Page 43 of Bear Naked Truth
He leaned on the counter. “They don’t know it was fake.”
“Mostly fake,” she corrected.
Dorian chuckled and handed her another mug.
They worked in companionable silence for a bit. The kind that had weight but not pressure. She didn’t lean into him, didn’t reach for his hand, but she also didn’t step back. Didn’t put that usual steel wall between them.
He’d take it.
When the last mug was dried and set aside, Autumn exhaled and pressed her hands flat against the end of the counter, staring down at the soapy sink water like it held some kind of answer.
“This has been pleasantly unexpected.” she said softly.
“What?”
“People. Liking me. Letting me… be part of something.”
“That’s good,” Dorian said. “You just have to let yourself enjoy it instead of fight it so much.”
She looked over at him then, eyes clear and tired but open. There was no kiss. No dramatic swoon into his arms.
But she smiled.
And that, for now, was everything.
23
AUTUMN
The attic door groaned like it remembered the first time it had been opened in fear.
Autumn exhaled through her nose and pressed her palm flat against the wood, feeling the subtle tingle of old magic along the grain. The charm Missy had given her was tucked into her back pocket, a clump of lavender and bloodstone wrapped in silk, but it felt almost unnecessary now. The air didn’t hum with menace. It pulsed with waiting.
The Harvest Spirits Sampler Night had come and gone without incident. Dorian had smiled through every awkward townie question, Autumn had done her part, and the ghosts—well, they’d stayed silent.
Too silent.
Which meant something was coming.
She stepped up into the attic, the light from her lantern casting long shadows across the boxes and crates she’d half-explored weeks ago. Her ribs still ached sometimes where the Hollow Man had clawed her. A warning, she’d told Dorian.
But it hadn’t been meant to scare her off.
It had been personal.
Now she understood why.
The journal lay where Dorian had left it after his hand had burned from touching the spellbound page. She’d waited until he was out with Rollo at the wildlife sanctuary that morning—checking on a fox with frostbitten paws, he’d said—before she came up here alone.
Autumn settled cross-legged on the creaky attic floor, setting the lantern beside her and pulling on her gloves before flipping the journal open to the shimmer-inked pages. The words still shimmered faintly, but they no longer repelled her.
The house knew her now.
And the ghost? He remembered.
She read slowly, her lips barely moving, tracing each curve of the script like the ink itself was reaching through time to etch the words into her bones.
October 13, 1817
