four responses of escalating unprofessionalism before settling on:

Me: Anchored, leveled, and gorgeous. Just like your assessor.

The reply takes eleven minutes, during which I reorganize the entire fragrance organ.

Brady:

That's it. That's the whole message. One emoji. From Brady Callahan. I spend twenty minutes on forensic emoji analysis — is it flirtation, is it fire safety, is it a man attempting a genre entirely new to him, is it aimed at me or at the fire tables — and I am mid-text to Junie with a screenshot when gravel crunches in the driveway.

His truck. Unscheduled. 6:40 p.m., dusk coming down purple over the field, and my heart does something that would fail any inspection in the county.

I do not run to the door. I walk, at a businesslike pace, pausing at the workbench to check my reflection in the melter's steel and fix exactly one piece of hair, and Wick watches the entire performance from the register with his tail curled around his feet like a critic composing his review.

"Left my calibration kit," he says at the barn door, which is a lie so bald it's practically a courtesy. The kit is visible through his truck window from where I'm standing.

"Better come in and look for it, then," I say, holding the door wide, heart hammering like a bachelorette on her third mimosa. "Thoroughly."

We make it about four minutes. He's got his mouth on mine and my back against the amber-jar shelving — gently, even mid-kiss he adjusts us six inches off the load edge, and the fact that I find that unbearably attractive is between me and my intake of romance novels — when he goes still. Not drawbridge-still.

Pointer-still.

"What?" I whisper.

"Wick." He's looking over my shoulder, out the west window. The cat is on the sill, ears forward, tail low and lashing, fixed on the tree line past the propane cage — his barn-mouse posture, except aimed at forty acres of darkening field. "How long has he been doing that?"

"He's a cat, Brady, he stares at⁠—"

But Brady's already moving, and it's a Brady I haven't met — quiet weight, no wasted motion, the flashlight off his belt and held cold-side down, and "stay inside" thrown over his shoulder in a voice with no room in it, and I stand at my own window with my pulse in my ears watching his light sweep the fence line in the last blue of the evening.