Page 87 of Wildflower and Whiskey
Elyna was waiting in the doorway when I stepped out. “What now?” she asked. I could tell her nerves were doing a number on her.
“Now,” I said, lifting her hand to my mouth, “we let the house do its job. And we do ours.”
She slid closer until our shoulders touched. “What’s our job?”
I looked down at her, at the woman who had walked back into town with a baby, a spine made of steel, and a heart of gold. “To relax.”
She exhaled, and the last thread of the day’s tension let go. We moved to the couch and half-watched a movie because as hard as we tried, our focus was on the shadows outside. When the portable sensor chirped once, it was only because my thumb had brushed its side. I turned it off and set it aside.
Later we got into bed. Elyna curled against me and I hated she was feeling so unsettled, but I couldn’t blame her because I was in full alert too.
My phone buzzed again. One line. . .
Becket:They just turned back to town. No detours. No stops. Our plainclothes will shadow.
I typedThank youand set the phone on the table where the screen wouldn’t glow against her face.
“Everything okay?” she asked, not opening her eyes.
“Everything’s where it should be,” I said and meant it.
I turned off the lamp beside my bed. I lay awake a little longer, the way men do when they’ve found the thing they didn’t know they were building toward. Part of me wanted to say it out loud. . .I don’t want this to be temporary. Stay and put a photo on every wall.That would be my plan once the dust settled. Hopefully soon.
Until then, I watched the dark and listened to Elyna’s slow breaths.
The phone vibrated once more, a tiny pulse against the wood. I reached for it without waking Elyna.
A push alert from the north-side camera:Interference detected.Static scrolled across the thumbnail, a thin, snow-like smear where the feed should be clear. It had begun to rain outside so the weather could’ve caused the interference, but I wasn’t going to take any chances.
Every part of me went cold and focused.
I slid out of bed without a sound, grabbed jeans and the portable sensor, and glanced once at the crib monitor where Braden slept in a soft curve of light. Elyna shifted, not waking, trusting me and these walls to keep her safe.
I walked toward the back door quiet, sure. I checked the camera and everything looked fine and untouched. The tension left my body and I went back inside and closed the door. But this situation awakened something inside me, and I knew right here I would protect Elyna and her son until my last breath.
CHAPTER 37
Phoenix
I needed coffee like it was nobody’s business. After a night of not sleeping much, caffeine to function was a necessity. Elyna and Braden were in my house, their house now, whether she let herself say it yet or not. The chime Dad brought sounded as I left through the mudroom door, the porch camera logged me leaving while the orchard stretched out in rows of frost-silvered green.
I told myself to breathe. To act like a man who ran a brewery and a restaurant and not a man who’d built a fortress overnight to protect those closest to his heart. By eight I was at the brewery, the big copper kettles humming from the morning boil. The place smelled like toasted grain and orange peel, like work and warmth. Dominic had the back delivery bay open with a clipboard in hand. His hair was shoved under a beanie. Cooper was already behind the bar, sleeves rolled, polishing glasses he’d dirty again in an hour.
“Look who decided to show up to his own business,” Dom said without looking up.
“Don’t get sentimental on me,” I said. He smirked as he marked boxes a driver using a hand truck moved down the ramp.
I should’ve felt normal here. I knew every sound this building made. The tick of the glycol chiller. The clink of glass. The heavy sigh of the walk-in door. But nothing truly felt normal. Every time a truck engine idled out front, my shoulders went tight. Every time a car drifted down the lane, I checked the cam on my phone without thinking.
Cooper slid a mug along the rail. “You’re wound up,” he observed, not unkindly. “It’s like watching a German shepherd watch a squirrel.”
“Don’t talk about squirrels. They’ve unionized in the attic,” I said, taking a drink. He laughed anyway.
Dominic’s voice cut through from the back. “Hey, boss?” He jerked his chin toward the side windows that faced the gravel service road cutting past the orchard to the river road. “You expecting an SUV?” He didn’t sound worried. Just… aware.
I drifted to the window. A dark SUV was idling too long where people didn’t idle. It had tinted glass and plates I couldn’t read from this angle. The engine revved, then rolled slowly past the cedars, like it was counting trees.
I fired a quick text.
