Crimson River (The Edens)

My heart seized as Vance walked into the coffee shop, his face unreadable.

“Hi,” I breathed when he reached the counter.

“Hey.” He’d spent the past two days in the mountains, searching for signs of whoever had made that fish trap.

As much as I’d wanted to go with him, Crystal was off and I needed to be at the shop. That, and I’d only slow Vance down.

Except left behind, I’d had nothing to do but worry and wait. Today, I’d been so rattled that I’d dropped a coffee mug. The shattered ceramic remains were now in the trash can beside my feet. But one lost cup was better than my mishap yesterday—an entire double batch of cookie dough had gone splat on the kitchen floor when I’d been so distracted that I’d knocked over my mixing bowl.

“Are you hungry?” It took everything in my power not to ask him the question I was dying to voice.

Did you find Cormac?

I guess him being here was answer enough. If Vance had found Cormac, he’d likely be at the police station. Or possibly packing his hotel room.

“Yes,” he said. “I pushed hard today. Scarfed a granola bar on the drive back to town, but if you had a sandwich or something, that would be great.”

“I’ll bring it over.” I nodded, already going to work on a plate.

Vance headed toward the window, taking his usual seat. He hadn’t brought in his backpack today. Was that a good thing?

He pulled off his beanie, his hair disheveled, much like it had been this morning when I’d left him in my bed to come to work at four.

I usually chased after guys who styled their hair with combs, not fingers. I’d never, ever be able to look at a nice, clean-cut man again without wishing he had Vance’s messy hair.

Thick and soft, nothing had ever felt better threaded in my grip.

How many days, how many nights, did we have left?

Two days and everything had changed. It was like we’d started this, whatever this was, at a slow, unhurried pace. Like the way my dad drove through pastures at the ranch, slow enough to feel each bump in the dirt lanes.

Now the pedal was to the floor and we were driving a hundred miles per hour, headed straight for a brick wall.

The end was coming.

With every passing day, Vance was one step closer to leaving Quincy.

When?

I wanted him to find Cormac. More than anything, I wanted Vance to get his answers. To gain closure. To put his demons to rest. At the same time . . .

I didn’t want him to find Cormac.

How ridiculous was that? That asshole was a criminal. He’d turned me inside out and deserved to spend the rest of his life rotting in prison, not just for what he’d done to me but to his family.

Vance had to find Cormac.

But when this mess was over, Vance would return to Idaho. And me?

Maybe I’d go back to normal.

Normal sounded . . . horrible.

I poured Vance a cup of steaming coffee, taking it and a turkey sandwich to his table. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.” His smile was weak. Weary.

More than anything, I wanted to slide into his lap, wrap my arms around those broad shoulders and bury my nose in the crook of his neck.

That would have to wait until tonight when we were safe behind my closed doors.

There weren’t many customers in the shop at the moment, but Emily Nelsen was across the room and five tables away.

She was a reporter at the Quincy Gazette, the local newspaper owned by her parents. Emily and I had graduated high school together, and besides a few incidents of minor teen-girl drama, we’d mostly gotten along.

She used to come in and kiss my ass because of her crush on Griffin. But since he’d married Winn, the ass-kissing had stopped. Now she came into the shop because she loved gossip. And Eden Coffee was one of her regular stops for fodder.

Emily’s blond hair was pulled up, revealing the white earbuds she’d put in earlier when she’d started working on her laptop. Maybe she was listening to music or a podcast. Maybe it was a ruse to make people think she wasn’t eavesdropping.

So I stayed on my feet. If Emily was watching, I was simply making nice with a customer.

“How’d it go today?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

“Nothing.” He frowned, then took a bite of his sandwich, his strong jaw flexing as he chewed. When he swallowed, his shoulders sagged, like his body was finally relaxing now that he was giving it some decent food.

“Do you think he saw our footprints?”

“Maybe,” he murmured.

We’d done our best to conceal them, taking a few branches to scratch them from the mud and dirt. Vance had hoped that with the fall rain we’d been getting each night, our tracks would wash away. But there was no guarantee.

“Or maybe it’s not him.” Vance sighed.

“It’s him.” It had to be him.

“I set up a few game cameras today in the area. One is aimed right at the stream.”

“Smart.”

“We’ll see.” His voice was so flat. Two days ago, he’d been keyed up after finding that trap. But the roller coaster that was Cormac Gallagher was now at the bottom of the track, along with Vance’s spirits.

Up and down. Down and up.

He ate another bite of his sandwich, doing what Vance did when the topic was getting too heavy. He changed the subject. “This is really good.”

“Thank you.”

He winked, forcing a half smile. “How’s your day going?”

“Other than the broken mug in the trash can, it’s been fine.”

“You okay?”

“Are you?”

“I asked you first, Blue.”

“I’m okay.” I nodded, and today, it was the truth. I was more worried about him than myself. And maybe what I’d needed all along was to talk. To let it out. He’d given me that outlet at the waterfall.

No one knew those feelings. Not my parents. Not my siblings.

But there was something about Vance that had made me confess it all. Maybe because it seemed like he’d understand.

“Will you keep searching?” I asked. “Or just rely on the game cameras?”

