He believes he can’t be saved—she’ll prove him wrong!

Former SEAL Gavin Savitt always knew who he was—until his last deployment ended tragically. Now he’s home, his mind hijacked by trauma and the shadow of his once-perfect sight. Yet in this new hazy, unclear world, one person stands out—Mavis Bracken.

There are a million reasons why Gavin shouldn’t be with Mavis, including that she’s his best friend’s little sister. Yet he longs for her touch, her freckles and her special way with wild, skittish beasts like him. He just needs the courage to take his life back. And Mavis won’t let him give up without a fight.

AMBER LEIGH WILLIAMS is a Harlequin romance writer who lives on the United States Gulf Coast. She lives for beach days, the smell of real books and spending time with her husband and their two young children. When she’s not keeping up with rambunctious little ones (and two large dogs), she can usually be found reading a good book or indulging her inner foodie. Amber is represented by the D4EO Literary Agency. Learn more at amberleighwilliams.com.

Also By Amber Leigh Williams

Navy SEAL Promise

Wooing the Wedding Planner

His Rebel Heart

Married One Night

A Place with Briar

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Navy SEAL’s Match

Amber Leigh Williams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08465-9

NAVY SEAL’S MATCH

© 2018 Amber Leigh Williams

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

“I’ve never wanted to be less sensible...”

Mavis gulped air into her lungs. “That’s my point. This...all this... It’s nice for now. But what happens in the end?”

The words shot Gavin’s smile dead. “When I leave?”

Mavis lifted a shoulder. “Isn’t that what you’ll do eventually? You’ve been very clear. I’ve told you, I know you don’t know your place in the world anymore and I’m aware of who you are—who you’ve always been. You’ll go looking for it if you can’t find it here. You—”

“I run,” he concluded, gaze dull and far off.

She couldn’t stop herself from reaching for his hand and gripping it tight. “I want you.”

The truth snatched his head around, back to hers, brows hitched. He looked surprised. Then impressed.

Mavis nodded. “And that isn’t something I’m capable of ignoring anymore.”

“Anymore,” he murmured. His jaw softened. “How long have you been ignoring it, exactly?”

Dear Reader,

Readers were introduced to Gavin as a boy in the first book in my Fairhope, Alabama series, A Place with Briar. Even then, he seemed caught between two worlds. Now in his thirties, Gavin has finally come home, though the wounds of war have sunk deep enough that any semblance of peace he hopes to find there seems to have dried up. He’s caught between the need to flee and the desire to cling to the only home he’s ever known.

It takes an outsider to know and understand one. This draws Mavis to Gavin and his journey back to himself. All too quickly, they forge an irrevocable bond that is tested time and again throughout the story.

The hardest part about writing Navy SEAL’s Match was addressing how Gavin struggles and comes to grips with post-traumatic stress disorder. Alternately, the greatest discovery along the road with these characters was that although love goes a long way toward healing him, Gavin and Mavis embark on their journey knowing that it won’t take the disorder away. Yet they still choose to pursue it. In a lot of ways, this book is for service members and those who love them, through the good times and the bad times. It is a great joy to give you my sixth Superromance novel and Gavin and Mavis’s story.

Always,

Amber Leigh

PS: If you know a veteran in crisis, please contact the Veterans Crisis Line at 1-800-273-8255 or visit veteranscrisisline.net.

To those who serve.

And to Karen Reid—editor and friend.

May the Force be with you always.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Dear Reader

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

MAN DOWN! ZACCOE’S DOWN!

The flashbacks had to stop. They came at him in the middle of the night when he was ready for them. They came at him in the middle of the day when he wasn’t.

Fall back! Get him to the Bradley!

Gavin Savitt jerked from the clutches of sleep. Colors bled through his eyelids. He could hear civilian life. Better, he could hear the soft wash of waves against the shore and the chatter of wind chimes, the kind that hung from the eaves of his father and stepmother’s bayside bed-and-breakfast. There was laughter, far off. Gulls crying overhead. He tasted sunshine on his lips.

The soothing sounds of the half of his childhood that had been good and whole and stable should’ve brought the unrest to a standstill. Should’ve obliterated it. It was fear that made the flashbacks hang around. The fear was all too real these days and had been his since his final deployment as a navy SEAL six months ago.

It was fear that he would open his eyes and the civilian world would be less clear to him than the assault of vivid memories from another world.

Funny that he hadn’t contemplated how stark and colorful those dreams were before his last mission, the one that had robbed him of half the visibility in his right eye and all of his left.

Gavin took a moment to quell the anxiety, to manage the fear, even if he couldn’t kill it any more than the flashbacks.

He braced himself, stomach tightening. Then he opened his eyes and confronted the odd blur of light and shade, the merging of shapes. He picked a fixed point out of his right eye to study...

The white house was like a beacon on a hill. Hanna’s Inn spread prettily, overlooking Mobile Bay. Even Gavin could see the proud and regal way it held itself up—columns, balconies, long narrow panes that glistened as the sun shrank from its high post. The winding paths through the gardens...he knew them by heart. Just as he knew the sand skirting the kempt lawn curved in a crescent shape to follow the slope of the Eastern Shore. Beneath its peaks and tumble-down kudzu-lined valleys, the beach formed the watery border of Fairhope, Alabama, the small town that had called to Gavin for most of his life.

He’d ignored that call, returning to Fairhope only out of necessity. However, nothing could compete with the inn that his father saw to alongside his stepmother, whose family it had belonged to for generations.

A smudge detracted from Gavin’s focal point. It was black and willow-slim. As he fixed on it instead of the inn, he frowned. It was getting closer, if not bigger, and he was definitely in its line of fire.

He knew only one person in the world who wore neck-to-toe black in July in the south.

