Page 25 of Owl’s Cherished Mate

“How long has he been doing this?” Bonnie whispered.

She wasn’t really asking me, so I didn’t answer.

“I have to stop him,” she said, reaching for the door handle.

“Wait.” I put my hand on her arm. “Not yet. We need to think about how we handle this first.”

“That’s my brother down there, Gray.”

“I know, but we can’t just rush in blind. Let’s watch for a minute, then we’ll go together, calmly, and get Lawson out.”

She looked at me, her jaw tight.

“Okay,” she said.

She let go of the door handle. I let go of her arm. And for a long moment, we sat in my truck, watching her fourteen-year-old brother load what had to be stolen goods, given his company, into a truck for a guy who’d somehow or another never face a single consequence for it if they got busted tonight.

My owl settled in with the focus of a predator right before the strike.

11

BONNIE

We walked down to the docks together. Our footsteps on the wooden planks gave us away before we were halfway there. The three figures near the truck turned at the sound.

Lawson saw me first. His face went white. He was holding a marine radio against his chest, halfway between one of the boats and the truck bed, and froze mid-step.

Cade straightened from where he’d been sorting equipment in the truck bed. His pale eyes flicked from me to Gray and back, and that lazy, bored expression he always wore tightened into something harder.

Darren didn’t move. He stood to the side with his arms crossed, and when he saw us, his mouth curved into that same cold smile I’d seen outside the Grill.

“Bonnie.” He said my name like we were running into each other at the grocery store. “Little late for a walk, isn’t it?”

“Lawson, put that down and come here,” I said, ignoring him entirely.

Lawson didn’t move. His eyes darted between Darren and me, and I could see him trying to decide whose side he was on.

“Deal with your sister, Lawson,” Cade said, not even looking at me. “Get her out of here.”

“Lawson.” I took another step forward. “Put it down. We’re leaving.”

“He’s not going anywhere.” Darren uncrossed his arms and slid his hands into his jacket pockets. The casual gesture somehow made him look more dangerous, not less. “Lawson’s here because he wants to be. Right, kid?”

Lawson swallowed. He looked at Darren, then me, and then at the ground.

“He’s fourteen,” I said. “And you’ve got him out here at two in the morning stealing from boats.”

“He’s helping us move some things. That’s all. Friends help each other.” Darren tilted his head and studied me with those pale, cold eyes. “You should’ve stayed away at college, Bonnie. Minded your own business. Life was simpler for everyone when you weren’t here trying to play mommy.”

The words landed exactly where he intended them to.

Straight to the gut.

“She’s not playing anything,” Gray said before I could respond.

Until that moment, he’d been the way he was at the library—present but in the background, taking everything in. When he spoke up, though, his voice dropped into a tone I’d never heard from him before. It was low and rough. There was nothing calm about it.

He sounded barely human.