Chapter 8 #3
“Slight exaggeration.”
“I can barely see your pupils. Stay here. For once in your life, don’t argue.”
She watched him disappear at the front of the car, too miserable to protest. Her throat was tightening. Not dangerous—she’d had anaphylaxis before, and this wasn’t it—but enough to turn her voice into a wheeze.
Dakota returned with a conductor in tow. “There’s a village in ten minutes. They’re radioing ahead for transport to our accommodation.”
“I can make it—”
“I know you can.” He crouched beside her, took her hand. His thumb traced circles on her palm. “But you don’t have to.”
She wanted to argue. Instead, she let herself lean into him and tried not to think about how good it felt to be taken care of.
Twenty minutes later, she could barely see through her swollen eyes, even as the rental car pulled up to the winery cottage.
Stone walls, exposed wooden beams across the ceiling, dark with age.
French doors opened onto a private terrace overlooking row after row of grapevines marching down the hillside.
Dakota picked up their key cards and led them to their suite.
She fell face down onto the king-sized bed.
Dakota arrived shortly after with a cool compress. She draped it over her face, feeling like something the cat dragged in and then reconsidered.
One bed. Because they were married. Because she’d agreed to this insane plan.
Dakota had acquired allergy meds from somewhere—a village pharmacy, she thought, though her memory of the drive was hazy.
She remembered the smell of lavender from the fields they’d passed.
The way he’d kept his arm around her shoulders, steady and warm.
The concerned murmur of his voice as he’d guided her through the cottage door.
He’d practically carried her inside before she dropped onto the bed. Then, after retrieving the compress, he pressed pills and water into her hands.
“Thanks.” Her voice sounded far away, the allergy meds dragging her under. Her limbs felt heavy, her thoughts slow and syrupy. The room wavered at the edges, and for a moment, she wasn’t in a Hunter Valley cottage at all.
She was standing in a doorway. Pale-yellow walls. A twin bed with a lavender quilt, faded from washing. The smell of antiseptic and something floral—the lotion Skylar used, the one that was supposed to help with the chemo nausea.
Skylar’s room. The way it had looked near the end.
And on the nightstand, next to the pill bottles and the half-empty water glass, the worn leather Bible.
Small. Brown. Soft from years of handling.
Even in the dream, Jayden could see the yellow highlighter bleeding through the thin pages.
Skylar had marked everything. Underlined verses, scribbled notes in the margins, stars and exclamation points next to the passages that meant something to her.
The book lay open, the highlighter fresh and bright, like Skylar had just set it down.
“The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”
Jayden tried to read the reference at the top of the page, but the letters swam. Something with a Z. Zephaniah, maybe. Skylar had loved the minor prophets—said they were like hidden treasures everyone skipped over.
“Rejoice over you with singing.”
Skylar’s voice, thin and tired but still warm: Can you imagine? God singing over us. Like a lullaby.
The room tilted. The Bible dissolved. The yellow walls faded to stone and exposed beams, and she was back in the cottage, the compress cool against her face, Dakota’s voice somewhere nearby.
“Why?” The word slipped out before she could catch it. “Why do you keep taking care of me?”
Dakota was quiet. She heard him shift in the chair.
“Because you matter to me,” he said finally.
Her throat tightened, and this time it wasn’t allergies. “You barely know me.”
“I . . . I know enough. I know you like your coffee candy-sweet and that you’re a decent swimmer. I know you notice things that other people don’t, and even that you snore when you sleep—”
“I don’t.”
“Yes, you do, sweetheart.” He smiled.
Oh, he was handsome. Too handsome.
Her entire body was wrung out.
“And I know I’m missing something, that you’re not telling me something,” he added quietly. “But it’s okay.”
Oh. She closed her eyes.
“And you need to know that you’re not alone.”
She wanted to argue. To deflect. To remind herself that he might be Spectre, might be playing her, might be the best liar she’d ever met.
Instead, she let the meds, the wash of fatigue, pull her under.
“Sleep,” Dakota said softly. “I’ll watch over you.”
And maybe she dreamed it. Maybe it was the medication playing tricks. But as she drifted off, she could have sworn she felt lips brush against her forehead. Soft. Tender. The ghost of a kiss.
The last thing she thought, before the darkness took her, was that assassins didn’t do this.
Either Dakota Rivers was exactly who he claimed to be . . .
Or she was already doomed.