Gavin sat up in the hammock and placed his bare feet in the thick grass his father tended well. There was a catch in his neck and his muscles were taut as wires. He had learned how to snatch his mind out of the dreams, but his muscles rarely followed suit.

He’d sought the hammock and the company of waves for relaxation to break the vicious cycle of PTSD, even if only for a short while.

He might’ve been able to do it if he hadn’t given in to fatigue and dropped off.

Smoothing his hand over the outer edge of his thigh, he wiped the damp from his palm. Oh, great. Night sweats were turning into day sweats, and the first person to find that out was potentially the last person he wanted to know.

“Have you seen a dog?” Mavis Bracken asked as she bore down on him in her combat boots.

He offered her a lazy salute. “Freckles.”

In spite of his limited field of vision, he knew she scowled. She’d hated the nickname he’d given her as a youngster. The dark speckles on pale cheeks made her stand out in a sea of faces. While his father, Cole, and stepmother, Briar, ran the inn, Gavin’s half sister, Harmony, had become bosom pals with Mavis, the daughter of the florist next door. Mavis was always younger—always aloof.

Some would say she was odd—those same people called him a loner.

With their close ties to Hanna’s, the flower shop, Flora, and the two families that had grown tight between the establishments, Gavin had always felt that he and Mavis shared similar experiences; they were both outsiders.

“You don’t look too good,” she observed.

He tried to release the tension ball inside him. It didn’t work. Gavin passed a hand over the back of his shorn head. “Hard to shave when you can hardly see a mirror.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Mavis paused and he felt her. His toes rolled in on themselves and a shimmy went through the fine hairs on the back of his neck. Mavis had a way, an eerie way that spoke of something otherworldly. She saw people in ways others didn’t understand.

She was downright spooky, and he felt far too raw to be the center of her attention. “You’re looking for a dog,” he repeated.

“Yes.”

“What kind?”

“He’s big,” she provided. “Black. Goes by the name Prometheus.”

“You’re kidding.” When she didn’t answer, his lips parted. “Right?”

Familiar sarcasm flooded Mavis’s voice. “Well, I thought Killer was overdone.”

“Prometheus.” Gavin shook his head. “Because that’s not over the top.”

“Have you seen him?” Mavis asked pointedly.

“Was he carrying a torch and running really fast?”

“Gavin.”

“No,” he answered. “I haven’t seen a dog or a Titan.”

Her arm rose to her head as if to shield her eyes from the sun. “Damn it,” she muttered. “It must’ve been herons. He always chases the herons.”

Gavin scratched his unshaven chin. “Is, uh, this by chance your dog?”

“Yeah. What about it?”

“How’d you lose him?”

“He wanders,” she said by way of excuse.

“You’ve heard of leash laws,” he guessed.

“He’s called Prometheus and he weighs nearly as much as I do. You think a leash is going to make a difference?”

“He sounds like a legitimate beast,” Gavin mused. “At least you got the name right.”

Her arms crossed and her weight shifted. “You used to have a dog. Boots. Wasn’t that his name?”

Gavin’s hands folded. He clenched them against his thighs. “He wasn’t my dog.”

“What do you mean? During your visit two years ago, Harmony said you couldn’t shut up about him.”

“Boots belonged to the US government,” Gavin said. “Not me.”

“Oh.” She said nothing more. Because, again, Mavis sensed things. Like the fact that Boots had been shot outside a checkpoint in Kabul. Almost exactly like Benji had years before.

Don’t go to that place again, Gavin told himself. Once more, he focused on what was present. He picked Mavis as his focal point. A dark beacon. The kick-ass combat boots were followed up her slender ranks by black pants, or leggings. The heat index today was 102, which meant she either hadn’t checked today’s highs before leaving her bat cave or she was crazy.

Crazy, he thought. Let’s go with crazy.

There were white slashes in the fabric for venting at least. They went well with the punk look she’d owned since the tender age of sixteen. Or was it fourteen? By that point, he’d been in BUD/S, fighting to fulfill his dream of joining the SEAL teams.

“What are you doing out here?” she wondered out loud.

He spread his empty hands. “Reading the newspaper?”

She answered with knowing silence, making him more aware of the tremor in his knees. Mavis probably also knew by now about that vase he’d broken in the hall upstairs at Hanna’s and the semi-argument he’d had with his father as a result.

This isn’t working, he had told Cole as he stood by like a chump listening to the man and his wife clean up his mess. His third, in as many weeks.

We’ll move things around, Cole had replied.

Briar was quick to jump on the bandwagon. Sure, she’d said in her feather-soft voice. It’s my fault, really, for leaving the vase in your way.

The fact that they’d worked their butts off to accommodate him did little to temper the hot-burning coals inside him. The coals had been there since the surgeons informed him that he would be legally blind for the rest of his life, effectively shutting down his military career—the only calling he’d ever known.

It wasn’t fair to resent Cole or Briar. Yet with every valuable Briar had to sweep broken off the floor, those coals smoldered.

“When was the last time you slept more than an hour at a time?”

Gavin frowned at Mavis’s inquiry. Yeah, no. Not going down that road.

“There are people,” she suggested.

“People?” he chimed.

“That you can talk to.”

“I don’t want to talk to them,” he said quickly. He’d seen enough doctors. They were all in agreement that he was a head case who needed to be on the antianxiety meds that made him spin out of turn.

He’d take his chances with the flashbacks.

Gavin pushed himself up from the hammock, finally feeling steady enough. He crossed his arms and lowered his head, hiding the pink scars raked across his face by the winter’s RPG blast. He’d forgotten to use sunblock again, as instructed. What did it matter? The scars wouldn’t fade any more than the blindness. He started to walk away, then heard her drawn-out breath and stopped. “What would you know about it?” he ventured. “Ever had a flashback, Freckles? Night sweats? Hypertension brought on by stress?”

“No,” she answered plainly.

He gave a nod and began to walk toward the inn again.

