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A few months ago, I would've said home was a place.

Now I'm not so sure.

Maybe it's the people who make you feel like you don't have to earn your place beside them. Maybe it's the life you've spent years building. Maybe, if you're lucky, it's both.

I still don't know what I'm going to do. Julian's waiting for an answer. My career is still waiting for me too, and walking away from it wouldn't be simple.

But as I listen to Maggie laughing as Lucy bosses two large grown men about like a pro, and observe Torin’s quiet poetical pensiveness, I realize I don't have to decide anything tonight.

For now, it's enough to know that whatever comes next, I finally have a choice.

CHAPTER FORTY

Briggs

Three weeks after bringing Maggie home, I’m suddenly spending more time sitting in my truck than driving it.

Tom's disappeared again, which ought to make me feel better. Except every day he stays out of sight convinces me he's planning whatever comes next.

Ashby's coping by turning his dining table into mission control. He's tracking court dates, police reports, restraining order paperwork, and every legal step Maggie still has ahead of her. I swear he's color-coded half the state of Washington.

Torin's version involves checking on Laurel so often, he's burned through every believable excuse. Yesterday he "happened to be driving past," despite living twenty minutes in the opposite direction.

I've settled on surveillance, which sounds impressive until you're four hours into watching the same automatic doors open and close while your coffee grows a skin.

My phone buzzes through the truck speakers.

"Anything?" Ashby asks.

"Nope."

"Good."

I keep watching the grocery store entrance. "It's Tuesday."

"So?"

"Nothing interesting ever happens on a Tuesday."

He laughs once. "You invent statistics when you're bored."

"I invent facts. Statistics have math."

"I'll add that to the growing list of reasons you shouldn't testify in court."

"That list's getting pretty long."

"It really is."

He hangs up before I can defend myself.

About twenty minutes later Laurel walks out balancing grocery bags while Maggie pushes the cart beside her. Lucy drifts toward a flower display before Maggie catches her hoodie and steers her back on course.

Laurel spots my truck, closes her eyes for half a beat, then looks at me again as I climb out. "Please tell me you're actually shopping."

"I was about to."

She studies the empty truck bed. "You've made remarkable progress."