Chapter 31
Ethan
Lucky startles awake as soon as my phone buzzes on the bedside table. Her whole body jolts like she’s been dropped into ice water. My hand goes out automatically, steadying her before I even check the screen.
Sheriff Dawson.
Bloody perfect timing.
I don’t need to answer to know what this is—the security alert app is already lighting up. Cedar Falls Bank’s morning false alarm. Again.
They upgraded their system last spring—my install—state-of-the-art, idiot-proof. Except it’s only idiot-proof if you don’t put a rotating cast of half-asleep interns on opening duty.
Every few weeks: same circus, new clown.
One of them forgets the two-step disarm, punches the wrong sequence, or holds the door too long… and the whole damn building screams. Protocol requires Dawson to call me before he files a report, so I can verify it’s not a malfunction.
Routine. Annoying. Predictable as sunrise.
“I’ll go make coffee,” Lucky mumbles, rubbing her eyes as she slides out of bed. She grabs a shirt—my shirt—from the floor and pads toward the door.
So much for morning sex.
I sigh and swipe to answer.
“Yeah, Sheriff,” I say. “Which one was it this time?”
I pull on shorts with my free hand and follow the smell of coffee downstairs.
Dawson huffs a laugh, the kind that crackles like gravel over the line. Too early for this shit is basically his love language.
“Morning to you too, Maddox,” he says. “And it’s the new kid. Tyler. Skinny one with the tragic mustache.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Poor bastard’s been trying to grow that sad thing on his upper lip since May.”
“Yeah, well, he punched in the override code backward,” Dawson sighs. “Set off the whole system. Bank wants you in to verify the panel didn’t fault before I file the report.”
Of course they do.
“Give me an hour,” I say.
“Make it sooner if you can. I know it’s Saturday, but I told the manager you’re dependable.” Dawson pauses, amusement creeping into his voice. “Left out the part where you’re grumpy as hell before nine.”
“Good,” I mutter. “Wouldn’t want to ruin my reputation.”
“You planning on giving me paperwork every damn weekend?” he asks.
He means last night. Obviously.
“Not unless you failed to eliminate those three troublemakers properly.”
“I’m not a disposal service,” Dawson grumbles. “They were escorted, and we watched ‘em drive right out of town. Sunrise and everything. Just keep your nose clean.”
Dawson knows not to dig. He won’t get anything I don’t volunteer.
“If I were looking for trouble, Sheriff,” I say dryly, “I wouldn’t waste my time on three amateurs in matching suits.”
He snorts. “Bring coffee, Maddox, and I’ll give you the latest town gossip,” he says, knowing when to change the topic. “Supposed to be real shocking.”
“Doubt it,” I say. “Last week’s ‘juicy stuff’ was your neighbor’s cat getting stuck in a storm drain.”
“Hey, that was dramatic,” he shoots back. “Anyway, see you soon.”
I hang up with a quiet exhale.
When I turn, Lucky’s at the sink, sipping water, hair a wild, glorious mess around her shoulders. She’s wearing nothing but my shirt—hanging off her, swallowing her—and looking at me like I’m the only solid thing in the room.
For one dangerous second, I consider calling Dawson back and telling him to shove it.
But reality snaps into place like a bolt sliding home.
I grab my jeans sitting in a hamper of folded laundry. “I’ve gotta head out for a bit,” I tell her. “Bank alarm. False one. Again.”
Her mouth twists sympathetically. “The tragic mustache kid?”
I blink. “You heard that?”
“You were not exactly quiet,” she smirks, leaning on the counter. “Also, your ‘bloody hell’ voice carries.”
Christ, she’s going to be the death of me.
I step close enough to brush her hip with my hand, grounding myself in her warmth. “I’ll only be a couple of hours. Three, tops. Sheriff wants a report, and I’ve gotta restock some supplies in town.”
Her expression shifts, the faintest flicker of fear across her eyes—there and gone. But I see it. I always see it.
I lower my voice. “Lucky. My guy swept the whole perimeter at dawn. Scheifer’s nowhere near Cedar Lake Falls. You’re safe.”
She swallows, nodding once.
I tilt her chin up gently, meeting her gaze. “And you’re going to turn on the system the second I walk out, yeah?”
“Yes, Dad,” she teases, rolling her eyes. But then—softening—“Yeah. I will.”
I nod, satisfied, though leaving her alone tightens something low in my gut.
I press a slow kiss to her forehead, meant to reassure her more than me.
She rises onto her toes and catches my mouth with hers—warm, a little shaky, like she’s memorizing the shape of me before I go.
“Back soon,” I murmur against her lips.
