Page 72 of Hunted in the Silence

“Than what?” he asked, almost chuckling. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t slightly worried about her answer.

Harper said, “Than the last three times I saw you.”

Silas, from behind her, said, “She’s not wrong.”

Cole thought about the last time he’d seen them, felt Brynn’s eyes on him, and decided it was best to shut up.

Olivia arrived last, as Cole had expected, because Olivia’s relationship with social events was the same as her relationship with everything else—direct and intentional and without an ounce more energy expended than was absolutely necessary. She came in with a bottle of wine and surveyed the room with the same rapid, systematic attention she brought to evidence, and then found a chair in the corner of the living room and settled into it with a look that said she found the accommodations acceptable.

Dinner was easy and familiar, shared between people who had been through a lot together and formed an undeniable bond. Carson had made way too much food, which was apparently a habit, and Nora moved between the kitchen and the table easily managing a controlled chaos she’d long since made peace with. Mae appeared and disappeared the way little kids did, materializing to show Brynn a drawing and then vanishing again before anyone could ask about it.

The conversation moved across several topics, never lingering on any one thing for too long. They touched on the case, and what came after it. Carson and Dax and Cole talked about the firm. Quinn asked Brynn questions that might help with her writing. Silas and Harper and Olivia sat in a corner of the living room after dinner with their wine and got lost in their own quiet conversation.

At one point, late in the evening, Cole looked across the table and found Brynn watching him. She was in a conversation with Quinn, and Mae, who had crawled into her lap an hour ago, had fallen asleep against her arm, and Brynn was looking at Cole with an expression that made his heart thud a little harder than usual.

He held her stare for a moment.

She smiled. Small and real and entirely for him.

He looked back at Carson, who was saying something about jurisdictional agreements, and answered the question he had asked, and felt the warmth of the evening and the company of friends down deep.

His thoughts drifted to Abby. Not with the particular weight of guilt that usually followed, but with the more honest grief of simply missing someone. She would have liked being in this room. She would have had strong opinions about the Barrett case and would have wanted to talk to Quinn about the water rights angle. She would have had something dry and accurate to say about Mae falling asleep on Brynn’s arm and the expression on Brynn’s face.

And with those thoughts swirling in his head, he realized something important: He was going to be all right.

After dinner, on the porch, while the cold cleared everyone’s heads and Carson’s neighborhood was quiet and dark around them, Dax looked at Cole and said, “Monday. Bring whatever you have on the firm, and we’ll see if it holds together.”

“Monday,” Cole agreed.

Dax nodded, shook his hand, and went back inside, and Cole stood on the porch for a moment longer. A minute later, the door opened and Brynn came out to stand beside him. As if he’d done it a thousand times, he put his arm around her shoulders and she leaned into it and together they looked out at the quiet street.

“Quinn wants to come to the center,” Brynn said softly. “Next week if I can make it work.”

“Can you?”

“Yes.” She paused, thinking. “She’s going to write something true,” Brynn said. “I can tell by the way she asks questions. She’s not looking for a narrative she already has. She’s actually trying to understand.” She paused. “That’s rarer than it should be.”

“It is,” Cole agreed, rubbing her shoulder.

They stood on the porch for another minute, the light from inside falling across the boards under their feet, the sound of their friends audible through the door.

“Cole,” Brynn said.

“Yeah.”

“This.” She paused, not gesturing at anything specific, just letting the word sit in the cold air between them. “I didn’t know this was possible. I thought I’d built everything I was going to build and that was enough, and it was.” She paused. “But now there’s more.”

He looked down at her. At her profile in the porch light, the dark-auburn hair and the healed cut on her cheekbone and the steadiness that nothing to do with things being easy and everything to do with choosing to stand in them anyway.

“There’s still more,” he said.

She turned and looked at him, and standing in that moment with the woman who impressed him more and more each day, he kissed her there on Carson’s porch, and she kissed him back. Inside the house, someone laughed, and Mae’s voice said something indistinct, and the evening promised warmth behind that door that he wasn’t quite ready to take advantage of yet.

Because Cole was exactly where he wanted to be.

When they pulled back, Brynn was looking at him with an expression free of worry about tomorrow.

“Monday,” she said.