“But I know someone who has,” she said at his back.

“I’m sure,” he replied, and kept walking.

“Which is your good side?” she asked, following. “Your right or your left?”

Why was she following? He’d never been one for glossing things over. Would he have to bite her head off to get her to stop chasing him with the same good intentions as everyone else? “I don’t have a good side,” he replied. When she only continued to follow, he elaborated, “The left’s worse. Why?”

She didn’t answer, but he found her in his right periphery. A shadow. With a quick glance semi-close, he was better able to pick up on her dark hair, cut raggedly, longer in the front where it tickled her fine-arrowed chin and shorter in the back where it rode just above her hairline. He could see she was wearing a flowy sleeveless top, feminine even if it was black as brimstone. A hint of skin underneath turned him on to the dark cut of her bra.

When in God’s name had Mavis started wearing flowy, see-through blouses? She was in her late twenties, but when Gavin could see twenty-twenty, he’d never known her hips to swing quite like they seemed to now.

Gavin studiously turned his attention to other features, ones he knew. The freckles. They marked her for the distinct thing she was. They reminded him of the quiet girl he’d known—the freckled Wednesday Addams. The sarcastic teenager he’d never thought of as womanly.

Her sharp-cut jaw still looked too much like her older brother’s.

Kyle. Like Harmony, Gavin had found a Bracken bosom buddy in the early years in Fairhope. Kyle had joined him at BUD/S after a year of college. They’d earned their Tridents together.

Kyle could boast just as many battle scars as Gavin. Most of his had come from walking into a frag grenade during his second deployment.

Seeing Mavis’s big brother hung up in traction five years ago hadn’t settled well. Gavin hadn’t stayed long at his buddy’s bedside as a result. No, he’d pushed himself back into the fight with grim determination that smacked of vengeance.

He should’ve slowed down, taken some time to decompress before going on the op months later that had ended abruptly with him carrying Zaccoe’s limp body from conflict.

Benji’s blood. Gavin would never forget how it seeped warm through the back of his digi-camo. He’d never stop cursing how his hands had shaken in the armored vehicle on the way back to base, making his job as medic impossible.

He’d lost that battle. He’d lost it hard, and, with it, a friend. Benji was gone, and he’d left Gavin’s sister a widow.

Everything started to blur once more. The ringing in Gavin’s ears warned him of return flashbacks. He tried blinking to snap himself back to present, then remembered. You’re blind, asshole.

He took a detour, hoping to lose Mavis so he could orient himself.

“Where are you going?” she asked. The question floated to him. It got chopped by the blender in his brain. When he veered into the floral undercroft of a lengthy bougainvillea-wrapped awning, she tailed him. “Gavin?”

He held up a hand. In the shade, things were cooler. The humidity clung to his skin, a wet blanket he couldn’t dislodge any more than the fresh scent of blood in his nostrils or the feeling that brought the tremor to his fingers. His heart beat heavy, the ache behind it keen. His lungs pushed the air in and out, rapid-fire. The overdose of oxygen made him dizzier. Groping, he found one of the awning supports beneath the vines and tried not to stumble into it. Pressing his brow into his forearm, he worked to bring himself out of it.

“You’re having a panic attack.”

No shit. It was what he wanted to say. Along with a whole lot of, You’re still here? What came was more along the lines of, “Mmmph.” And even that caught in his throat.

Mavis’s expressionless words came to him, closer. “Is it okay if I touch you?”

She still sounded muddled. Everything did when the anxiety peaked. Still, he frowned when he grouped the words together. Is it okay...if I touch you?

Had Mavis ever touched him?

He wasn’t coming down—his pulse, the Tilt-A-Whirl in his head, his breathing. He was being swept up by the sights, sounds, smells from another time and place. The sights, sounds and smells of death. He’d lost track of the self-assertions and tactics that sometimes simulated a sense of control.

Mavis didn’t take his hand. Her cool fingers wrapped loosely around his wrist. Her thumb found the flexed tendon in the center and applied pressure.

The fighter in him punched through. His muscles twitched. Damn it, he was jumpy enough to take her above the elbow and apply pressure of his own. The urge was knee-jerk and wrong. A remnant of his training.

“Do you feel that?”

The question bobbed to the surface. Mavis, he told himself. The brief image of her racing a horse against his at breakneck speed through a crowded wood stopped the training from taking effect. It stopped the urge altogether. He still didn’t know what the hell she was doing, but he nodded in answer.

The pressure of her thumb increased, enough for the blood flow inside the pulse point to slow.

She didn’t hurt him. If anything, the slight discomfort and the odd awareness of her skin against his tuned him in to her further.

While his pulse careered and the battle raged inside his head, she held him. Then, over the same spot, she began to knead.

It was several minutes before he realized that his focus had shifted. The pressure lifted off his chest enough to breathe. The words he usually told himself came to him. He chained them to the flight rhythm of his heart, slowing them by minor increments until the chant became a mantra and his heart rate leveled.

It wasn’t until he opened his eyes that he realized he’d relaxed enough for her to grasp his other arm. She kneaded his opposite wrist.

When he was able to bring his voice to the surface, he swallowed, fighting against a dry throat. “What’re you doing?”

“Acupressure,” she said. After more kneading, she added, “How does it feel?”

He raised his brows in answer. He lifted his lids again. Her dark head was beneath his. She was looking down between them. She smelled nothing like brimstone. He caught a surprising waft of fresh, cool mango. Her jet hair looked soft, so much so that he considered resting his cheek against it.

But that would’ve been weird.

Gavin bit off a curse. “Don’t you know better than to approach somebody like me with his guard down?”

She shrugged, letting her touch slide across his palms, down his fingertips and away. “You held yourself together.”

“I wanted to snap your arm.” He grated the words through his teeth. “Like a ruler.”

“You didn’t.”

