Page 47 of Shadow Justice

He sat beside her. It shouldn’t have felt like returning to the kiss. They were working, and Holly kept her eyes on the screen, scrolling through property records and search results while he guided her away from unreliable sites and toward others that were useful.

He took over when she reached a database that required more technical skills, then let her point out details he might not have known mattered: a road north of town, a development site Hoyt’s company had argued about years ago, the rough timing of when Hopper had started coming into the shop. None of it proved anything, and Reid didn’t pretend otherwise. The search gave them only fragments, but the act of doing something seemed to steady her.

It steadied him, too.

Their shoulders brushed. Neither of them acknowledged it. Holly’s knee rested against his thigh, and he could feel her warmth through the thin distance between them. Every time she leaned forward to read something on the screen, he remembered her hand in his shirt and the taste of her mouth. He kept his attention on Hopper Shaw through discipline alone.

After twenty minutes, Holly’s questions slowed. Her head tipped back against the couch, and her eyelids lowered. She tried to read one more paragraph about a county boundary dispute and lost the battle halfway through the second sentence.

Blue, already sprawled on the rug, made a groaning sound that suggested he was done supervising for the night.

Reid eased the laptop from Holly’s lap. Before he could stand, her head slid to his shoulder. He sat absolutely still far longer than was comfortable before he realized she was going to wake up with a terrible crick in her neck. Carefully, he eased her away from him until she was stretched out on the couch.

She didn’t wake. When he stood, she shifted automatically, curling toward the pillow at the end of the couch. He waited until she settled, then unfolded the quilt and drew it over her. Her hand caught the edge, pulling it closer, and for one aching second he let himself remember a different night, a different bed.

He’d replayed that night too many times in his head. It had haunted his dreams, his scant dating life, every time he was reminded of Blackridge and home.

He moved to the breakfast bar with the laptop and his phone, leaving the couch to Holly and the rug to Blue. He sent Jasper everything he had on Hopper Shaw. Jasper replied three minutes later.

On it, Eagle. Go to sleep before you start hallucinating patterns in county tax records.

Reid stared at the call sign longer than he should have. Eagle had started as a joke, the kind men used when they were uncomfortable saying someone was good at something. Legal eagle, someone had called him after he’d torn apart a sloppy disciplinary case early in his Navy career. The name had followed him into Shadow Point, shortened to Eagle because the team preferred it. He’d accepted it because it was familiar and it kept parts of him neatly categorized.

Tonight, sitting at Holly’s breakfast bar while she slept under the quilt, the name felt less like a label and more like an expectation.

Be an eagle. See clearly. Strike cleanly. Protect what matters.

He glanced over at Holly. She’d turned onto her side, one hand tucked beneath her cheek, the quilt pulled to her shoulder. In sleep, the guarded lines of her face eased, but not all the way. Even exhausted, she carried the day with her.

Reid wanted to keep her safe with a force that went far beyond assignment, beyond loyalty to Shadow Point, beyond the disciplined boundaries he’d spent years building around his own wants. He wanted to make up for the past, though he knew wanting that didn’t make it possible. Apologies could open a door. They could not rebuild the house by themselves.

He could still feel the grip of her hand, the kiss. He’d let her initiate it. He would keep letting her initiate anything she wanted, even if it killed him by inches.

He returned to Hopper’s records and read until the words blurred.

At some point, his chin dipped, his arm became a pillow, and sleep took him badly, awkwardly, and without permission.

He woke to the smell of coffee and a pain in his neck that made him groan when he sat upright.

Morning light filled the apartment, pale and soft through the kitchen window. Blue lay under the breakfast bar with one of Reid’s socks trapped beneath one paw, watching him as if he had failed a night watch inspection.

Holly stood at the counter in leggings and a faded sweatshirt, her hair in a loose ponytail, sliding a mug toward him.

Beside the mug was his phone. “Your grandfather’s been calling,” she said.

Reid sat up too fast. His neck objected with a sharp knife of pain. “What?”

“Roni called me because you weren’t answering Linc’s calls.”

He grabbed the phone. Three missed calls from Granddad. Two from Roni. One text from his sister, capital letters doing the yelling.

ANSWER YOUR PHONE. GRANDDAD IS BEING GRANDDAD. HE WANTS YOU ONLY.

Mild panic shot through him. He hit his grandfather’s number and waited through two rings with his pulse too high. Images crowded in before he could stop them: a fall, confusion, chest pain, his grandfather alone in the house trying to convince himself he didn’t need help. Of course, he could ask Roni for it, but he wouldn’t show any weakness to her.

Judge Fleming answered with a gruff, “Took you long enough.”

Relief hit so hard Reid had to close his eyes. “Are you all right?”