“I’ll keep going.” His coat was hung on the back of his chair. He reached into an interior pocket, taking out the same map he’d shown me while we’d been hiking. It was folded differently now, reduced to the area around that stream. “Until it snows.”

What? My heart dropped to the floor. Until it snowed. That was it?

It could snow any day now. My eyes shot to the windows and the sky above Main. The late afternoon light had mostly faded as the days got shorter and shorter.

The sky was clear for a change. The rain clouds had blown away while Vance had been hiking. The stars would put on a show tonight, but this reprieve wouldn’t last. Especially in the mountains.

Snow was coming.

I wasn’t ready to let him go. Not yet.

“Why the snow?” I asked, hoping he couldn’t hear the sadness in my voice.

“Just too hard to hide tracks.”

“Right.” Of course. Like the mud, any tracks would help find Cormac. But they’d also alert Cormac to someone in the area.

What if there was another way? “My brother, Mateo, is a pilot. If it snows, wouldn’t Cormac need a fire or something to stay warm? What if you searched by plane instead?”

“Maybe. Though that could spook him.”

“But I’m sure wherever he’s been hiding, he’s heard planes fly around.”

Vance hummed. “I’ll think about it.”

If he was anything like my father, I’ll think about it meant no.

The bell dinged behind me, the door opening, and with it, a gust of cold air swept inside.

Mom walked in, her cheeks flushed and smile bright. “Hi.”

“Hey, Mom.”

“How’s it going?” She walked over, pulling me into a hug. “I was just coming to say hi and see if you needed an extra set of hands in the kitchen. I feel like baking but your father told me that he wanted to lose five pounds, so I wasn’t allowed to make a pie. I give it a week.”

I laughed. “Me too.”

“So . . . need free labor?”

“Sure.” I glanced at Vance.

He nodded to Mom, a silent hello as he chewed more of that sandwich.

“Hi,” Mom said, looking between the two of us. “Oh, sorry. Am I interrupting?”

“No, it’s fine. We were just chatting.” I looked at Vance. “I’ll let you eat.”

He nodded again, and as I headed for the counter, Mom at my side, I felt his eyes on me.

“Honey.” Mom leaned in close to whisper. “Who is that?”

“Just a customer.”

She scoffed. “And I’m twenty-nine years old.”

Being close with your mom was wonderful. Most of the time. But she’d always had this uncanny ability to know when I was lying.

Of her three daughters, why was I the one she could read like her favorite book? Eloise had been married to Jasper for a month before any of us had found out. And the few times Talia and I had broken curfew in high school, it wasn’t my twin Mom had interrogated. It was me.

Busted. Every damn time.

Winn was the only person in my family who knew about Vance, and she’d kept it quiet simply because I’d asked. Griffin probably knew, but he’d always been more concerned about Eloise’s choice in men, not mine.

To be fair, before Jasper, Eloise had picked some disasters as boyfriends. I guess I could take it as a point of pride that my oldest brother trusted me to be a good judge of character.

“What’s his name?” Mom asked.

I checked over my shoulder as we passed the counter, making sure Emily Nelsen was out of earshot. Then I nodded for Mom to follow me into the kitchen.

“Vance,” I told her when we were alone.

“He’s . . . wow.” Mom fanned her face. “Wow. Different from most of the men you’ve dated. Very rugged and he seems tall. Is he tall? Is he new in town? Tell me he just moved here.”

“Yes, he’s tall. No, he’s just visiting.”

“From where?” Mom asked, unzipping her coat. “Missoula?”

“Idaho.”

“Oh.” Mom’s face scrunched up. “That’s farther than Missoula.”

“It’s fine.” I lifted a shoulder. “We’re just . . . it’s fine.”

“Oh, honey. It’s not fine. You like him.”

So, so much. But diving into the details about why he was here and when Vance would leave would only lead to questions I wasn’t going to answer.

“I was thinking about making pumpkin bread with a cream cheese swirl for tomorrow,” I said. If Vance had taught me anything besides just how good sex could be, it was how to change the subject when the current topic was headed down a dangerous road. “Want to take the lead?”

Mom gave me a flat look.

“Or we could do chocolate chips instead of the cream cheese.”

“Lyla.” Mom wouldn’t drop this.

I sighed. “Yes, I like him. But he’s leaving. It’s nothing serious. And right now, I need that. He’s an escape.”

Her eyes drifted to my throat. No matter how many years passed, she’d always see those bruises, wouldn’t she?

“Chocolate chips or cream cheese?” I asked.

“Cream cheese.” She gave me a sad smile, then walked to the rack tucked in the back corner of the kitchen, trading her coat for a green apron.

I pulled dry ingredients from my shelves, setting them on the prep table, while Mom went to the walk-in, getting eggs and butter and cream. “Okay, I’m going to go check on things out there and leave you to it.”

“I’m going to invite him to family dinner at the ranch on Friday.”

“Oka—” Huh. “What?”

“Dinner at the ranch Friday. If he’s visiting, that means he’s eating out for every meal. Wouldn’t it be nice to have something homemade?”

“First, I won’t take offense to that statement, considering the majority of his meals have been here. Second, no. Just . . . no, Mom.”