He tilted his head at her. Who was this creature? With him so determined to stay away from life stateside, he and Mavis had rarely crossed paths after adulthood. As a boy, he’d been too distracted to take more than a second or two to fan the mystery of her. As a man, he’d been too busy elbowing his way back into the fight to really notice her. Cut to his return to Fairhope three weeks ago; she’d been the one who’d seemed busy, rushing in and out of the inn to drop off Harmony and Benji’s daughter, Bea, or grabbing a quick bite from Briar’s kitchen on her lunch break.

She had no reason to trust him—who he was then, who he was now. What the hell had he ever done for Mavis Bracken? “Your brother’s a SEAL,” he reminded her. “You know what goes through an operative’s mind.”

“What’s your point?”

“Keep your distance from me, Mavis. I’m a house on fire.”

“When a house is on fire, you throw water on it,” she told him. “You don’t stand back and let it burn.”

“You do if it’s too far gone.”

“Not everybody does.”

This wasn’t working. “Would you approach a wounded predator in the wild?”

Mavis took a step back, perhaps out of respect. “That depends. How well do I know this predator?”

“Huh?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“If this were any normal predator in the wild, I’d walk away. But if I knew, for example, that he liked blondes not brunettes, mustard not ketchup, and salty foods in lieu of sweets...more than likely, I’d use that to my advantage.”

He stared through the damaged veil of his eyes. “You remember all that about me.”

“Gavin, you hung out at my house with my brother every day you were in town as a kid. That’s ten years you and I ate at the same table. I can’t tell you how many times I saw the two of you turn out your billfolds for the customary condom count when Mom wasn’t looking.”

Gavin gave a startled laugh.

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re still proud of that, are you?”

He coughed slightly, bringing his fist to his mouth. “Uh, no. Of course not, no. You remember?” He wasn’t able to get over it.

“Don’t you remember anything about me?”

“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “When you were little, you had these big screech-owl eyes that seemed to know everything. You were spooky. You still are.”

She studied him again. He picked up on the slight sound of her sigh. “You’re still white as a sheet,” she observed. “But your eyes are clear.”

“They are.” The careful non-question rang with surprise.

“The pressure point helps alleviate anxiety,” she explained. “It can also work for nausea and motion sickness.”

He was close enough. He might be able to count the freckles. Because it helped him hug the present closer, he started. One, two, three...four...

Forked pain struck his temples. He closed his eyes to shut out the light. The migraines nearly always followed the hard forays into insanity.

“Stress headache?” she ventured.

He laughed cheerlessly, webbing his fingers over his face. “Did you train to be a medical professional while I was away or are you psychic?”

“I get them, too,” she explained. When he only scrubbed his hand from his face to the top of his head and lowered his chin into his chest, her hands lifted between them and spread. “Look, if I touch you again, are you going to freak out?”

I might. She had a way, too—this new Mavis. “I’d prefer a sledgehammer to knock myself out with.”

“This is healthier.”

He raised his chin and tensed to stop her from edging in closer. “Since when are you the touchy-feely type?”

She paused, fingers curled toward him. “I’m not. But do you know why I’m a vegetarian?”

“No.”

“I can’t stand to see an animal in pain. Teeth or no teeth.” When he wouldn’t relax, she sighed at him again. “Stand still.”

Personal space be damned, she stepped right up into his. He wasn’t overly tall like her six-foot-four brother, but she was small even in combat boots. He remained rigid as her front buffered his, as she touched him, his face. More pressure points, he assumed. A snide remark formed on his lips when her thumbs came to the base of his cheekbones. It fell flat when she began to massage again.

“This is yingxiang,” she said in a low voice he found strangely hypnotic. “It targets the pressure points in the wrinkles of the nose. It works for stress headaches, but it can open up the sinuses and relieve hypertension, too.”

“Mm,” he said, trying not to drag the syllable out like he wanted to.

She massaged his cheeks for a minute or two more before her thumbs lifted. His face felt loose. Most of his tension he held in his neck and jaw. It had lessened to the point that he could feel the soreness around the joints and the relief that sang behind it.

Under his stare, she seemed to hesitate. This close, he could definitely count those freckles. He could also trace the shape of her big screech-owl eyes. Dark and uncharted. Like the far side of the moon.

Her lips parted and her tongue passed briefly between them before she moved her hands slowly to the place where his neck met his shoulders. “Or...if that doesn’t do it for you...”

The tendons beneath her kneading fingertips all but cried out at the attention. He gave up deciding whether it was from pleasure or pain. The muscles moaned under the ministrations. It was the exact spot the stress of the last six months had taken up residence. The stress of the last decade, now that he thought about it. He hoped she didn’t notice his eyes rolling into the back of his head.

No. Yes. Yes, no.

For the love of God, touch me. Touch me tender. Touch me hard. Freckles, just...

...touch me...

Gavin expelled a breath. It gave him away, he feared. It gave him away hard.

“You’re brick.”

“Hmph?” he responded, at a loss for better.

“Your muscles,” she muttered, exerting more pressure. “They’re like mortar.”

No, her hands were mortar. Crashing into his brick walls. Exploding them into dust.

“You’d really benefit from yoga.”

His snort was a half sound. “Who does that new age shit?”

“Friend of mine owns a school. Yoga helps you stretch the right way, loosen joints... It helps you learn to breathe...”

“Breathing’s involuntary,” Gavin said. “You’re either breathin’ or you’re...”

Dead.

Her low voice smoothed through the juncture. “Most people never give themselves over to all the multifaceted ways breathing can act as a tool for everyday life. Or they’re never taught to begin with.”

“Stick with the massage.”

She did, utilizing her fingertips until he’d lost his breath completely. “Only if it’s working for you.”

“Hmm,” he replied, at a loss again.

“These are simple techniques you can practice on yourself,” she murmured, quieter, “anytime you need them.”

He couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes so he raised a brow. “Is this what they teach you in ghost-hunting school, Buffy?”

“Buffy hunted vampires,” she told him levelly. “Not ghosts.”

“I think it’s all relative,” he drawled.

“Oh, you do?”

He opened his eyes to search for her. Up close, the familiarity struck him. High, leopard-spotted cheeks. Pert nose. Insouciant mouth. Eyes like the frigging Mariana Trench. There was something silver shining from each of her ears, a very small diamond in the crease of her nose. Her dark makeup was pronounced.

He was shocked when the ghost of a smile touched the corners of his mouth. “You are a little spooky still.”

She loosened her grip, falling back. “Well. At least you’re not still tense.”

He wasn’t. Wooow. When her hands lowered from him, he very nearly grabbed hold to bring them back.

Placing a palm to his sternum, she backed herself off so the length of her arm stretched in the marked space between them. “You’ll get better,” she told him. “It’ll get better.”

The certainty caught him. Not only because it went up against his own, but also because she believed it. “How do you know?” he found himself asking.

“You’re a survivor.”

“I used to be,” he replied. He no longer felt like one. More like something tattered and unrecognizable that washed ashore after being picked over by birds and fish.

“It’s not just the SEAL in you. It’s who you were before all that, too. A survivor.” When he said nothing to that, she went on. “Despite all you’ve been through...your heart’s still beating.”

If only she knew. Sometimes, he wondered if this was it—that, after everything, he’d be defeated by the mind-fuck he couldn’t seem to get a handle on. Mavis’s hand was still on his sternum, and he tuned his awareness to it. “It doesn’t beat evenly,” he admitted. He wet his throat. “What about the dog?”

She looked around at the reminder. Her hand moved off so that she could shield her eyes from the glare off the distant bay. “He’s somewhere around.”

“Will he come back on his own?” he asked, falling into step with her as her slow gait brought them back into the sunshine.

“Yes, always,” she said. “Growing boys never miss a meal. Not to mention, not all who wander...”

Are lost, he finished silently. Not all, Gavin agreed.

Maybe just him.

He let her walk ahead and her pace quickened. He wrapped the fingers of one hand around the other fist, coming to a halt. “You wear black, but you like red.”

She stopped. Doubling back, she faced him fully.

He went on. “You have a tattoo...somewhere. I don’t remember. But you got in trouble for it when your mom found out. You rode a horse named Neptune. You liked to ride English because, even though you were weird, you were a cut and a half above the rest of us.”

Still, she was silent. She was too far away for him to read. He was beginning to sweat nonetheless. “And when your family would have their Saturday music round, you wouldn’t play. You’d sing. You could turn an acoustic version of ‘Come Together’ or ‘Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’’ into something classy and unexpected.”

“Oh, God...” she said.

“Don’t laugh, Freckles. You killed the Loretta.”

She did laugh. It was a low noise, like the drone of a hummingbird’s wings. It didn’t last long enough. “I hated when you called me that.”

“I knew it,” he returned. “Anyway, you were...different. I thought it was kind of badass that you didn’t care.”

“Just like you didn’t?”

Gavin lifted a shoulder in answer. Yes—they had more in common than it seemed either of them had anticipated.

Quiet fell. The gulls droned from the shore. Tires moved over gravel in the parking lot beyond Briar’s garden. The world moved, lively and fierce. But there was a measure of quiet in Gavin’s head. He’d forgotten what quiet, in its purest form, was. Damned if he wasn’t grateful—and a little spellbound.

Mavis spoke again in a sober light. “Look. I might’ve overheard what went on upstairs with the vase.”

Gavin’s frown returned. He sought the inn, the place he’d known he shouldn’t come back to. He hadn’t fit in before the RPG. What had made him think he could fade into the wallpaper now with his face a veritable grid of violence?

“Before you think about disappearing again,” Mavis continued, “you don’t have to leave Fairhope entirely.”

He moved his shoulders in a brusque motion, the tension climbing up the back of his neck again. “You know a good bait bucket I can crawl into?”

“You’ll break their hearts if you skip town like all the times before,” she said.

“Yeah, but think of the antiques,” Gavin said, gesturing to the pristine white building and the treasures it held. “At least they’ll live long and happy lives.”

“If you knew your parents at all, you’d know that when it comes to your well-being, they’d burn every single one of their antiques if it meant having you here.”

Judgment had a bite to it, he found. He didn’t much like it. Remembering the tone he’d struck with his father and Briar upstairs, he scowled. Okay, maybe he deserved it. But in spite of the steadier ground he found himself walking on after the detour with Mavis under the bougainvillea, the coals still burned, low and blue.

“I might know a place you can stay,” she continued. “While you take the time you need to decide what the future holds. It’s close enough to town to keep your parents happy, but far enough and quiet enough to give you the freedom to piece your thoughts together.”

“Where is this place?” he wondered.

“On the river,” she told him. “Fish River.”

“You live on Fish River,” he remembered.

“Along with a slew of other folks,” she pointed out. “The place is at the end of my road. There’s a catch, though. You’ll have to put up with a roommate.”

“I think we all know I’m no good at sharing,” he pointed out.

“Yes, but this is just temporary,” she said. “And your potential roomie is very into feng shui. No antiques, few breakables. Plus, she’s likely to stay out of your personal space.”

She rounded out the last words nicely. “Huh.” Gavin considered. “Is she hot?”

Mavis’s laugh was full-throated. When it didn’t end quickly this time, Gavin asked, “What’s funny?”

“You like a good joke, right?” she asked, wrapping her arms around herself and backtracking to the inn.

“Normally,” he replied. “Don’t leave me hanging on the punch line.”

“Her name is Zelda Townes.”

“And?”

“And you can find the rest out for yourself,” she tossed back, intriguing in all her unsolved mystery.

