Page 82 of The Case of the Missing Love Stone

The fog continues to loosen.

I put my hand in his. Heat returns first, sliding up my arm and across my chest. Then the panic recedes enough for the dock, water, and trees to become separate things again. His thumb traces the side of my hand.

“I hate that this works,” I whisper.

“I know.”

“It’s unfair at how versatile you make that answer.”

His gaze lowers to my mouth. “I know that too.”

Ollie clears his throat. “I’m staring at the trees with heroic dedication.”

“Keep doing that,” Wes says. He brushes his lips across my forehead. “You did so well.”

His breath on my neck sends shivers through my body. “You can’t praise me. It makes me want to climb you,” I reply.

“Pretty sure that already happened,” Ollie says.

“Shut it, Crane,” I say.

Wes growls, and Ollie puts up his hands in the universal surrender gesture, his smile wide.

We finish quickly after that.

Wes labels the cooler residue, sterile packet, ribbon, and water samples. He photographs the drag marks and fading wake path.

When we return to the airboat, Wes offers his hand again. I take it without waiting.

The ride back is louder than the trip in. Wind tears at my hair and presses my skirt against my legs while Ollie pushes the boat through the green channels.

Wes sits beside me with one arm braced along the bench behind my back. I lean into his side, and his palm settles on my knee. Neither of us mentions what I had been doing in his lap before the branch cracked. My body remembers anyway.

Roman is waiting at my house when we return in the late afternoon, along with Pepper and enough equipment to make my porch look like a surveillance company. He sees me step from the truck and stops talking. His gaze moves over my wind-tangled hair and the hand Wes has kept near my back.

“Oh,” he says softly.

Pepper looks up from a sample cooler. “That sounded meaningful.”

“Investigative observation.”

“Sure.”

I walk past both of them, because my face decided to heat like it has a side job as an oven.

Wes hands Roman the evidence with clipped professional efficiency, laying out the site, the cooler, the medical packaging, the ribbon, and the wake through the channel.

“Give me some samples to test. I’ll run comparisons tonight,” Pepper says, packing her tub. “Water against my controls. Residue against the broader collections.”

Roman nods. “Send everything to us too. We can compare notes once we get ours back from the lab.”

“So bossy,” Pepper says.

“Efficient.”

She looks between Roman, Wes, and me. Her expression softens for a flicker before she hides it under science. “I’ll study the samples. You lock your doors, all of them. And don’t pretend you’re fine just because you’re stubborn and pretty.”

“I object to half of that sentence.”