Page 15

"That's what I thought." She poured the whiskey and slid it across. "She's here to work, Criss. Not to be hunted."

"Nobody's hunting anyone. I'm being social."

"You're being you. Which is the same thing."

He took the whiskey and left the bar before Maeve could say anything else that was accurate and annoying. The firepit was the social center of the Silver Fang, surrounded by a loose ring of chairs and low tables where people settled in when the weather got bad and the night got long. Stephanie had claimed a chair close to the flames, hands extended toward the heat, steam rising from her damp sleeves. Someone had already set a drink in front of her, a dark beer in a heavy glass, and she picked it up and took a long pull like she'd been thinking about that exact sip for hours.

Criss dropped into the chair beside her. Not across from her, not hovering. Beside. Close enough to talk without shouting over the rain and the jukebox, but not so close she'd feel cornered.

"If you're about to try a line," she said without looking at him, "I should warn you I've had a very long two days and my tolerance for charm is at an all-time low."

"No line. Just a chair by the fire." He stretched his legs toward the heat and took a sip of his whiskey. "Rough day?"

She glanced at him sideways. Those hazel eyes were sharper up close, the gold flecks catching the firelight like something geological. "Why do you care?"

"I don't, particularly. But you've got mud in your hair and you look like you lost a fight with the weather, so I figured either you had a story or you needed someone to not ask about it. I can do either."

She looked at him with deep contemplation on which response would be less exhausting before she took another sip of her beer and looked back at the fire.

"I'm working on a site outside of town. Archaeological excavation. The rain's been destroying my progress faster than I can make it." She pushed a wet curl off her forehead with the back of her wrist. "I spent ten hours out there today trying to recover what yesterday's storm buried, and then tonight's storm buried it again. So here I am."

"Drinking your feelings at Maeve's bar like the rest of us."

"I'm drying off. The drinking is secondary."

"Sure it is." He let a beat pass, keeping his eyes on the fire instead of on her, giving her the space to either keep talking or shut him out. "What kind of site?"

"The kind I can't discuss with civilians."

"I'm hardly a civilian. I'm a Holt. My family's been part of this town's history whether I like it or not."

That got her attention. She turned to face him more fully, and the firelight threw warm shadows across her face, catching the freckle-like flecks of gold in her eyes and the streak of dried clay along her cheekbone. "You're Kieran's cousin."

"Guilty."

"Kieran I respect. I've read his name in the council records."

"Ouch."

"It wasn't meant to be an insult. It was meant to be a fact." But the corner of her mouth twitched, just barely, and Criss felt it like a small victory. "The site is sensitive, and I'm not authorized to share details outside the council liaison. That's not personal."

"Everything's personal. But I'll take it." He finished his whiskey and set the glass on the table between them. "For what it's worth, I hope the weather cooperates. You seem like someone who takes her work seriously."

"I do."

"Good. The world needs more people who give a damn about something."

She studied him for a moment with that direct, assessing gaze, and he could feel her recategorizing him in real time, shifting him from one mental file to another. Not all the way out of whatever box she'd put him in at the Griddle & Grind, but further than he'd been five minutes ago.

The fire cracked and sent a shower of embers spiraling toward the ceiling. The rain hammered the roof. The jukebox shifted to something low and slow with a bassline that vibrated through the floorboards, and the tavern felt smaller, warmer, the kind of place where bad decisions were forgiven before they were even made.

Stephanie set her empty glass on the table next to his. "Buy me another one of these," she said, "and tell me something about yourself that isn't designed to impress me."

Criss looked at her. The firelight in her eyes. The challenge in her voice. The way she held herself like a woman who could walk out at any moment and wanted him to know it.

His tiger went absolutely still.

"Deal," he said, and went to get the drinks.