Page 163 of Shhh…It’s A Killer Story

"I would've added 'bring snacks.'"

Gerald gasped.

"You cannot lure unstable strangers with baked goods!"

"I absolutely can."

"No!"

"Cookies build trust."

"They build lawsuits!"

Sometimes I wondered if the gnomes only argued because silence made them uncomfortable. Or perhaps… They simply enjoyed annoying each other. Honestly?

Relationship goals if you ask me.

I brushed another handful of weeds aside before pressing fresh compost around the roses. The valley was unusually peaceful. Too peaceful. Just... the sort of quiet that makes you believe, for a tiny moment, life might actually leave you alone.

Woof!

My head lifted immediately. Max. The smile found my face before I could stop it.

"Good morning, sweetheart-"

The rest of the sentence dissolved somewhere between my lungs and my heartbeat. Across the fence… Across the narrow strip of gravel that separated our properties...

Elias was outside. Not Detective Reed. Not the man in the heavy jacket with his permanent frown and coffee-stained files. Just...

Elias.

He wasn't wearing his uniform. He wasn't even wearing a shirt.

He stood barefoot in the grass, the early sunlight painting warm gold across broad shoulders that looked as though they'd been carved from old cedar. His back flexed as he bent to grab a thick pine branch, every movement effortless, every muscle shifting beneath weathered skin crisscrossed with old scars that disappeared beneath the waistband of his worn jeans.

Scars. There were so many. Long pale lines. Small circular marks. One jagged slash across his shoulder blade that looked old enough to have become part of him. He threw the branch. Max launched after it with all the enthusiasm of a puppy who definitely hadn't almost died two days ago.

"Cheater!" Elias laughed.

Actually...

Laughed.

The sound drifted across the clearing like sunlight breaking through rain clouds. Deep. Warm. Entirely unfair. Nobody had warned me his smile changed his entire face.

My poor little heart immediately forgot every survival instinct it had ever developed. It performed one enthusiastic cartwheel… Followed by what I'm fairly certain was cardiac fraud.

Oh.

He's beautiful.

That's...

That's incredibly inconvenient. My mouth went dry. The sensible part of my brain suggested I should probably look away. The much louder part screamed…

PHONE. GET THE PHONE. NOW.

I bolted upright so quickly I nearly planted myself face-first into the rosemary bush.