And as I head for the door, grabbing my keys and the security toolkit I practically sleep with nowadays, I can feel her eyes on me—warm, worried, and pulling me back even as I step away.
The mid-morning sun filters through the trees in long, warm ribbons as I drive the familiar stretch toward town.
The woods around my place are alive now — birds cutting across the sky, the underbrush glinting where dew hasn’t burned off yet, everything smelling like pine warmed by daylight.
My truck rumbles along the narrow road, tires humming on damp asphalt.
For a few minutes, I let the quiet sink in.
Lucky’s kiss is still ghosting my mouth. Hell, my heartbeat hasn’t even calmed down. She meant what she said the other day — about staying… about me.
Staying. Indefinitely.
The word feels big in my chest, too big for the confines of the truck. I tighten my grip on the wheel, and before I can stop it, a smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. I want her here. I’ve wanted that from the moment she stepped into Cedar Lake Falls and turned my entire routine inside out.
And Lily… God, Lily is going to lose her mind. That kid practically formed a fan club all on her own, and now that I think about it, she probably clocked Lucky’s real identity ages ago and kept it to herself like some top-secret treasure. She’s going to take this better than I am.
The trees open up as I crest the small hill overlooking the lake.
The water mirrors the sky — bright, clear blue with soft ripples from a morning breeze.
Town always looks different in this light: sharper, friendlier, like someone scrubbed it clean overnight.
The sheriff’s office sits ahead, brick and glass warmed by sun instead of the gloomy gray this place gets during the long winters.
My phone buzzes in the cup holder. Sam’s name lights up the screen.
Right. Back to work.
I tap the speaker. “Yeah?”
Wind rushes over the line—Sam’s somewhere remote, which tracks.
“Got something,” he says, voice low, clipped.
The voice he uses when he’s hunting. “Picked up chatter on the freight channels. A couple of truckers spotted a man matching Sheifer’s description yesterday. One swore he hitched a ride east.”
My jaw tightens. East means us.
Means Lucky.
“You sure it’s legit?” I ask.
“Enough that I’m following it,” Sam replies. “I’m thirty miles into the dark and still pushing. No visual yet, but if he’s on a rig, he’s moving faster than we thought.”
I breathe slow, controlled. “Keep on him. And stay off-grid. If Sheifer twigs that someone’s tracking him, he ghosts.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Sam mutters. “You be careful too.”
“I am,” I say—truth, but also not the whole truth. He doesn’t need to know what errand I’m running. Or that I left Lucky for even an hour. “Check in when you have something concrete.”
He clicks off.
The familiar storefronts pass by as I roll into town—Mrs. Kline’s bakery with its doors propped open, the hardware store unloading lumber, the florist adjusting her display of mid-morning blooms. Normal life. Quiet life.
A life Lucky deserves to feel safe in.
The bank appears up ahead—big glass front, brick siding, sun reflecting off the windows in clean flashes. Probably another intern messing with the morning access sequence again. Happens often enough that I could reset their system half-asleep.
I pull into the lot and sit there for one still second.
Lucky wants to stay.
Sam’s hunting the bastard threatening her.
And me—I’m holding together the thin line between danger and something that finally feels like a future.
I take a breath, steady and sure, and step out of the truck.
It’s time to deal with the bank. Then it’s time to get back to her
The sheriff’s office smells like old coffee and cedar cleaner. Dawson leans over my shoulder while I scroll through the footage frame by frame, laptop humming on his desk. The timestamp hits the moment the alarm tripped.
Nothing.
Not a shadow, not a shift of light, not so much as a flicker of dust.
Just the door sensors spiking out of nowhere.
Dawson rubs his jaw. “Well, that’s unsettling.”
I zoom in on the access panel logs. Clean. Too clean. Someone didn’t just trigger it—they understood exactly how to touch the system without leaving a fingerprint.
“Ethan,” Dawson says, lowering his voice, “you’re sure this isn’t a malfunction?”
“No.” The word is flat, certain. “Hardware’s solid. Software too. This wasn’t an error.”
He whistles under his breath. “So we’re looking at someone who knows their way around security tech.”
My stomach goes cold. “Looks that way.”
Dawson folds his arms, staring at the unchanged frame on my screen. “You know what I hate about stuff like this?”
I wait.
“It means someone was there,” he says quietly. “And they knew how to not be seen.”
The back of my neck tightens.
Dawson nods toward the screen again. “This—whatever this is—was intentional. And I don’t like intentional.”
“Neither do I.”
He shifts his weight, eyes flicking to me. “You got enemies, Maddox? Someone tryin’ to make a point? Because this doesn’t feel like some bored teenager playing hacker.”
I keep my expression still. Controlled. “Nothing that ties to a small-town bank.”