Chapter 4 #2
She didn’t turn her head and instead, let her gaze slide, catching the angle of the plate as the sun hit it.
She could only get a partial—7KD—and filed it the way her brain filed routes through mangroves or the way the sky went yellow-green before a storm was rolling two hours earlier than forecasted.
The car paused at the stop sign, as if it wanted to be seen.
Then it eased on and—once she’d clocked it—accelerated just a hair too fast. She squinted, trying to read the rest of the plate, but between something possibly covering it and the glare of the sun, she couldn’t see it well enough to catch the letters or numbers.
Tourists, she told herself. Contractors. Someone lost between breakfast and the highway.
Her shoulders stayed tight until Buddy’s she reached steps.
He opened the back door before she could knock. Barefoot. Hair damp, combed, perfectly. T-shirt clinging in all the ways the heat would claim credit for if it could write copy.
“Morning,” he said, voice steady, eyes already reading her.
She lifted the tray. “Payment for services rendered. Black for me, one with oat milk for you because we don’t need you complaining about your stomach. And muffins. I have no food, so this is breakfast.”
“Works for me.” He took the carrier, fingers brushing hers—warm. “Thanks for bringing this. Come in.”
His place smelled like soap mixed with dust. Boxes lined one wall like they were waiting for orders. A corkboard leaned against the table, empty for now. The fan hummed overhead, pushing the same warm air in soft circles.
“You unpacking or just staging an intervention for your own clutter?” Fallon asked, setting the muffins down.
“Trying to see if staying feels like something I remember how to do.” He handed her the coffee.
“Consider it a bribe.” She pulled out a chair and sat. “I might need your brain.”
“You do,” he said, sitting next to her. He was so close she swore she could feel his pulse. “But go ahead and pretend you don’t.”
That pulled a smile she hadn’t planned. It slipped away when slid her hand into her back pocket.
She took out her phone, opened the text, and turned it so he could see. She didn’t bother with a preamble.
His jaw drew tight. “I see you didn’t reply.”
“Of course not.”
“Good.” He held the phone in his hands while outside, a heron complained—harsh, indignant. “Can you forward it to me? And then you might want to send it on to Keaton and Dawson.”
“Planned on it, but why do you want it?”
He ran his fingers through his hair and leaned back. He leaned forward, snagging his coffee and took a large gulp.
When he got like this, he was thinking about something profound. Thinking about something related to a case.
Only, he wasn’t a fed anymore.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“That case I was working on—the one I closed right before I left the FBI—the guy I put behind bars taunted me with a line just like that.” He turned and held her gaze.
“It’s not an uncommon phrase. I’ve seen other criminals, killers, drug dealers, you name it, use it.
Hell, I’ve heard doctors say it. But this doesn’t feel random.
Nor does that girl you saved, and it’s had me on high alert ever since. ”
Her heart rate sped up. She swallowed her breath, and it tasted like death. Her chest tightened, like someone had laced her into a corset and was tightening the threads to the point it was crushing her.
“What else happened that you’re not telling me?”
“There was a car,” she managed. “Dark muscle car. Dodge Charger, I think. Tints. Slow roll past the cabins. Partial plate—7, K, D. I couldn’t get to my phone without being obvious or baptizing the street in coffee.”
“Don’t love that,” he said gently. He pulled a legal pad from the table’s edge and wrote 7KD with a blocky neatness that made her think of evidence lockers and stupid, awful rooms with fluorescent lights. “Direction?”
“Paused, then turned toward the main road heading out of town.” She gestured vaguely toward the window.
“People telegraph more than they think.” His pen tapped once. “There’s more to that phrase and that case.” He didn’t look away from her.
Fallon didn’t move. “We never talked much about the case when we texted and the deeper you got into it, the less we chatted.”
“Things got dark, and before I made the arrests, I was on this twenty-four-seven,” he said softly. “It was what they said to each other when a girl slipped their net or when one didn’t matter—only a single word was different. It was, you can’t have them all.”
Her hand tightened around the cup. “Jesus, that’s creepy.”
“I don’t like coincidence. But I like panic less. We’ll treat it like a thing. We won’t give it more than it earns.”
“We,” she said, before she could stop herself.
One side of his mouth kicked up. “Yeah. We.”
They sat with that—staring at each other with an intensity that had nothing to do with unknown texts and muscle cars and everything to do with the heat and the fan and the quiet weight in the room.
“You saw the news about the Jane Doe rescue,” she said, because easier topics were still topics and she didn’t know where to file Buddy when he used the word we and stared at her like he might want something other than conversation.
“Stacey has a type,” he said. “It’s called ‘Stacey.’”
“She asked Trent for an interview, but he said no on principle.”
“Good for him. He’ll give in tomorrow.”
“Probably,” she admitted. “He’s allergic to being bored.”
“And you’re allergic to being handled,” he said. “Which is what Stacey would’ve tried if she’d interviewed you.”
“I’m not a performance. I’m a job.” She groaned. “That didn’t come out right.”
“Perhaps not, but it landed.”
The air shifted. Not because the fan changed speed. Because he didn’t look away when he should’ve, and she didn’t when she should’ve, and then he inched closer. His breath hot and his gaze hotter.
