Chapter 18 #2
Music drifted from the bar behind them. Somewhere below, laughter rose from Main Street and disappeared into the night.
Bennett was watching her instead of the view, his gold-flecked eyes dark and entirely focused on her face.
She felt the heavy, suffocating weight of his attention before she even looked.
“What?” she asked, her voice dropping into a quieter register.
“Nothing.”
“That’s your suspicious nothing.”
“You have categories now?”
“With you? Yes.”
One corner of his mouth lifted, a lazy, lethal tilt. “You looked like you were about to argue with the skyline.”
“I was not.”
“You were.”
“I was processing.”
“Same thing, apparently.”
She laughed, turning back to the view, her hip lightly brushing his thigh as she leaned against the ironwork. “Okay.”
Bennett glanced over. “Okay, what?”
She swept a hand toward the courthouse. “I get it. Get why people stay.”
Bennett looked back toward the mountains, his expression tightening slightly. “I almost didn’t.”
Aubrey turned fully, her cream blazer shifting against her skin. “Really?”
“I came from Napa. Born there. Raised there. Married there.” Something quiet, a heavy shadow of old grief, settled over his expression. “I thought I’d probably die there too.”
The breeze caught a few loose strands of her hair, blowing them across his shoulder. Aubrey waited, her heart thudding steadily against her ribs.
“When my wife died, I couldn’t stand looking at it anymore.
Everything reminded me of her. Every road.
Every restaurant. Every vineyard.” His gaze drifted toward the courthouse lights below.
“So one morning I opened the paper, saw an ad for mountain acreage in North Carolina, wrote a check, and pointed my truck east.”
Aubrey blinked, her defenses melting at the raw honesty in his voice. “You bought property from a newspaper ad? Sight unseen?”
“Sight unseen.”
“That seems reckless.”
A faint smile touched his mouth, his eyes dropping to her lips. “That’s because it was.”
She laughed softly, the sound breathless in the tight space between them. “Then what happened?”
Bennett shoved his hands deep into his pockets, stepping a fraction of an inch closer until his chest was nearly brushing her shoulder. “At first? I figured I’d stay a year. Maybe two. Truth is, I never planned on putting down roots here.”
Something tight and aching pulled in Aubrey’s chest. “What changed?”
He was quiet for a long moment, his gaze boring into hers. “Mabel. She gave me work when I needed it. Trusted me before I’d earned it. Dragged me into Blackwood whether I wanted in or not.”
Aubrey smiled gently. “That sounds like her.”
“Yeah.” He looked back out toward the dark ridges. “She made this place feel like more than land and vines. I probably would’ve left eventually if it hadn’t been for her.”
Aubrey looked up at his profile. “But you didn’t.”
A faint smile touched his mouth. “No.” His eyes moved across the town. “Now I wouldn’t trade it.”
A familiar voice interrupted the heavy stillness between them. “Evening, Bennett.”
Aubrey turned as a young deputy approached, a soft drink in his hand. Tall, athletic, dark hair.
Bennett nodded. “Hale.”
The deputy extended his hand toward Aubrey. “Luke Hale.”
“Aubrey Langford.”
His smile warmed. “I know. Sorry. That probably sounded creepy.”
“Not anymore. I’ve accepted that privacy doesn’t exist here.”
“That’s healthy.”
Bennett rested his forearms on the iron railing, leaning over her just enough to cast her in shadow. “What’s up?”
Luke’s expression sobered. “Burke asked me to let you know we’ll be running extra patrols around Blackwood for a while.”
Aubrey’s attention sharpened, her fingers tightening against the iron railing. Luke noticed.
“Nothing alarming,” he said. Which meant it was at least a little alarming. “Just after the porch issue. A couple of prowler reports around the ridge properties, too. We’ll swing through more often at night. Make sure things stay quiet.”
Bennett went still.
“I appreciate it,” Aubrey said, her voice trembling slightly.
Luke nodded. “If anything feels off, call. Doesn’t matter how small.” He tapped two fingers lightly against the railing. “Y’all have a good night.”
