Chapter 7 #2
He stepped closer, shoulder brushing hers. “Even here, you don’t have to be alone, Nimue. Not if you don’t want to.”
Her breath hitched. He feared she might retreat, but she didn’t. She leaned into him—just slightly, but enough to kindle hope.
“Careful, ranger. You’re starting to sound like you want us to be friends.”
“What if I do?” His voice dropped low, steady, holding her in place with his blue eyes.
The air between them crackled with that same pull from earlier on the rock—the one that made him want to close the distance, hold her, never let go. He reached up, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Do you think it would be okay if—”
“Uncle Liam, you left your phone!”
Jimmy, Asher, and Easton came running from the campground.
He and Nimue stepped apart as Jimmy held out his phone. The kid nearly reached his shoulder now.
“Thanks.” He hadn’t even realized it was missing. The boys sprinted back to the fire.
The moment dissolved like smoke as she stepped away. He jingled his keys, walking toward the Bronco, acutely aware of her footsteps behind him.
“I’m glad you came tonight.” His voice carried weight beyond the simple words. “Really glad.” He turned.
Something shifted in her expression—walls lowering, just a little. “Your family’s incredible, Liam. They made me feel…”
“Like you belonged?”
She nodded, swallowed, then headed toward the passenger side.
Right. But as he got in, he realized that for the first time in months, the restless ache in his chest had quieted. His family was here, Nimue was here, and suddenly the canyon didn’t feel like a place to hide from his past but like a place to build his future.
Sleep was overrated anyway. Nimue rolled off the couch, padding to her tech setup in bare feet.
Seven days since the campfire with Liam’s family.
Seven days of him arriving at six sharp for their runs, returning at seven in the evening for canyon-side conversations that stretched until stars appeared.
Seven days of anticipation that had her bolting upright at four a.m., pulse hammering for reasons that had nothing to do with caffeine withdrawal.
And seven days in which he’d said nothing, nada, nichevo about their near kiss.
Maybe she’d read his actions, his invitation, way, way, off-the-map wrong.
She jabbed the Keurig’s button, flicked on the LED strip above the window, and folded herself cross-legged onto the cushioned bench.
Her laptop screen glowed to life—4:17 a.m.—and demanded her password.
Her fingers moved from muscle memory as the familiar whir of her computer fans filled the silence.
Last night she’d sketched Alani to distract herself from thoughts of Liam.
This morning, even that felt too raw. The campfire had reopened wounds she’d thought had healed—the ache for family, for belonging.
The Kingsley clan’s easy laughter and shared stories had left her simultaneously warmed and hollowed out.
How did everyone around her manage sprawling families while she collected scraps?
Even Emberly had been absorbed by family. Steinbeck Kingston and his mighty clan. And sure, they would probably welcome her too, but she’d always be the outsider looking in. The stray they’d taken pity on.
And then there was Liam. Those blue eyes that seemed to see straight through her carefully constructed walls.
It wasn’t just attraction—though that certainly complicated things.
It was the way he looked at her like she mattered, like he wanted to know every layer she’d built up.
Dangerous territory. She’d known him barely two weeks, but he was already slipping under her defenses, and that scared her more than any encrypted file.
She pulled up the files she’d intercepted months ago.
She’d gone over them more times than she could count, but maybe today would be different.
The files were unassuming—PDFs, text documents, nothing that screamed immediate danger.
She lifted her coffee mug, wincing at the bitter brew, and opened the first file.
Spreadsheet. Columns of numbers resembling inventory logs. She’d memorized every cell by now, but something grabbed her attention—a word with a slightly different font. Almost like…
She clicked on it.
A soft ping filled the air. Her cursor spun into a loading wheel. Her pulse kicked up as new files cascaded across her desktop like digital confetti.
“No way.” Coffee sloshed as she set the mug down too fast. She clicked another file, expecting schematics or communications or code.
A Roomba manual? Pages of vacuum diagrams in Cyrillic text.
“Are you kidding me?” She stared at the screen. Either this was elaborate misdirection or the Russian mob had branched into home cleaning solutions.
She grabbed her phone, pacing the narrow aisle. “Em, you awake?”
“Just getting up, but it’s four thirty a.m. there. What’s wrong?” Emberly’s voice carried concern even through morning grogginess.
