CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Storm Before
The solstice gathering filled the clubhouse garage floor with more warmth than Josie had seen the space hold in years, string lights looped between the rafters, long tables loaded with food, the particular loud, easy noise of an entire community letting its guard down together for one night.
She arrived with Sawyer a little after five, the winter dark already complete outside, and felt the old familiar nerves settle the moment Delia caught sight of her from across the room and waved her over with unmistakable delight.
Cole appeared almost immediately after, dragging her toward the food tables with the enthusiasm of a younger brother eager to show off, and within twenty minutes Josie found herself laughing easily among people she hadn't let herself be close to in three years, the careful distance she'd maintained around this world finally, genuinely dissolving.
"You look happy," Reeve observed, finding her a while later near the edge of the gathering, a plate of food in his hand. "Genuinely happy. Not performing it for the room."
"I am." She meant it, surprised by how simply true it felt. "Thank you, for inviting me tonight. As club, Sawyer said. Not just as his guest."
"You were always club, Josie. Your father saw to that the day you were born.
" Reeve's expression turned thoughtful, weighing something.
"The final debt payment clears next week.
Full review of Sawyer's standing happens the week after.
I wanted you to hear that from me directly tonight, before the gossip mill got to it first."
Something hopeful and cautious moved through her chest. "And you think it'll go well."
"I think a man who chose total honesty over his own standing, twice now, in front of the whole membership, has already answered the only question that ever mattered." Reeve's mouth curved, warm. "But that's not my call alone to make. The room decides together. I just call the vote."
He moved off to greet another cluster of members, and Josie stood for a moment near the edge of the gathering, watching the warm chaos of it, Cole demonstrating some card trick to a delighted group of younger prospects, Delia deep in conversation with an old friend, Sawyer across the room laughing at something, his profile lit gold by the string lights overhead, looking more at ease in this space than she'd seen him look in the entire three weeks since he'd stepped out of that truck into her flooded life.
She was still watching him when her phone buzzed in her pocket, an unfamiliar number, and something in the small, ordinary interruption made her stomach tighten before she'd even read the message.
*Your shop's not as watched tonight as you think it is. Everyone's here, aren't they.*
She read it twice, the warm noise of the gathering suddenly distant and strange around her, and looked up to find Sawyer already crossing the room toward her, his easy expression from a moment ago replaced by sharp, immediate alertness, some instinct clearly having caught the change in her posture from across the crowded floor.
"What is it," he said, low, already reaching for her phone.
She showed him the message wordlessly, and watched his face go pale and then hard in quick succession, the easy warmth of the evening draining out of him entirely.
"They know we're all here," he said, already turning toward Reeve across the room, voice pitched to carry. "Reeve. Everyone. We have a problem."
The gathering's warm chaos rippled and stilled as heads turned, the string lights suddenly feeling too bright, too exposed, against whatever was closing in on the quiet, unwatched shop across the river.
Reeve was at Josie's side within seconds, reading the message over Sawyer's shoulder, his expression shifting into the same hard focus Josie remembered from the day of the emergency meeting.
"They're testing whether we'd actually leave her unprotected for one night," Reeve said grimly. "Which means this isn't a real threat yet. It's a message. But messages from these people don't stay messages for long if we don't respond fast."
"I'm going," Sawyer said, already moving toward the door, Cole appearing at his side without being asked, keys already in hand.
"I'm coming with you," Josie said, matching his pace, the fear in her chest sharp and immediate but steadier than it had any right to be, three weeks of learning to face danger beside him instead of hearing about it after the fact settling into place like armor she'd finally earned the right to wear.
"Josie."
"Don't," she said, firm, meeting his eyes in the doorway of the clubhouse, the warm gathering behind them, the cold winter dark waiting outside.
"You promised me I'd never hear about a threat to me secondhand again.
That includes tonight. I'm not standing here safe at a party while you drive toward whatever they've decided to send toward my shop. "
Something in his face, fear and fierce pride tangled together, gave way, and he nodded once, sharp. "Stay close. Whatever we find, you stay close to me."
They ran together into the cold, string lights and warm laughter falling away behind them, Reeve already barking orders to the members left behind, and Josie climbed into Sawyer's truck with her heart hammering against her ribs, the whole warm, hopeful evening collapsing in an instant into something far more dangerous, the district's dark streets blurring past the windows as they raced back toward the shop, toward whatever waited for them in the unwatched dark.