Gavin frowned at her back. “Is this because I can’t stop calling you Freckles?”

“No,” she said. “It’s because you won’t.”

CHAPTER TWO

PEOPLE NORMALLY PERFORMED hot yoga in a studio. Thanks to the heat and humidity July had to offer the Gulf Coast, Zelda Townes’s Bikram classes were held on the wide veranda of her old river house. The sun fell through the square slats of the pergola, fighting through a canopy of hanging ferns and fuchsia. If the screens didn’t keep the wolfish mosquitoes at bay, the plantings of lavender, mint and thyme would have made the pests turn tail.

Not only did Miss Zelda’s porch offer the perfect environment for hot yoga. It smelled like the inside of an apothecary. With the backdrop of the river and the grand weeping willow in the yard that spilled down to its fishy shores, achieving peace of mind wasn’t difficult here. The happy burble of shallow fountains, the hollow knock of bamboo chimes, and the light refrain of kirtan devotional music brought the morning class to its culmination.

Despite this and the stalwart nature of each of Miss Zelda’s advanced students, nearly all of them shrieked and fell out of their standing bow when a loud bang rent the quiet river air.

“What in the holy name of Babylon...?” Zelda scowled, her svelte spandex-clad form straightening from her mat. “That sounded like a Desert Eagle .50.”

Mavis felt the frisson of alarm go through her fellow classmates and injected a note of sardonic cool into the scene. “Yes, because Desert Eagles are a dime a dozen.” A chorus of barks reached her ears. “Damn it,” she said, already up. “That’s my dog.”

“Water’s still as molasses,” Zelda said, peering down the lawn to the river’s surface. “Go ’round back and see what’s doing. The rest of you, a few sips of water before we pick up on the last vinyāsa.”

Mavis wove her way through the sweaty bodies to the barn doors that led into Zelda’s sparse domain. The house had been built before hurricanes were named and outhouses had died. Zelda had done well to update the place. The water ran fine, just like the electric. Two large bathrooms had been added to the floor plan, with an additional powder room near the patio and sunrooms where Zelda held her classes, depending on the season.

The house had once been crammed wall-to-wall with furniture. Zelda’s parents and grandparents had been notorious hoarders. They’d run a down-home antiques business from there. Long before the business passed to her, Zelda announced she had no intention in furthering the enterprise. She’d cleaned house, burning most possessions before cheerfully planting the willow amid the ashes.

Longtime river residents still spoke about the great bonfire of ’76 and how it had lit up the night sky like the Second Coming. Of course, all this was decades before Mavis joined the river community. She’d grown to know the strange woman living in the old house at the end of the road, so much so that she and Zelda had started their own enterprise—Greater Baldwin Paranormal Research & Investigation. More commonly, they were known to locals by the tongue-in-cheek nickname the Paranormas.

The office to the right of the house’s entry point housed most of the ghost-hunting gear that Zelda and Mavis had carefully invested in. When Zelda wasn’t a yoga guru and Mavis wasn’t filling time cards at any of her parents’ small-town industries, they could both be found screening calls, dissecting claims of activity or out doing fieldwork in Zelda’s vintage red Alfa Romeo.

Mavis peered through the window to the right of the door. The pane of glass was old and waxy, but the distortion of smoke over the cracked drive and the fits of excited barking made her snatch the door wide. She looked right, then heard the cursing to her left and crossed the porch to get a better look.

“No, Prometheus!” someone said. “Back away! Down!”

Mavis broke into a run upon hearing her dog’s yelp. She opened her mouth to yell for him before she rounded the last car.

The smoke wafted from the hood of a familiar orange eighties-model Ford truck. The person shouting was Mavis’s friend and Gavin’s sister, Harmony Savitt. Which made the person on the ground underneath Mavis’s gigantic canine...

“Prometheus!” Mavis shouted, stumbling forward. “Get off of him! Get...” Her steps faltered at the sound of more yelps. They weren’t distressed. They were yipping. Happy. Walking sideways, tilting her head, she reevaluated the scene.

Gavin’s arms were up, the cords of his neck drawn into sharp contrast as he torqued his face away from the dog’s mouth. It was the dog’s tongue that was attacking him without mercy. The strained sound of high-pitched laughter fought through Gavin’s teeth.

Harmony had one leg over Prometheus’s back and was jerking on his silver-studded collar with all her might. “Oh my God! It’s like moving a planet!”

Prometheus got lucky with a tongue-lap across Gavin’s mouth. “Ah!” he grimaced. “Come on!”

“Prometheus,” Mavis said again, finding her feet. She joined the fray, grabbing the dog’s collar, too. She grunted, yanked. “Would you move your butt?”

Together, she and Harmony managed to tug Prometheus off the soldier. “Sit!” Mavis instructed, keeping hold of her dog as Harmony doubled over. Mavis crouched to Prometheus’s level, drawing his attention to her. “What were you thinking? You can’t just go knocking people over.” Shifting to her heels, she reached out to offer Gavin a hand, but he was already on his knees. She frowned at the Oakley sunglasses in his hand. “He broke them.”

“They fell off my head,” Gavin insisted. “I should’ve grabbed hold of ’em when I heard him coming.”

Harmony nodded agreement. “Those paws. They sound like a mammoth stampede.”

“I’m sorry,” Mavis said. “He usually doesn’t jump people like that.”

“You’re right,” Gavin said simply in return. “He definitely is a Prometheus.”

At his name, Prometheus strained forward, sniffing for Gavin’s hand. To Mavis’s surprise, Gavin obliged him, pressing his palm warmly against his flat-topped cranium and feeling his way to the dog’s ear. Prometheus’s lapping jowls closed quickly as he leaned into the caress and groaned, loudly, bending his head low. Mavis’s lips pressed together. She stared at Gavin over the length of Prometheus’s back.