“Do you think it would be weird if I went out there and invited him?”

“Beyond weird.”

“You’re probably right. I could ambush him in the hotel lobby.”

“That’s called stalking. Hard no.”

“It’s just dinner.”

“Mother,” I warned.

“Fine.” She waved it off. “I’ll butt out.”

“Thank you.”

She came closer, tucking a lock of my dark hair behind an ear. “I’m worried about you. I love you.”

Two statements that meant the same thing. “I love you too.”

“Here’s an idea.” She bopped my nose with a finger, then turned to the table. “What if we topped this pumpkin bread with some toasted sunflower seeds? Give it a little hint of salt.”

“Yum. Do I have sunflower seeds?”

“You go back to the counter. I’ll dig around the pantry.”

“Okay.” I left her to her task, knowing that her pumpkin bread creation would be a marvel.

Emily was gone when I returned to the counter, her empty mug and plate left behind, so I quickly cleared them away and wiped down the table before wandering back to Vance’s corner.

His plate was empty too.

“Can I get you anything else?”

“I’m good.” He pointed toward the kitchen. “You and your mom look alike.”

“We are alike. She’s in the back, baking.” Now that Emily was gone, I pulled out the chair across from his and took a seat. “She taught me how to cook. Knox too.”

I had countless memories from my childhood of spending hours and hours with Mom in the kitchen. At the time, I hadn’t realized just how much I was learning from her while she’d been standing at the stove.

She’d taught me about hard work. About the pride that came with accomplishment. She’d taught me patience. Grace.

And through every meal, Mom had taught us all about love.

“Eden Coffee was my dream job come true,” I told Vance. “In a way, I think it was for Mom too.”

Vance leaned his elbows on the table, not speaking, just listening. His gray-blue eyes locked on mine.

The more time I spent around him, the more I was learning to read those striking eyes. They unfocused whenever he was lost in memory. They darkened each night before he fucked me to sleep. And when he was interested in a story, soaking up every word like he was now, they had a brightness that made his irises almost iridescent.

If only we had more time together.

I’d learn every color of Vance Sutter’s eyes.

“While my dad was working on the ranch and running the family businesses, Mom managed the hotel,” I told him. “She loves The Eloise. Not the way Eloise loves The Eloise, but Mom enjoyed working there until she retired. But I think if she could do it all over again, she’d have a restaurant. Maybe not like Knox has with Knuckles, but something smaller. Something like this.”

“It’s good of you to let her come here.”

“It’s no hardship. Trust me. She’s an incredible cook. Better than me.”

Vance scoffed. “Doubt it.”

His reaction was so swift, so confident, that I forgot whatever I’d been about to say.

He liked my food. Why did that surprise me? He ate whatever I put on his plate. He never left so much as a crumb behind. Still, it was nice to hear.

I hadn’t realized until now how much I wanted him to like my food. To like me. They were one and the same.

The door opened, stealing Vance’s attention as he looked over my shoulder.

That freaking bell. I was starting to resent the jingle.

With a sigh, I twisted in my seat, smiling as Sandy came inside. She ran the kitchen shop down the street, a popular store with tourists and locals alike.

“Hey, Sandy,” I said, getting to my feet.

“Hi, Lyla.” She swept a lock of gray hair out of her face. “I’m freezing. Something is wrong with the furnace at the store, so I’m here for one of your magical lattes to chase away the cold.”

“A magical latte.” I laughed. “I can do that. Vanilla, like usual?”

“It’s my favorite.”

“Mom’s in the kitchen if you want to go say hi.”

“Oh, good. I haven’t seen her in weeks, so I’d love to catch up.”

“I’ll bring your coffee back in a few.”

She nodded, her gaze darting to Vance, but she didn’t introduce herself. She just wandered through the shop and ducked into the kitchen.

Vance’s chair legs scraped on the floor as he stood and grabbed his coat. “I’m going to head to my room. Take a shower.”

“Okay.” I never asked if he was coming to my house later. Granted, he came over each night, but still, I never asked. I didn’t want him to think I was clingy. I didn’t want to hear him say no.

We weren’t a couple. We didn’t make plans. We didn’t date. It was better that way, right?

I turned for the counter, about to leave, but stopped. Wait. Why couldn’t we make plans?

“Do you want to go to the ranch on Friday for dinner?” I blurted before thinking it through. It sounded so eerily like my mother’s voice that I cringed.

She’d put the idea in my head and it had just snuck out. Damn it.

“No pressure.” My face began to flame. “Mom is planning a family dinner at the ranch on Friday and mentioned it. If you’re sick of eating at restaurants every night and want something homemade . . .”

It was official. I hated the word homemade. And just like my mother, I was now insulting my own business. Nice, Lyla.

“Sorry. This is weird.” I waved it off. “Ignore me. My family is a lot, and I just wanted to offer in case—”

“Blue.”

Oh God. Here came the polite decline. And I probably wouldn’t see him tonight either.

I couldn’t meet his gaze. I didn’t want to know what color his eyes turned when they were full of pity. So I stared at the floor instead. “Yeah?”

“What time is dinner Friday?”