Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 46223 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 231(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46223 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 231(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
“You’re late,” Rae says.
“I stopped to be morally compromised,” Jaxson replies, dropping the case. “Somebody was selling puppies out of a truck by the pier.”
“Please tell me you didn’t—” Riggs begins.
“I didn’t,” Jaxson promises. “I bought the guy dinner and saved the number for a sting. Also I might have pre-named one of them in my head, but that’s not legally binding.”
He’s halfway to the cooler when he remembers to hug me. I get a quick squeeze that smells like sun and road dust and trouble. “You look good, V,” he says, softer.
“So do you,” I tell him, and mean it even if he’s scowling at a lime like it owes him rent.
He pops a bottle, leans against the post, and eyes the string lights like they’ve personally offended him. “I have to leave tomorrow,” he announces to the group, using his I’m-not-complaining tone that means he’s absolutely complaining. “My buddy Seth called in a chip.”
“Seth who can bench-press a snowmobile?” Hayes asks without irony.
“The one,” Jaxson says. “His sister’s gone missing with her kid. Single mom. Ex is a grade-A nightmare with a savior complex and a very dumb credit card trail. I’ll find him even if she doesn’t want help, Seth wants her found, and I apparently…care about people?” He makes a face. “Hate that for me.”
“You love that for you,” Rae says, kicking his ankle with affection. “You’ll find her in, like, seventeen hours and then spend the rest of the week pretending you’re annoyed.”
“Where?” Sawyer asks, switching without effort into the map in his head. “City? Rural?”
“Starts near Valor Springs,” Jaxson says, then glances at Riggs. “If you breathe the word backup, Dean’s going to assign me a partner just to watch me be mad.”
Riggs holds up both hands. “Wouldn’t dream of it. But you’re taking a sat phone. And Rae on your shoulder. Gunner too.”
Rae salutes. “Already ghosting the ex’s apps. He thinks private means ‘company can read it.’”
Jaxson tips his bottle to me, resigned. “Welcome to domestic bliss,” he says, gesturing at the whole backyard with its roses and its ridiculous tub full of ice. “We’ll be using your house for debriefs no matter what you say.”
“Bring snacks,” I say. “And don’t bleed on my rug.”
“Noted,” he grunts, and then his mouth softens. “Happy for you both.”
His words land somewhere tender. I glance at Riggs, who is cheffing with the laser focus of a man who would wrestle a dragon for me and then apologize for getting soot on the porch. He catches me watching him and gives me that small, private smile—the one I learned to read in airports and alleys and motel rooms and now get to keep in my kitchen.
We eat outside, plates balanced on knees, Hayes presiding over the steak distribution like a benevolent tyrant. The sun slides down behind the cypresses, and the lights click on as the whole yard goes cozy and golden. Someone puts on a playlist that’s half Motown, half Texas, and all memory.
“Toast,” Camille announces, lifting her glass of lemonade because she’s on a break from wine. “To found family.”
I give her a look, and all she does is smile at me. Yep. She’s pregnant, just not telling anyone… so I keep her secret.
Sawyer adds, “To clean exits and quiet nights.”
Rae says, “To routers that actually do their jobs.”
Hayes, after a beat, says, “To accurate thermometers.”
Jaxson rolls his eyes. “To single mothers who text back. And to Seth not naming his next child after me if I pull this off.”
Laughter breaks across the deck. I lift my glass last, throat tight and happy. “To maps,” I say. “The ones we follow, the ones we make, and the people who teach us how to leave breadcrumbs.”
Riggs’s thumb skims the inside of my wrist under the table, exactly once. Heat arcs up my arm, familiar and brand-new all at once. Later, when everyone drifts to the front for impromptu street basketball and to argue about the merits of Hayes’s “exactly-right” s’mores method, he tugs me into the kitchen with the excuse of more napkins.
We’re alone for a breath. The house hums. The ocean pushes a soft hush through the open window. He braces a hip against the counter, wraps an arm around my waist, and brings me in close enough that the quiet tightens.
“You good?” he asks, because he always does, because even on our easiest days he takes my pulse without looking like he’s counting. It’s not paranoia anymore. It’s attention.
I nod. “Happy,” I say. “Like, obnoxiously so.”
He leans down and kisses me—slow, sure, no cameras, no cover. When he lifts his head, his mouth curves. “Me too.”
“Still wedge the door?” I tease, because habits don’t vanish and I don’t want them to.
“Always,” he says. “And I turn the deadbolt with my left hand because you like to make fun of me for being predictable.”