Was that a smile? The scars stamped across his face didn’t interfere with the lines of his mouth, but it was a mouth that had grown far too accustomed to not smiling. Vague and hesitant, his eyes were more than just the epic clash of bottle green and unfinished copper. Tapered at the corners, they held the same sad glint as an abandoned pet.

Her heart misfired. She frowned at him. The wounded Gavin. He held himself together, as always. However, the bruising was on the surface. She could see the stitching. She could see the steel cables and the double coat of duct tape holding him together. Yet still the damage was close.

She hated that she could read him. It was easy for her to read people. Exceptions were rare. With his cool exterior and easy charm, Gavin Savitt had nearly always been the exception. He’d split his time annoying her and—unintentionally perhaps—compelling her. However, for all his past, there weren’t too many people who had ever found Gavin uninteresting.

He’d always been far too good-looking and she knew he’d used it to his advantage. Not with her. Others. His fighting edge had started young. He’d been in enough scrapes in high school to get him kicked out for a time. People vouched that he never started the fights, but he did finish them, and not always with an assist from Kyle.

The fighting edge was still there, but it had turned inward. As a result, his guardedness was down, the coolness had dropped, and Mavis could read him like a book she shouldn’t want to finish. She tried to look away in front of Harmony, at least. Things were strange enough since Harmony and Kyle had happily announced their march into coupledom.

Gavin couldn’t see her clearly. She knew that. So why did it feel so intimate to hold his steady gaze? Maybe because even after they couldn’t see, the eyes were still the door to the soul?

Mavis locked herself down. Whatever it was that she was feeling, she felt it too much in too many places and she had to lock it down because, per her directions, Gavin had come here to live with Miss Zelda at the end of the road.

Prometheus showed his appreciation by pressing his head against Gavin’s thigh. “Hey, hey,” Gavin said, easing back. “Easy there, Cujo.” He was wearing a smile. It might no longer look natural, but it wove into his hard-angled features until Mavis had to look away.

Prometheus nuzzled against Gavin’s shoulder, earning more ear-scratching. Mavis’s spine snapped straight at the touch of envy. “Okay, enough,” she said, wrapping her arms around Prometheus’s middle.

“He’s fine,” Gavin said. “He seems like a good egg. He’s Lab, right?”

Harmony belted a laugh. “Try rottweiler.”

“Nah,” Gavin said doubtfully. He hooked his arm around Prometheus’s neck and glanced at Mavis.

“One hundred percent,” she confirmed. “Dad picked him up at the shelter for me when he was twelve weeks old. He said if I was going to live alone, I had to have a guard dog.”

Harmony shook her head, watching the display between man and dog. “If that’s a guard dog, I’m a canary.”

“Breeds like rottweiler can be seriously misunderstood in terms of behavior.” Mavis gestured to the lovey canine licking the seam of Gavin’s jeans near the knee in a slow savory manner. “Exhibit A.”

“So you’re a righteous beast, eh?” Gavin lowered his crown to Prometheus’s bowed one. “That makes two of us.”

The gesture from man to dog did something. Mavis’s palms dampened. Her lips parted as a rush of warmth flooded her. It started in her belly and curled like a wave before she sucked it back. Feelings, she reminded herself. No.

She studiously rolled her eyes as Prometheus continued to vie for Gavin’s affections. Trying not to follow the path of Gavin’s stroking hands on Prometheus’s ruff, she looked to the smoking truck. “What happened?”

Harmony groaned. “Overheated. Liv’s going to kill me.” She shivered as though contemplating the response of her cousin, Olivia Leighton, to having her beloved Ford maligned in such a way. Squinting from beneath the brim of the baseball cap that advertised the cropdusting and flight instruction business she shared with Mavis’s father, Harmony frowned at the steam. “We’ll have to call James for a tow.”

Gavin gained his feet. “It wouldn’t have blown its top if you didn’t drive like a heretic.”

“I drive just fine,” Harmony said dismissively.

“You drive like somebody trained in low-level aerobatics,” Gavin argued. “Which you are.”

“You like my driving,” she pointed out. “It puts you back in action, which you miss.”

Mavis watched his mouth fold and she quickly changed the subject. “At least you made it to Miss Zelda’s.”

“Everybody calls this woman Miss Zelda,” Gavin pointed out.

“So?” Mavis asked.

“So, normally that would mean she’s a person of importance or she’s older than...you know... Betty White.”

“Betty rocks,” Harmony declared.

“Actually, nobody knows how old Zelda is,” Mavis informed them. “I’m pretty sure anybody who does is dead.”

“So, great. She’s like biblical,” he muttered. His arms crossed over his big chest. “You set me up with an old lady?”

His smile was on the verge of creeping back into play. She sighed a little. A little, she told herself when the noise made her cringe. “You know what they say,” she said with a shrug. “Age is only a state of mind.”

“Uh-huh.”

He kept looking at her, stance stern, eyes amused and...unseeing. So why, again, did she feel like...

Like he was touching her?

Harmony’s voice broke into the interlude. “Wait a second. You two aren’t...”

Gavin slowly turned his head to her. “Aren’t what?” he asked when she only gawked at them.

“You guys aren’t into each other, are you?” Harmony asked. She held up her hands and took a step back. “Because blech!”

“Seriously?” Mavis responded. “When my brother’s not in training, aren’t you two normally camped out in bed together when your daughter’s not looking?”

“Good point,” Gavin said with a nod.

“Still, this better be some sort of revenge joke,” Harmony told them. “A new tactic to show me how awkward it’s been for the two of you since Kyle and I got together.”

“Of course it’s a joke,” Mavis said. Because how could Harmony’s brother be flirting with her? He was dealing with God only knew how many issues. For example, she was pretty sure he hadn’t yet come to terms with his disability. And she definitely, definitely was not his type.

