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“You must be doing something right,” she tells me.

“I know that too, I just don’t know what it is,” I admit honestly. We both laugh.

Then she says, “You don’t need to. You’re obviously a natural.”

I’m so lost for words I can only stare at her.

Then I recall how huge it felt when Lucy stood in my bedroom this morning asking to go somewhere instead of hiding from the world, and h

ow instinctively she reaches for me for comfort now. I remember her laughter last night and her telling me that I make things less scary.

Maybe I am a natural. I just didn’t have the chance to know it before.

“I think,” I say finally, a strange warmth filling my chest, “we’re starting to understand each other.”

June gives me a knowing look. “Looks more like you’re starting to trust each other.”

Lucy suddenly appears at my side, holding up the knitted frog. “He’s unemployed.”

“He’s what?”

“The lady said his business failed.”

June covers her mouth instantly. Wayne walks away laughing.

And standing there in the middle of the market, with Lucy waving a financially ruined frog at me and Bernard the otter tucked under her arm, I laugh hard enough that people turn to look.

Lucy grins up at me, proud of herself.

I say goodbye to June and go to pay for the frog.

After that, Lucy makes me put Bernard and the frog in my pockets so they can “ride,” tucks Bun beneath one arm, and slips her hand in mine. We walk together slowly through the bustling market, stopping to look at whatever catches Lucy’s eye.

Warm sunlight slips through the clouds overhead, while music drifts softly down Main Street. I suddenly realize with a shock that being here in Redwood Run doesn’t feel temporary any more.

It feels dangerously close to belonging.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Torin

Fire attracts confession the same way storms attract bad decisions.

Something about standing near flames while darkness presses close makes people softer. Looser. More willing to say things they’d normally keep locked behind their teeth.

Beer helps too, of course.

I figure that’s probably why Redwood Run keeps building bonfires every Friday night, and people keep gathering around them. Emotional repression doesn’t fit with the town’s favorite sport—gossip.

Down on the open ground by the river, people are clustered everywhere. Kids chase each other through the grass with glow sticks. Bikers lean against trucks talking. Couples are tucked beneath blankets on folding chairs. Dogs wander hopefully between coolers looking for dropped food.

The whole town feels alive tonight.

Admittedly, part of that feeling is because Laurel Sterling is here.

Lucy too.

“She’s nervous,” Ashby says while we unload chairs from the back of Briggs’s truck.