Chapter 35
The property was officially on the market now. The planted-for-sale sign swayed in the front yard.
Elias stood with his hands in his pockets, assessing the house as though he were simply another passerby.
“I retired,” he said when she approached.
Kara stared at him. “You retired?”
“That's what I said.”
Despite everything, a laugh escaped her.
He watched her for a moment, and something almost friendly crossed his face.
“Good to see you again, Kara.”
Her throat tightened. She hated that her eyes were suddenly burning. After everything he'd done, after dragging them out of danger and saving their lives, she wasn't ready for the possibility that this might be goodbye.
A tear slipped down her cheek.
Elias sighed.
“Suck it up.”
He turned away.
“You know what I couldn’t figure out?” Kara started, watching Elias carefully. “Uncle Richard confessed to the fire. He said he dropped his cigarette and it caught. But he swears Daryl was already dead when he got there.”
Elias said nothing.
“If Richard is telling the truth, then someone else killed Daryl.”
A slow smirk tugged at Elias’s mouth.
He didn’t look surprised. He looked amused, and for Elias, that was a startling amount of emotion to show.
Richard had been the perfect scapegoat— he was at the scene, already admitting to the fire, and unlikely to be believed when he claimed Daryl was dead before he arrived.
“You framed him.”
“Don't get into any more trouble,” Elias called over his shoulder. Kara watched him disappear, wiping the tears from her cheek.
That night, Kara couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned before finally stirring awake.
Opening her eyes, she stared at the ceiling.
It was the early hours of the morning, and everything was still dark.
The guest room was cool and quiet. The kind of quiet that lets your thoughts get too loud.
And hers were relentless—circling back to the past, the people she disappointed, and the ones she still wasn’t sure how to forgive. Including herself.
She sat up slowly, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. Her feet barely made a sound on the hardwood floors as she padded down the short hallway. She hesitated in front of Colin’s bedroom door, heart pounding.
I don't want to feel alone anymore.
She pushed the door open gently. He stirred, sensing her before she said a word.
"Kara?" Concern flickered in his eyes immediately. "Is everything okay?"
She nodded, barely. "I couldn’t sleep." Her voice was barely above a whisper.
He sat up, already pulling the blanket back without hesitation. “Come here.”
She slipped in beside him, the bed creaking softly beneath her weight. As soon as she was close enough, Colin pulled her in, wrapping an arm around her and settling her against his chest. His touch was firm, familiar. Safe.
Her breath caught as she rested her cheek above his heart, feeling the steady thump beneath her ear. His hand rubbed slow circles along her back.
They didn’t speak. Not for a long while.
But when she tilted her head to look at him, their faces only inches apart, the tension changed—slowly, but undeniably. There was something charged in the silence now, something unspoken, but understood.
Colin's hand brushed a strand of hair from her face. “You don’t have to say anything,” he murmured. “I just... I’ve got you.”
That should’ve made her cry. But instead, it made her bold.
She leaned in, pressing her lips to his—soft at first, tentative, almost afraid. But he met her there, his kiss deepening slowly, like he’d been holding that moment back for years.
The kiss turned to touch, and that touch turned to heat. They moved carefully as though not to break whatever fragile trust was blooming between them. But the closeness had urgency. When he slipped her shirt over her head and kissed the hollow of her throat, she didn’t flinch.
When his hands roamed her back and she met his gaze, there was only tenderness there. Just skin against skin until the rest of the world seemed to disappear.
Kara leaned closer, letting herself forget everything that had happened—there was nothing left to solve. Whatever came next, she knew one thing for certain.
She didn't want to let him go.
Afterward, she stayed curled against him, his arms still around her.
Kara finally drifted off, fingers loosely tangled in his.
The days bled into one another in the quietest, most unexpected way.
There was no grand declaration, no formal decision—it just happened.
A morning coffee mug sitting in the same spot each day, laundry baskets merged into one, groceries bought without question of who ate what.
Kara noticed the change slowly, like watching the tide roll in: gentle, inevitable.
Colin had started calling it our place. Not with intention, but in passing—when talking to delivery drivers, a neighbor, or one of the waitstaff. “Just drop it off at our place,” he’d said the first time, and Kara’s heart had fluttered most ridiculously.
And she hadn’t corrected him.
They moved around each other so easily now, like a rhythm they’d known all along but had just taken time to fall back into.
When she woke up before him, she’d pad around barefoot and make coffee.
When he got home late, she’d leave the porch light on and a plate in the oven.
It was domestic, but it didn’t feel like settling—it felt like becoming.
The storefront next to the restaurant had sat empty for years, windows dusty and papered with For Lease signs no one had taken seriously. Kara hadn’t even considered it until Colin handed her the keys one morning over breakfast, like he was offering her a piece of the town—and of himself.
“I know you said you weren’t sure where you belonged,” he said, a little sheepish. “But I think maybe… You do now.”
She opened her litigation office there. Quietly, with little fanfare. A fresh coat of paint, a new sign, a modest desk, and a sharp mind ready to go to work. It wasn’t the skyline she’d once dreamed of, but the mountain air felt steadier than any tower of steel.
And for the first time in a long while, Kara Nicholls didn’t feel like she was running from something. She was building something. With him. Here.