9. Wes Osprey
Wes Osprey
Scarlet claims the passenger seat like she signed ownership papers in invisible ink. She steals Roman’s coffee before we hit the main road and settles into the morning with a suspicious lack of guilt.
I notice with less annoyance than I would like. I also can’t get the feel of her in my arms out of my head.
“Most people…” Roman leans in from the back seat and murmurs, “just admit attraction instead of turning it into a surveillance operation.”
Scarlet drinks more of his coffee without looking at him. “I heard that.”
“You stole my drink,” he replies.
“You offered emotional bribery through caffeine. I accepted the terms.”
“I offered one sip,” he says around a laugh.
“You should have put that in writing.”
The truck hits a pothole leaving the swamp road, and Scarlet’s bare knee brushes mine. Neither of us moves. In that half second, the air in the cab charges like static before a storm. Her scent warms, honey rising through sage, and my alpha responds before I can force my attention back to the road.
Scarlet shifts toward the door as if she can outrun her own instincts if she leans far enough.
Roman watches the whole thing in the rearview mirror with the expression of a man observing dry grass and a controlled burn moving toward each other. His gaze catches mine in the mirror.
You want her, it says.
So do you, I answer without words.
“Anyway,” he says pleasantly. “Boot print casts are setting in the equipment case, ribbon is sealed, water samples are labeled, and the lilies are heading to the regional lab by noon.”
Scarlet stares out the windshield. “You people make evidence collection deeply unromantic.”
“Swamp mud can’t be romantic?” Roman asks.
“Swamp mud causes infections.”
Scarlet snorts a laugh. “Love always requires sacrifice.”
I rub a hand down my jaw. “How are either of you functioning this early?”
“Sugar,” Scarlet says.
Roman nods along with her.
“Delusional,” I mutter.
I roll the truck past the Sweetheart Haven welcome sign with its painted roses and aggressively optimistic cursive. Morning traffic crowds the square more heavily than yesterday. Festival booths line the sidewalks, while tourists drift between storefronts, carrying shopping bags and pink lemonade.
Then people notice who is sitting in my truck.
Conversations shorten. Heads turn. A woman arranging candles outside the gift shop pauses mid-display and watches Scarlet with narrowed eyes. Two teenage omegas whisper near the bakery patio. A man sweeping outside the bait shop stops moving entirely.
The town has already decided she’s guilty, and now, it seems, they’re deciding what that makes us.
Scarlet feels the attention. Her shoulders pull tighter beneath the oversized sweatshirt, the deep-purple fabric slipping loose enough at the collar that reveals scattered freckles across one shoulder blade when she turns to look.
Her scent contracts, the warmth from the truck thinning beneath embarrassment and defensive anger.
My protective instincts flare. The harder question is what to do with them.
Dragging her against my side would soothe my alpha and confirm every rumor that I’ve stopped investigating.
Keeping my distance would leave her standing alone beneath the scrutiny of a town that has already chosen her as its answer. I choose the middle ground.
I slam the door harder than necessary and round to her side of the SUV to grab her door. I plant myself near enough that anyone watching has to look through me first.
Roman exits more carefully, balancing the equipment case against his hip. “Well,” he says lightly. “The locals seem to really embrace Southern hospitality.”
Scarlet snorts despite herself.
Good. It isn’t her fault the town has handed down a verdict before the facts.
The sheriff’s SUV sits outside Heritage Hall. Tom Bentley spots us before we reach the sidewalk, and his expression darkens. “Tell me you didn’t bring her to an active investigation site.”
Scarlet folds her arms. “Good morning to you too, Tommy.”
Tom ignores her. “Osprey.”
“We documented an area connected to physical evidence relevant to our case,” I say.
“With her?”
Roman closes the truck door. “You say that like she bites.”
Scarlet glances toward him. “Only recreationally.”
My attention goes to her mouth.
Tom looks like he regrets the entire conversation that led to this moment.
“We found recent activity near one of the old sweetheart gathering paths,” I explain.
Tom’s eyes narrow. “What kind of activity?”
“Unknown so far.”
Scarlet’s attention moves toward the museum entrance, and I follow her line of sight automatically.
The front doors stand open. An older omega paces near the reception desk, wringing her hands hard enough to bend the lace cuffs of her cardigan. From here, I can scent her fear. It’s the stench of realizing a situation can’t be managed back into order.
“What didn’t you tell us?” I ask.
Tom exhales once, through his nose. “Heritage Hall cameras went down before the theft.”
“How long before?”
“Forty-five minutes.”
Scarlet’s eyes cut toward him. “And you thought maybe I hacked the museum system between writing folklore books and spending too much time at the bakery?”
“You know enough about the display to bypass the sensors,” Tom says.
“That’s not an answer to what I asked.”
“No,” I say, cutting in before the argument finds its stride, “but it’s a reason to withhold information.”
Tom’s expression hardens. “This is my town.”
“And the GatorX investigation is ours. If evidence from your theft overlaps with it, we share what we have.”
The tension between us gathers fast. Roman steps into the gap before either of us decides volume is a communication strategy. His hand brushes the center of my back as he passes, a point of contact that reminds me I’m not handling the room alone.
