Page 34 of Outlaw Ridge: Griff
Not for the way it made her feel something other than loss.
Lily forced herself to take a step back. Her body resisted it, wanted to stay right there, pressed into his warmth, into the rare calm he gave her—but her mind knew better. She cleared her throat, trying to will her voice steady.
“I’d like to see what’s left,” she said, meeting his eyes. “Of my house.”
“You want me to go with you?” Griff asked.
She gave a small nod. “Yeah.”
He didn’t hesitate. “Try to stop me.”
The knot in her chest loosened just a little.
They grabbed their jackets in silence, the air between them still carrying that charged undercurrent. Lily kept her head down, trying to box up the emotions already creeping back in. She wasn’t ready to unpack what that kiss meant, not yet. First, she had to face the ashes.
Hallie’s office was empty as they passed, so Lily stopped at Jemma’s desk. “Let Hallie know we’re headed to the fire site,” she said.
Jemma nodded quickly, concern in her expression but no questions asked.
Outside, the cold hit harder than it had earlier, maybe because now she wasn’t just thinking about the house, butwalking into it. Or what was left of it. They crossed the lot in silence, boots crunching on gravel, and Lily unlocked the SUV with a press of her fob.
Griff opened the passenger door and waited until she slid behind the wheel before getting in himself. Neither of them said it aloud, but they both knew this drive wasn’t just about rubble. It was about facing down what someone had tried to do to get her to back down.
It hadn’t worked.
If anything, it made Lily more resolved to get to the bottom of this.
The drive was quiet, and Lily kept her hands steady on the wheel, eyes forward as they passed the outskirts of town. The familiar streets, shops, and houses blurred past her like background noise.
Griff didn’t say much. She was grateful for that. His presence was enough.
A left turn onto her road, and her chest tightened. A few houses down, her place came into view.
Charred beams jutted up from the skeleton of the structure, blackened and twisted like the bones of something long dead. The roof had collapsed entirely in the center, leaving a gaping void where her bedroom used to be. Ash dusted the snow-patched ground. The front porch had caved in, the railing splintered, sagging like a snapped spine.
The air still carried a faint, bitter scent of smoke.
She parked at the edge of the property and shut off the engine. For a long moment, she didn’t move. Just stared at the wreckage.
Her home—herplace, the one spot she’d finally let herself settle into—was nothing but ruin.
Beside her, Griff stayed quiet, waiting. Letting her breathe. And she needed to. Because if she didn’t, the grief might drown her before she even got out of the car.
Lily opened the door and stepped out, boots crunching over scorched gravel and ash. The cold bit through her coat, but she barely felt it.
Griff rounded the front of the SUV and fell into step beside her. Neither of them spoke as they scanned the area. The lot was empty. No neighbors outside, no cars on the road, no footprints except their own.
Still, Lily kept her eyes on the tree line.
The fire had cleared some of the brush near the back of the property, but shadows clung to the undergrowth. Anyone could be out there—watching. Waiting.
Griff’s posture mirrored hers: alert, eyes sharp, hand never far from his weapon.
They stepped over fallen debris and broken boards. The front of the house had been reduced to skeletal framing and mounds of charred rubble. She spotted the bent remnants of her coffee table, the warped edges of what used to be a bookshelf. Most of it was unrecognizable.
But not all.
“That used to be the hall mirror,” she murmured, nodding toward a jagged frame buried under blackened drywall. “And that—” she pointed to a lump of scorched fabric, “that was the armchair I found at a thrift shop for twenty bucks.”