“This could be a bad idea,” she said softly.
“Definitely.”
He reached for her hand, knuckles grazing the inside of her wrist, right where her pulse fluttered. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t even long. It still set something in her alight, hot and clean.
She leaned a fraction forward.
“Fallon,” he whispered, like her name was the only argument he had left.
His lips brushed hers like a spark igniting a fire in her belly. It was the kind of kiss that felt less like risk and more like an agreement they’d both been making in their heads since he’d rolled into town. Maybe longer.
When it broke, the fan sounded louder than it had before.
“I’m not sure where that came from.” He ran his thumb across her cheek.
She continued to stare into his dark, smoldering eyes. A million things raced through her brain, but only one stuck. “You haven’t wanted to do that for a while?”
“I haven’t seen you in two years.”
“We’ve texted and…” God, her ego couldn’t handle this.
“I know,” he said. “I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just… Hell, I don’t know.”
“Your muffin is going to get cold.”
“Tragedy.”
She stood because if she didn’t, she might say something she’d regret.
“I’ve got a meeting with your office at eleven and then a ton of things to do for my fundraiser after that.
Fletcher and Baily said I can store some things at the Crab Shack as well as the stuff I already have at the marina.
” She had no idea how either of them did it between owning the marina, being part owners in the Crab Shack and Everglades Overwatch, and being parents.
She was exhausted just thinking about it.
““I can help. I can carry heavy things.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I know how to lift boxes and arrange storage stuff.”
She glanced around at all his boxes. “I have my doubts.”
His mouth tipped upward into a quick smile before fading just as fast. “Don’t forget to send me a copy of that text.
” He took her hand and led her to the door.
He released his grip and placed his hand on the frame, as if he didn’t want to touch her multiple times in the same morning. “If you see that Charger again—”
“I’ll call you,” she said. “Before I pretend it’s nothing.”
“Good.”
She reached for the door, but he stepped in front of her and gripped her hips.
“I’ve been attracted to you since we first met.”
Her stomach dropped. Or lifted. She wasn't sure which, only that something in her chest went sideways and her breath caught somewhere between her lungs and her throat.
“I can list a dozen reasons why I’ve kept my distance—the Ring Finger case and all the other cases that brought me to town. I was here for a job, and it was temporary. I lived an hour away. I’m a little over ten years older than you. I’ve had one failed marriage and a couple of relationships that—”
“You don’t have to explain. We’re friends. I get it.” Of course he had a list of all the reasons why he wouldn’t act on whatever he was feeling. He was good at making lists.
“It’s not an explanation. It’s more like a… oh hell.” He yanked her to his chest, wrapping his strong arms around her waist. His gaze was so intense, it burned through her like a pod re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. His lips crash landed on hers in a wild kiss.
She gripped his shoulders, letting the rush of adrenaline flowing through her body take over.
His tongue twisted and twirled around hers. He tasted like coffee, oat milk, and sunshine.
When he pulled away, she wondered if he was going to regret that one, too. But instead, she was greeted with a smile and his fingers threading through her hair. “You'd better go. Otherwise, you’re going to end up being late for your meeting with Sterling and Dove.” He turned and opened the door.
She struggled to swallow. To breathe. To collect her thoughts, which pooled at her feet.
“I’ve got calls, so I won’t be attending, but I should be done by the time your chat with my colleagues ends. I can follow you to the Crab Shack,” he said.
“Okay.”
She stepped into the bright Florida sun with her heart pulsating in her throat. The sign in front of Harvey’s Cabins across the way blinked OPEN at no one in particular. A hose hissed. Somewhere, a kid squealed—the kind of sounds that made her wish summer was a thing she could bottle.
She touched her lips, wondering what the hell had just happened, and what it meant.
Scurrying between the yards like a teenager racing home after her first kiss under the bleachers, she headed for home. Once safely tucked inside her kitchen, she leaned against the sliding glass doors and let out a breath.
Of all the things she thought, or expected, could happen this morning. That kiss wasn’t it.
Her phone vibrated in her back pocket.
Buddy: Don’t forget to send that text. Muffin was delicious. Company was better.
She blinked. The room spun. Jesus. She was a fucking grown-up.
Thirty years old. Kissing a man wasn’t a big deal.
Hell, she’d lived with a guy for a few months.
Didn’t matter that she didn’t love him in a romantic way.
Trent had been there for her when she needed someone the most. That counted for something.
But this was Buddy Ballard. A man she’d been fantasizing about for years, and that turned her insides to mush.
She fumbled with her phone, found the text image, sent it to Keaton and Dawson with a quick note about what had happened, then attached it to a text to Buddy.
Fallon: Sent to Keaton and Dawson. Here you go. See you soon.
Buddy: Looking forward to it. Text if anything odd happens—even if you think it’s nothing.
She typed: Bossy.
Deleted it. Typed: Will do.
Outside, the Everglades kept humming. The heat pressed down. The strange message sat in her photos like a bruise. The past crept up like it did every year, reminding her that she could’ve been the one to be a ghost.
Fallon told herself she was fine.
She didn’t believe it. But she could carry it because she had to.