Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 102280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Brooks stayed close, never quite touching her but there. Always there.
“The Maine credit card,” Vivienne said as they waited for the ambulance. “That was a diversion?”
“He never left Westerly Cove. Someone working for him used the card to draw FBI resources north while he doubled back for you.” Brooks’s jaw tightened. “I should have seen it coming.”
“He’s been planning this his whole life. You’ve been here a few weeks.” Vivienne pulled the blanket tighter. “You couldn’t have known.”
“I should have protected you better.”
“You saved my life.” She met his eyes. “That connection—that was real, Brooks. You felt what I was thinking. You trusted it enough to act on it.”
“I did.” He looked shaken, like he was still processing what had happened. “I’ve been feeling it for weeks now. Little things. Knowing when you were about to call. Sensing when you were in the tunnels even though I couldn’t see you. I thought I was imagining it.”
“You weren’t imagining it.” Vivienne’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Something’s been building between us from the beginning. I felt it the moment you walked into my shop—the shop had been preparing for you. My grandmother Emmeline’s journal said you’d be my anchor, and I didn’t understand what that meant until tonight. You visited her shop when you were thirteen. The building remembered you. It’s been waiting for you to come back.”
Brooks was quiet for a long moment, his hand still resting on her back. When he spoke, his voice was rough. “I remember that visit. My parents brought me here on vacation after my uncle died. I was angry, confused. Your grandmother . . . Emmeline . . . she gave me a protection charm for my mother. Told me I’d come back someday when I needed to find something I’d lost.”
“What did you lose?”
“I didn’t know then. But now . . .” He paused, his thumb moving in slow circles on her shoulder blade through the blanket. “In Austin, after Traci died, I lost faith in everything. My instincts, my judgment, my ability to protect people. I came here to escape, but maybe I was really coming back to find what your grandmother saw in me all those years ago.”
Vivienne leaned into his touch. “The Hawthorne women don’t just see the future. We see the patterns—how people are meant to connect, how threads weave together. Emmeline knew you’d need me, but she also knew I’d need you. My mother died because she faced her gift alone, with no one to ground her when the voices became too loud. You ground me, Brooks. Tonight, when I couldn’t reach my pendant, when Winston had me and I felt my abilities slipping away, I reached for you instead. And you were there.”
“I felt you calling.” He shifted so he could see her face better. “Not just tonight in the lamp room. Earlier, when he first took you. I was at the station and suddenly I couldn’t breathe, like someone was choking me. I knew something was wrong. That’s never happened to me before.”
“It’s the connection. It works both ways.” Vivienne held his gaze. “I can sense your emotions, feel the shape of your thoughts when they’re strong enough. And you’re developing the ability to sense mine. It’s not the full Hawthorne gift, but it’s real. You felt me drowning in fear, and your mind reached back to find me.”
“Three months ago, if someone had told me I’d be having this conversation, I would have walked away. But I felt you in my head tonight, Vivienne. Clear as day. ‘When I drop, shoot.’ And I knew exactly what you meant, exactly when to move. That wasn’t training or instinct. That was you.”
“And you trusted it. Trusted me, even though everything you’ve been taught says it’s impossible.” She reached up with her uninjured hand and touched his jaw. “That’s what makes you my anchor, Brooks. Not that you believe in everything I do, but that you trust me enough to act even when you don’t understand.”
His hand came up to cover hers, pressing her palm against his face. “I’m starting to understand. Not all of it, maybe not most of it. But enough to know that what happened between us tonight was real. That this”—he gestured between them—”whatever this is, it matters.”
“It does.” Her throat tightened. “More than I expected it to.”
The moment stretched between them. Then Sullivan appeared with a thermos of coffee.
“Winston’s demanding a lawyer and medical attention. In that order.” The chief shook his head. “Thinks he can still negotiate his way out of this.”
“Let him try,” Vivienne said. “The evidence speaks for itself.”
As the paramedics loaded her into the ambulance, Brooks climbed in beside her despite their protests.
“I’m riding with her,” he said flatly. “Non-negotiable.”
Porter didn’t argue. She just nodded and stepped back, already on her phone coordinating the aftermath.