“What Wes means,” he says pleasantly, “is that shared information tends to produce better results than competitive silence.”
Tom looks unconvinced, while Scarlet looks delighted. That delights me too, which I refuse to examine too closely.
The omega from the museum hurries toward the entrance before anyone can speak again. “Scarlet.” Her voice shakes.
Scarlet straightens. “What happened, Myrtle?”
The omega glances toward the square like she’s watching for additional bad news. “People keep calling the museum saying they think the festival should be canceled.”
That’s not good. Panic means the bond instability is going public, and once it goes public, the town stops being a background problem and starts becoming a variable we can’t control.
Concern crosses Scarlet’s face, followed by fear. Even though she’s been implicated, she doesn’t look afraid for herself. She looks afraid for the town.
“The stone protected bonds,” Myrtle says softly. “If people know it’s gone, and bonds are already failing during sweetheart season…”
“They need someone to blame,” Scarlet says.
Myrtle doesn’t deny it.
Roman shifts the equipment case to one hand. “Have there been more incidents since yesterday?”
Tom answers before Myrtle can. “Three calls. Pack disputes. Panic episodes. One omega collapse.”
Scarlet’s face loses color.
“Scarlet,” Roman says carefully, “when you said the instability was getting worse…”
“I didn’t realize how fast.”
A tourist couple passes nearby, carrying sweetheart brochures and matching pink drinks. The woman laughs at something her mate says. The sound is ordinary and completely wrong against the tension gathering through the square.
Scarlet wobbles.
“You need to sit down?” I ask.
Her head turns toward me. “Did you just ask if I’m feeling faint?”
“You look pale.”
“I’m from Florida. We all look damp and vaguely close to passing out.”
Roman nearly chokes. Even Tom’s mouth moves toward something that isn’t a frown.
Scarlet notices all of us watching her and looks offended by the existence of concern, which would be more convincing if she weren’t gripping the museum railing with both hands.
Roman moves toward her, stoppings within reach instead of touching her. “Half a sandwich and caffeine at dawn isn’t enough,” he says. “You know that.”
“I had cake yesterday.”
“That is actively making your case worse,” Roman says.
Scarlet’s mouth opens with a reply ready, then her body sways.
Roman catches her elbow when she tips toward him. Her hand closes around his forearm. The depleted note in her scent eases at once.
My alpha wants to cross the remaining space and place my hand at her waist. The investigator in me knows five people are watching, and Tom already thinks proximity has compromised my judgment.
Scarlet looks at me over Roman’s shoulder. Her eyes lower to my hand, then return to my face. The look lingers long enough that I take the chance and offer my palm. She stares at it, then she places her hand in mine. Her fingers are cold. I close my hand around hers, firm enough to ground her.
Myrtle points toward the museum doors. “Do you see that?”
Everyone turns.
A beam of sunlight makes dark water stains barely visible inside the base of the empty display pedestal. The faint muddy streaks are easy to miss.
I release Scarlet only when she loosens her grip first. The loss of contact registers through my whole arm.
I move toward the display case with Tom following close, and Roman keeps one hand near Scarlet’s elbow as they join us.
He sets the equipment case down beside the pedestal while Scarlet stays near the entrance, watching.
Up close, the residue carries a faint metallic edge beneath the museum cleaner. It smells like swamp water, but scent alone won’t tell us whether it came from the gathering site, another wetland area, or a contaminated boot.
Roman crouches. “This wasn’t in the original report.”
Tom grimaces. “It looked like dirt.”
“It is dirt,” Scarlet says from behind us. “The question is how it got inside a climate-controlled case that nobody but museum staff should be able to open.”
I glance back toward her.
She stands framed by morning light coming through the museum doors, her auburn hair loose and her sweatshirt slipping off one shoulder, while half the town watches her through the windows with expressions already arranged for a conviction.
Logic tells me to maintain distance until the evidence settles, but my body has already started tracking where she stands in every room we share. That instinct is gaining ground, but I can’t let it take over the case.
Scarlet’s gaze drops to the muddy residue inside the empty case. Recognition shifts across her face as she considers the same limited possibility the rest of us are considering. “What if,” she says slowly, “whoever opened the case tracked in swamp water?”
The room goes quiet enough that the ceiling fans are audible overhead.
She continues, eyes still on the residue.
“The person or whatever they were wearing had recent contact with wetland mud. It doesn’t prove they came from the gathering site, but what if they did?
” She looks up then, directly at me. “Maybe they knew enough about the stone to want it for more than the festival.”
Roman’s pencil is already moving.
Tom looks like he wants to object but can’t find the angle.
I hold Scarlet’s gaze, and the case shifts again beneath my feet.
“That raises a lot of questions. It doesn’t answer any,” I say.
The residue gives us a physical lead. Nothing more yet.
But one thing seems likely. Whoever is moving through this town understands more than the locals want to admit.
The person who removed the Love Stone knew enough to defeat the display and took wetland material into a controlled museum case.
Whether that connects to the lilies, the gathering path, or GatorX remains unproven.
For now, the evidence has finally given us a direction that doesn’t begin and end with Scarlet Sage.