“I cracked something.” Nimue couldn’t suppress her grin. “Found hidden files—thought they were nothing, but one just unlocked an entire archive. Roomba schematics with Russian text. How’s your Russian?”
“Roomba?” Emberly yawned. “My Russian is enough to ask you a few basic questions and take a cab, but you should ping Coco. She’s Russian, so she’ll be able to sort it out.” A link pinged in Nimue’s email. “Use this.”
Nimue uploaded the files. “Done.”
“Anything else?” Kitchen sounds drifted over the line—Emberly starting her day.
Nimue hesitated. She wanted to spill everything about Liam—the almost-kiss by his Bronco, the way he’d tucked her hair behind her ear, the imagined words that had haunted her for a week.
Do you think it would be okay if…what? Okay if I kiss you?
Okay if I borrow your iPad again? Very different questions.
Her phone buzzed with an incoming call. “It’s Coco. I’ll call you later.” She switched over. “Hey, Coco, I was just—”
“Don’t open anything else,” Coco said, her tone brisk.
“Some of those files have trackers. The second you access them, they ping your exact location to whoever’s watching.
I can’t tell if these triggered, but you need to be careful.
Were these in the files you sent me before? I don’t remember seeing them.”
“I don’t know—maybe. There were a lot of files. I can send—”
“No. Don’t touch them. Where are they now?”
“I saved everything on a flash drive.”
“I’ll have to get to you to retrieve it, but it may take a few days before I can arrange it. Don’t open any more files. Take out the flash drive, empty your cache, and do not connect it to your computer again. You should keep moving. Can you leave now?”
The words hit like a punch, turned Nimue sick. No, she couldn’t…um…“I’d need a day.” Maybe she was being soft, but she at least had to say goodbye to Liam.
“Then at least hide the flash drive away from where you’re staying until you’re on the move again.” Coco’s desperate words interrupted her thoughts. “Someplace someone won’t find it. But not so far you can’t quickly access it when you’re able to relocate.”
Relocate? Her breath caught.
How had she gone from knowing she had to leave to hating the idea? “I’ll…figure it out.”
She ended the call, scrubbing file traces from her system. The flash drive. She grabbed a small Tupperware container and dropped it inside, then into a metal tin, then stepped out of her trailer.
It was after five now, and dawn provided enough light to navigate without a flashlight.
She hurried along the canyon’s edge, maybe a hundred feet, where rocks created natural hiding spots, found a crevice deep enough to conceal the tin but shallow enough to avoid a snake ambush, and shoved it into the crevice.
She gathered a handful of apple-sized rocks and stacked them in front as camouflage.
The whole process took way longer than she expected, and the sun was high enough to start a bead of sweat down her back by the time she walked back.
She stopped at the makeshift water station she’d set up and rinsed her hands and splashed water on her face.
This was their warmest day yet, and it didn’t help that the humidity was up.
Could mean a storm was headed their way soon.
She had just stepped into her trailer when the familiar rumble of Liam’s Bronco announced his arrival.
She checked the clock on the microwave: 6:03 a.m. She’d lost track of time.
She slammed her laptop shut, swapped her hoodie for a running tank, and laced her sneakers, Coco’s warning echoing in her head.
You should keep moving.
Liam waited outside, leaning against the hood of his Bronco. They studied each other for a moment before his mouth quirked in that small smile she’d grown to anticipate. He nodded toward the trail.
Not the time to tell him she had to leave. Or maybe she just didn’t want it to be.
“Let’s go,” she said. They fell into their usual rhythm, feet finding familiar cadence on the dirt path. But instead of their normal banter and sarcastic exchanges, silence stretched between them.
“You okay?” Liam slowed to a walk forty minutes later as her bus came back into view. “You’re quiet today.”
“Lost in thought.”
“About?”
Oh no—anything—anything else—
“What were you going to ask me by your Bronco last week? After the campfire? You said, ‘Do you think it would be okay if…’”
His eyebrow climbed. She winced. Okay, maybe not that.
“You sure you want to know?” His eyes held hers, steady and searching. “I got the impression you were relieved we were interrupted. And once I ask, there’s no going back.”
The air between them crackled.
And just like that, she knew. He had wanted to kiss her. It hadn’t been her imagination.
Yes, please, she wanted him to ask. The thought had invaded her dreams more than once.
You should keep moving.
Yes. No…Shoot—what did she want?
Before she could respond, something caught her eye.
Her bus door hung slightly ajar.