Chapter 3
THREE
AUSTIN
I had no plans to stay. Not in Star Harbor. Not in Michigan. Not anywhere, really.
But there I was—unloading the last box from the back of my pickup, the tailgate creaking like it held an opinion about my life choices.
A summer’s worth of sand still clung to the floorboards, and my baseball glove, worn smooth from years of rec-league games, rolled off the seat and landed at my feet.
I was just happy to no longer be couch surfing. I needed privacy. A place of my own.
That wasn’t something I’d had much of. Mom had always been the fun one—spontaneous, beautiful, a little reckless. She was a parent who let you eat ice cream for dinner but forgot to pay the electric bill. I learned early how to take care of myself. How to pack fast and not get too comfortable.
Brody had had a much different life. Steady. Solid. He was the older half brother I’d watched from a distance—not close enough to reach, but just near enough to want more.
Somehow I’d deluded myself into thinking a man who was told I shouldn’t exist might want to get to know me. Brody hadn’t pushed me away, and that was more than I’d let myself hope for. I just had to figure out how not to mess it up.
Half of a weathered duplex wasn’t much, but it had a roof, decent plumbing, and the kind of quiet that suggested no one would be screaming through paper-thin walls. I’d take it. I hadn’t stuck anywhere long enough to decorate since college, so it might be a fun change of pace.
Brody had helped me find it. Technically his friend Wes had called in the favor, and I owed them both more than I could articulate.
Wes was finally home from the hospital, recovering from the car wreck that had cost him his leg.
He’d pushed his friend Hayes out of the way of an oncoming vehicle, taken the hit full-on, and somehow come out shattered, but alive.
Lately I’d been filling in for him on his construction sites while he healed. Swinging hammers, hauling lumber, and trying to stay out of my own head.
Maybe that was the problem. The longer I stayed in Star Harbor, the more I found myself wanting to, and wanting anything too much had always meant trouble.
I dropped the last box on the porch and stretched, my shoulders cracking with the effort. The morning sun baked against the back of my neck, and for a moment everything felt still.
Then I heard it.
Laughter.
High, bright, and warm. The kind that didn’t just fill the air but changed it. I turned my head toward the sound and—
Froze.
She was there. Standing in the backyard with a little girl, both barefoot in the overgrown grass.
Her hair—wild and mousy brown, though I’d argue it looked more like sun-warmed beach grass—was twisted into a loose knot, a few strands escaping to catch the light.
She was holding a glass of what looked like pitifully weak lemonade, and she was smiling. Laughing.
She was glowing.
Not the polished, curated kind of beauty I was used to seeing in airports and bars and brief encounters. No, this was something else. She looked like sunlight caught in skin. Solid. Soft. Alive.
And then it hit me.
Holy shit, it’s her.
I had absently waved to the neighbors when I’d moved in, but I hadn’t taken the time to really look.
Of course it was her—the woman I still dreamed about lived twenty feet away.
I watched her say something to the kid, bending slightly as the girl shoved what looked like a dirt-covered earthworm into her hand. She didn’t flinch, but grinned and accepted the gift, wiping it off with the hem of her shirt.
I couldn’t stop the smile stretching across my face.
My mystery woman is a mother.
It hadn’t been a night I’d expected to remember.
The bar was tucked off a narrow side street in a town I didn’t know well—jazz humming through cracked windows, the kind of place that smelled like old wood, burned sugar, and red wine someone had spilled years ago but never really cleaned up.
Everything glowed amber in the low light. Intimate. A little timeless.
I spotted her the second I walked in.
I’d seen the woman around town a few times over the summer.
At the farmers’ market once, dragging a wagon full of peaches.
Walking out of the library with a tote bag full of hardbacks and a look that said she didn’t have time for anyone’s bullshit.
I’d asked someone once—maybe Cal—what her name was.
Selene.
It suited her. Sharp and soft at the same time. I knew it was her but hadn’t found the right moment to approach her.
She was sitting alone at the corner of the bar, perched on a high stool like she’d been carved there—back straight, legs crossed, fingers curled around a sweating glass of berry-colored wine.
Her hair was loose, a wild mess of soft brown waves that caught the light every time she turned her head. She wasn’t watching the band.
She was watching the exits.
