Chapter 9
CHAPTER
NINE
The bread was good — crusty on the outside, soft inside, flecked with herbs she couldn’t name. When Brian took a slice without a word and actually ate it, something eased in her. She wasn’t sure why she cared, but she did. It felt like a small truce neither of them had needed to say out loud.
Then he dropped the bomb that Jake didn't have a place for her to stay.
She was in Brian's space for two months.
She didn't mind terribly, except she didn't want to be a burden.
He'd been so good to let her stay. She could tell he was healing from life, too.
As a healer, she didn't want to impede his healing in any way.
But she liked it here so much. It was exactly what her body, mind, and soul needed.
Quiet, calm, and she rather liked a bit of company.
The rest of the afternoon fell into an easy rhythm.
She curled into the corner of the deck with her book, the pendant resting warm at her throat, while he worked on the addition to his cottage.
He'd been setting the framing for the footings, as he'd mentioned.
She didn't know a thing about building, so she smiled. The sound of the lake’s steady breathing calmed her in a way she'd never have believed, the occasional cry of a gull, and the soft, unhurried tap of his hammer.
It was… comfortable. In a way that made her realize how rarely she let herself sit in comfort without expecting it to be interrupted.
But every so often, she caught movement on the side of the house — the tilt of his head toward the water, a shift of his gaze to the path that wound past the back fence.
He wasn’t restless exactly, but he was… alert.
It made her think again of the footprints he’d found and the man at the pier.
Twice now she’d seen him. Twice now, Brian had too. That didn’t feel like a coincidence.
By midafternoon, her book was open in her lap, but the words kept slipping past her. She closed it, set it on the small table beside her, and stood. “I’m going to take a walk,” she said into the air.
Brian stepped around the side of the house. “Main streets,” he reminded her, voice even but firm.
She lifted her brows but didn’t argue. “Yes, Sheriff.”
The path along the pines smelled like resin and earth, sunlight breaking through in coin-sized pools that warmed her arms. The harbor opened up in front of her like a painting — blue water flecked with white sails, the air laced with the smell of fried dough and kettle corn from the vendors still holding out after the craft fair rush.
She wandered toward the green, stopping to photograph the gazebo draped in bunting. The late-day light hit it perfectly, a haze of gold softening the edges.
When she lowered her phone, her breath caught.
The man.
He was on the opposite sidewalk, moving at a steady, unhurried pace, head angled like he was scanning shop windows.
Without the ball cap or sunglasses, she could see more of his face — long lines, dark hair just brushing his collar.
Nothing about him screamed threat, but his presence tugged at that old, ingrained awareness in her body, the one that had kept her alive in high-pressure situations.
A group of tourists stopped abruptly in front of him to take a selfie. He stepped around them smoothly, never breaking stride, never seeming impatient. And still, he didn’t look her way.
She told herself she should let it go. She didn’t know him. Copper Moon wasn’t a big place; people crossed paths here. But some stubborn part of her wanted to know where he went when he wasn’t leaning against piers or blending into crowds.
When he turned down a side street, she waited a beat before following.
The street was quieter, lined with shuttered vacation rentals and a couple of shops closed early for the season. She quickened her pace enough to keep him in sight — and then, suddenly, he wasn’t.
Just gone.
She stopped in the shade of an awning, pretending to study a rack of postcards while her eyes scanned doorways, alleys, the length of the street.
Nothing. No retreating figure, no car pulling away.
The hairs at the back of her neck prickled.
Either he’d ducked into a building, or he’d known she was there and decided to vanish.
She let her breathing even out before turning back toward the harbor. The green was quieter now, vendors beginning to pack up, a breeze carrying the smell of the lake up Main.
The walk home felt longer than it should have. By the time she reached White Gull Lane, the shade of the pines wrapped around her like a shield. The cottage looked exactly as it had when she’d left it — neat, still, waiting.
Brian was on the dock, crouched to check the new screws. He looked up once when her footsteps hit the boards, his eyes narrowing slightly as if trying to read her.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
She set her phone on the rail. “Yeah,” she said, and hated that it came out lighter than she felt. “Just town.”
His gaze stayed on her for a beat before he nodded and returned to the dock board. She didn’t tell him about following the man, or the way he’d disappeared like smoke. Not yet.
Inside, she put the bread away, washed her hands, and stood for a moment looking out the kitchen window toward the water. Brian was still there, working, solid and steady against the wide blue. And somewhere, maybe, a man she didn’t know was walking the same streets, waiting for something.