He moved away toward a group near the far side of the terrace, leaving a different kind of silence behind them—one edged with the creeping reminder that Blackwood was still being circled by something dangerous.
Aubrey looked back toward the courthouse, her bare arms shivering slightly in the cooling air. “So the deputies are patrolling because of my possibly imaginary porch ghost.”
Bennett’s voice went flat, stripped of the earlier playfulness. “It wasn’t imaginary.”
She turned her head sharply, her green eyes wide. The night breeze crashed between them. He didn’t look away.
“You believed me?”
“I found the print, Aubrey. I told you it could’ve been a dog.”
“You lied.”
“Yeah.” Bennett turned fully, stepping into her orbit, crowding her back against the rooftop railing until she was trapped between the iron bars and the solid, radiating heat of his frame.
His head dipped, his shadow swallowing her.
“You were scared. It was late. You were already one bad night away from packing your bags and burning rubber out of the valley. I wasn’t going to give you another reason. ”
Aubrey stared up at him, her chest rising and falling beneath her cream blazer. Anger should have come first, but under the heavy intensity of his gaze, it evaporated into pure electricity.
“You lied to protect me?”
“I lied to keep you from panicking.”
She studied his profile in the rooftop light—the fierce line of his jaw, the raw, protective weight of his body leaning over hers. “You could have told me,” she whispered, her mouth parting slightly.
“I should have.” Bennett exhaled slowly, his breath warm against her bare lips, destroying the last of her defenses.
He slid one hand out of his pocket, his rough, calloused fingers wrapping slowly around the back of her neck, his thumb lifting her chin so she had no choice but to look at him.
His voice dropped into a rough, devastating growl. “I’m not good at this.”
“At what?” she breathed.
The answer hung heavy and agonizingly thick between them. He looked down at her mouth, his thumb tracing the soft line of her lower lip, his breathing turning ragged as he fought for control. The hunger in his eyes left little doubt where his thoughts had gone.
Instead, he let out a low, frustrated growl, his thumb giving one final, heavy pressure against her lip before he slowly dropped his hand, his voice pure gravel. “Being responsible for someone who doesn’t listen.”
Aubrey let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, her heart hammering against her ribs. “I listen.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I selectively process.”
“That sounds corporate.”
“It is.”
His mouth curved, the dangerous tension breaking enough for her to breathe again. For several seconds, they stood side by side, his arm still lightly brushing hers, watching the lights come on across the valley.
“For what it’s worth,” she said quietly, her inner wrist still tingling as her pulse raced, “I had a good time tonight.”
Bennett didn’t answer right away. When he finally did, his voice was rougher, carrying an absolute, heavy resonance that vibrated straight through her.
“Yeah.” He looked over, his gold-flecked eyes locking onto hers one final time in the dark. “Me too.”
The simple admission moved through her with the force of a physical blow. No kiss, no touch—just that. Me too. And somehow, it felt more dangerous than both.
County Road 107
Returning to Blackwood
Bennett steered onto County Road 107, the glowing lights of Sylva shrinking in the rearview mirror.
Aubrey was still talking. Something about Savannah and Chloe and their complete inability to mind their own business.
He should have been annoyed. Instead, he found himself listening. Really listening.
The realization hit him like a body blow.
Most dinners over the last six years had been obligations. Charity events. Industry functions. Well-meaning setups engineered by Mabel and half the women in Jackson County. He’d spent most of them counting the minutes until he could leave.
Tonight had disappeared before he’d noticed.
Bennett glanced toward the passenger seat.
Aubrey was looking out the window now, a faint smile lingering on her lips as the dark shadows of the pines swept across her face.
He shifted gears, his grip tightening on the wheel as the dark iron gates of Blackwood rose out of the shadows ahead.
Somewhere between the burgers, the beer, and that rooftop, the line had blurred. He wasn’t just protecting Mabel’s legacy anymore, and he damn sure wasn't just entertaining her niece.
He wanted her. And for the first time since coming to this mountain, that was going to be a problem.