There was something about the way she scanned the room—sharp, assessing, like she was waiting for someone and hoping they wouldn’t show up.
I posted against the bar and ordered a drink. Whiskey, neat.
After making eyes at each other for a while, I tried to act casual as I slid onto the stool beside her. I made some ridiculous comment about the trumpet player’s hat. She didn’t laugh, but she looked at me—really looked at me—and gave me this half smile that cracked something low in my ribs.
“Aren’t you too young for jazz?” she asked, her voice smooth as the rim of her glass.
I grinned. “I’m too old for cartoons.”
She snorted, took another sip, and didn’t move away.
We talked. Nothing deep. Teasing, mostly. We realized we both actually hated jazz, which allowed us to share a laugh over another drink. The woman was sharp—quick with her words but soft with her eyes, like she hadn’t decided yet whether I was worth her time.
She asked how old I was. I told her—twenty-eight.
She hummed. “Still a baby.”
I leaned in a little. “I’m no baby, ma’am. I can promise you that I’m old enough to buy you another drink, if you’ll allow it.”
That earned me a genuine smile and the prettiest flush of her cheeks. Sure, she may have been a few years older than me, but I didn’t care. She was cool and mysterious, and we had enough in common that we laughed and the conversation was easy.
She didn’t tell me her name, and she said knowing would ruin the magic. Though I’d known her name, I let her take the lead.
“You really want to know it?” she asked, tilting her head.
I shrugged, trying to play it cool. “Only if you want me to remember you.”
She looked down at her glass with a soft laugh. “I don’t.”
Selene finished her wine and slid off the stool without a word. I watched her walk toward the front door, not sure whether I was supposed to follow or simply watch her slip into the darkness.
She glanced back once, and that was all it took.
Outside, the air was thick with summer heat, crickets singing in the trees. She said she needed air. I offered to walk with her.
We didn’t say much, but she didn’t pull away when my fingers tangled with hers.
The music from inside dulled behind us as we wandered past the parking lot and onto the path that led into the woods behind the bar.
The trail was barely lit—just moonlight slipping through branches and the occasional shimmer of fairy lights someone had strung up long ago and forgotten.
It smelled like pine sap and damp leaves, and her perfume—something clean and soft, like cotton sheets after a thunderstorm.
Her scent wrapped around me with every breath.
She stopped walking just as the music disappeared completely and turned to me like she’d made a decision.
Then she kissed me.
No hesitation. No question. Just fingers in my shirt and mouth on mine like she’d waited years to do it.
I kissed her back.
God, I kissed her back like it was the only thing I’d ever been good at.
It wasn’t frantic, but it was fierce. Her hands were everywhere—my neck, my chest, the waistband of my jeans—and I couldn’t think past the sound of her breathing or the press of her body against mine.
She backed me up against a tree, her thighs pressing between mine, and I let her take what she needed. I wanted to give her more.
We didn’t talk.
We didn’t need to.
The cicadas sang. The forest held its breath.
Her mouth found the edge of my jaw, the hollow of my throat.
Then I took control. We moved deeper into the forest, stripping clothes enough to feel everything—skin on skin, bark at my back, her fingers tangled in my hair as she moved against me, hot and hungry and gone.
It wasn’t rough. It wasn’t sweet. It was something between. Like we both knew it would end but didn’t want to rush a second of it.
She came apart in my arms, shaking as her moan echoed through the trees.
When it was over, when we were both catching our breath beneath the heavy silence of the woods, she didn’t kiss me again. She just looked at me—eyes wide, wild, like she wasn’t sure what she’d just done.
I went to speak when her fingers pressed against my lips. “This doesn’t leave the trees,” she whispered.
I wanted more—for her to give me her phone number and let me take her out on a proper date.
Instead, she was already pulling her skirt back down, smoothing her hair, walking away toward the glow of the bar like she hadn’t just undone me completely.
I stood there for a long time before I followed.
I’d been thinking about her ever since.
Brody was manning the grill in his backyard like it was a crime scene—calm, focused, unbothered by the smoke curling into his face. He had changed out of his police uniform and flipped a burger with one hand while holding a beer in the other. He had his sleeves pushed up, posture loose.
“So,” he said as I stepped through the gate, “you finally moved in. Nancy didn’t warn you the place was haunted?”