Page 80 of The Moment He Couldn’t Walk Away

It was snowing when they stepped outside. Not heavy, but enough to make the roads slicker.

“Christmas time and snow, the perfect combo,” Lynx said climbing into the passenger’s seat of his pickup. Finch got in the driver’s side and soon they were heading down the driveway.

The road into Lyntacky was empty at this hour, the headlights cutting a narrow path through the blackness. By morning the roads would be lined with white powder, and tree branches looking magical sprinkled in snow. The sky opened up into something vast and cold before them. Stars. More of them than Finch ever remembered seeing in a city, thick and scattered.

“Are we just driving randomly because your spidey senses are tingling, or do you have a destination in mind?” Lynx asked, cranking the heater to full blast.

“I’m just driving.” He felt foolish now that they were in the vehicle. A hunch had him driving with no destination in mind. What do you think you’re going to find, Finch? He had no answer to that.

“Did you know Lyntacky is now a dark-sky community?” Lynx said.

“A what?” Finch shot his brother a questioning look.

“They restrict their lighting to soft yellow to minimize the light and reduce sky glow. Trip installed 3000K LEDs,” Lynx said.

“You’re not serious?”

“Totally. It saves energy and money, and protects local wildlife.”

“What local wildlife do we get in town besides the odd deer and raccoon?”

“It also improves sleep and enhances public safety because unshielded bulbs create shadows for people to skulk about in,” Lynx added, ignoring his question.

“How is it you know this shit?”

“I read, you uneducated moron,” Lynx said calmly. “Maybe when you’re done feeling sorry for yourself, you can start doing that again. You used to be the second most intelligent McAllister behind me, but don’t tell our sisters I said that.”

Finch didn’t answer. His eyes were going left and right as he turned onto the main street and Lyntacky came into view.

His town at 2:00 a.m. was something else entirely, especially with the soft falling snow.

The streetlamps threw down pools of amber that sat low against the ground, soft and warm, nothing like the harsh white lights of a city. The shop fronts were dark, but the fairy lights strung along the main street were still on, thousands of tiny points of gold threaded around doorways and window frames and wrapped around the lampposts. Finch had driven through plenty of places in his life and called none of them beautiful like this.

“When are they turning the lights on?” Lynx asked as they passed the huge, still dark Christmas tree.

“A few days before the bake-off I believe.”

“What’s the deal with that?”

“Mrs. C. told me tonight the judging will take place in the Swing Through Café, due to the weather being unpredictable, and that the judging panel is Ryder, Dee, Callum Taylor, and Nina.”

“Callum is Robyn Duke’s man and Leah Reynolds’s uncle, right?” Lynx asked.

“Yup. Apparently Mrs. C. is making cherry pie, and it’s a family recipe that should win.”

“It probably will. That woman is a force of nature, and the intimidation factor alone would have me picking her pie.”

“True that.”

“That friend of Zoe’s, Lil, is a piece of work. She tried to tell me that the band is selling out.”

“In what way?” Finch asked.

“She said our older music drew fans in, but as our popularity has increased, we’ve changed what we write to be more in line with other bands.”

Finch could hear that had pissed his brother off. “Are you?”

“No, of course not.”