Page 6 of Smoke

The mattress was different, the curtains were new and most of what I remembered had disappeared, but the house still had its own sounds. The old vent clicked twice when the air-conditioning shut off, the same pipes rattled faintly behind the wall, and somewhere outside a motorcycle started before rolling away.

For years, those noises had been the background to my life. Hearing them again should have felt strange after so long, but what unsettled me was how quickly my brain just accepted them.

I lay there thinking about the kiss in the kitchen and the excuse I'd used afterward. Calling it nostalgia had sounded weak even then and this morning it sounded worse. Nostalgia was missing the old couch or remembering a stupid fight about a faucet. It didn't explain the way my body had come alive when Smoke touched me again after so long away from each other.

Five years ago, I'd left because I couldn't keep living inside a marriage that seemed to shrink around everything else in Smoke's life. The club always needed something. Somebody called, a run went long, another problem arrived, and somewhere along the way I'd stopped believing there was enough room left for me beside all of it. That didn't mean I'd stopped loving him. It meant love had stopped being enough, and one kiss shouldn't have been able to blur that distinction.

Downstairs, Smoke was in the kitchen wearing jeans and a black T-shirt, his cut hanging over a chair. A handgun sat on the counter beside his phone with the same casual practicality it had during our marriage. He looked at me, then briefly toward the window behind me before his attention came back.

I knew the movement. Twelve years in the Army had turned vigilance into instinct long before I married him, and the club gave those instincts somewhere permanent to live. Smoke checked doors, watched unfamiliar cars and read rooms without making a show of it. There had been times when that made me feel safer than I had with anyone else, and times when I wondered whether part of him was always waiting for the next threat.

He nodded toward the coffee machine. "Fresh pot." I poured a cup and leaned against the counter. "How long have you been up?"

"Since five."

"Still ridiculous, then."

"Still sleeping past sunrise, then."

The answer made me smile before I could stop it, and for a few minutes the morning felt dangerously ordinary.

My phone buzzed beside my hand, and the message came from an unknown number. I opened it and found a photograph of myself standing outside Dad's house the previous afternoon, one hand on my suitcase while somebody watched from the road.

Tell Sheriff White to stop pushing. Next time, we come for you.

Cold moved through me as Smoke crossed the kitchen before I said anything. I handed him the phone, and although his expression barely changed, his body did. He got still in the way I remembered from trouble, anger narrowing into something controlled and useful.

He forwarded the message and number to himself, then sent them on to someone else. "They were close enough to get your face clearly."

"I know."

"We're going to the hospital, and after that I want you here until we know what the fuck we're dealing with."

The old irritation sparked at the phrasing, but he didn't turn it into an order when I looked at him. He waited.

"I'm still seeing Dad, and I'm not hiding here forever."

"I know."

"Then for now, fine."

Something eased in his face. It was a small exchange, but the fact that neither of us turned it into the old fight mattered.

Dad had enough energy to be difficult by the time we reached the hospital. He was arguing with a nurse about getting out of bed when we walked in, and I joined the nurse's side before he could recruit me. Smoke stayed near the door, letting us deal with each other while he watched the corridor with the same quiet awareness he carried everywhere.

Once the nurse left, I showed Dad the photograph and threat.

His anger came first. "They're trying to scare you because they can't get to me."

"They got to you pretty effectively I'd say." His mouth tightened before Smoke folded his arms. "This is leverage. They didn't finish you off, so now they're telling you what they'll use next."

Dad glared at him. "I understand leverage thank you."

Smoke didn't budge. "Then stop pretending they won't hurt her."

That ended the argument more effectively than anything I could've said.

Dad finally admitted what he had been digging into. Buildings around town being sold to mystery buyers, strangers asking questions, and struggling businesses receiving offers that made no financial sense. Smoke added that the people behind it didn't need to own all of Salvation. They just needed a handful of useful properties and enough frightened people to make the rest of the town keep quiet.