She backtracked, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. “Grab your stuff. I’ll go tell Miss Zelda you’re here. Harmony, you can call for a tow inside. Come on, Prometheus.”

The dog reluctantly fell into step. She reached down and laid her hand against his snout when he sought her. It was still warm from Gavin’s touch.

If she wasn’t Gavin’s type, why did she feel his eyes on her as she walked away?

CHAPTER THREE

“SOMETHIN’ WAYLAID ME in the shower,” Gavin announced to Mavis as he wandered into the kitchen, closely following the mental blueprint he’d drawn of Zelda’s house during the introductory tour. It wasn’t the simplest layout, but he wasn’t blind enough that he couldn’t trust his keen inner compass. It only made most tasks he’d once thought simple now frustrating and a few everyday skills, like driving, impossible.

He found a halo of hair underneath one of the florescent lights on the other side of the high countertop. “Some kind of tree,” he elaborated.

Mavis answered, “Eucalyptus.”

Gavin frowned. The light had gone from the windows. There were a lot of windows in Miss Zelda’s house. The harshness of electric lighting burned the working parts of his right retina. “So the old lady’s aware she’s got plants growing in places they shouldn’t?”

“If you call her ‘old lady,’ she’s likely to strike you dead at some point. And, yes.” He heard a rustle. Pages turning. She was reading a book. Here at Zelda’s, half past dark? “The plants are refreshing. For most people.”

He wrapped his fingers around the edge of granite and jerked his chin at her. “What’re you doing?”

“Studying,” she said plainly.

Feeling around the prep space, he found a large wooden bowl. Recognizing the cool touch of a smooth apple’s surface, he palmed it and brought it to his nose to sniff. “Algebra test in the morning?”

“In your mind, am I still a fresh-faced fourteen-year-old? Pre-tats? Pre-piercings? Prepubescent?”

Not at all, he mused, remembering what had transpired at the inn under the bougainvillea. Ah, that bougainvillea.

Passing the apple from one hand to the other, he countered, “Studying what?”

“Genealogical records.” More rustling. Gavin saw the white face of a page flash as she flipped to the next.

“Mmm.” He took a crunchy, satisfying bite from the apple.

Her head was low over the book. Her hair fell forward at a slicing angle. “It comes with the territory.”

“Territory?”

“The paranormal investigation and research territory,” she explained. She lifted her face. It shone under the bright light, freckles pronounced. He could see the red bow of her mouth. It’d always been lush, like that of her mother, Adrian. The dark slant of her eyes was masked by a large set of reading glasses. Old-fashioned, from what he could tell, and cat-eye. “Didn’t Miss Zelda tell you? This is where our spooky little business comes together.”

Gavin stopped chewing. “Here?”

“Yes. Here.”

He worked his jaw, deciding to study the red coating of the apple instead.

After several seconds, Mavis said, “Is that a problem?”

“No.” He shook his head. “No. Just...on the tour earlier, nobody mentioned athames or cauldrons.”

“Why would it matter if there were athames and cauldrons?” Mavis wondered. “I thought you didn’t believe in that stuff.”

“When I trip over a chair and fall on or in either, that’d be a big problem. Unless you witches have broken into the field of advanced healing.”

“You do realize neither Zelda nor I practice Wicca, witchcraft, or anything of the spiritual or magic variety?”

“Communing with the dead?” he said pointedly.

“We listen,” she corrected. “It’s more science than anything.”

Gavin lowered his voice. “And what do people who do actual science have to say about that?”

Mavis’s sigh floated to him. She flipped more pages, with more force. “Some pay attention. Some don’t.”

“Most don’t,” he wagered.

“Haven’t you had anything happen to you that you can’t explain?” she asked.

Rotating the apple as if he could study every facet, he said, “If I can’t explain it, and nobody else can explain it, why would I want to know more about it?”

“I’m trying to decide if that makes you ignorant or irrationally skeptical,” Mavis said thoughtfully.

“From your side of the field, I imagine everyone’s a skeptic. Except the freaks who pay you.”

The book slammed shut. “Nobody pays us. Only scammers and con artists demand payment for the type of work we do.”

“You work for free?”

“Second,” she said, “while the people who call on our services do sometimes turn out to be a little nutty, it’s unfair to lump them all as freaks. Especially since a percentage suffer from any number of psychological disorders such as depression, paranoia, schizophrenia...even PTSD. EMF sensitivity alone can lead to extreme bouts of paranoia. You know as well as I do that mental illness is no joke. Am I right?”

Gavin raised his brows but said nothing. Low blow, Freckles.

“Miss Zelda and I take what we do very seriously,” she added. “As seriously as you did playing modern-day advanced warrior with Kyle and Benji.”

Did she have to bring up Benji? “You argue like your brother.”

“How’s that?”

“Heavy on the guilt.”

“Really? I thought I was talking truth.”

“Sucker punching me with it.” Gavin rolled the apple onto the counter.

“Aren’t you going to finish that?” she asked when he turned to walk out.

“Nah. I’ve lost my appetite.”

“May I ask why?” she said to his back.

He stopped at the door and turned halfway back. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s poisoned?”

It took her a second to answer. “Athames are on the left when you walk up the stairs. Good luck not tripping.”

He chuckled, then wondered over the sound. Okay, that was twice now she’d made him laugh. Tapping his fingers against the jamb, he said, “Tell me something, Freckles. Why did you get into the paranormal racket?”

“When you stop thinking of it as a racket,” she replied, “I’ll tell you. Maybe. Anything else?”

“When’s the naked séance? I might need to see that.”

“You won’t.”

He cursed. “Are you really here working or are you keeping tabs on me for the folks?”

“Well, now’s a good a time as any to make an entrance,” Zelda said as she breezed past him. She patted him on the biceps. Her sleeve brushed his arm. It was long and silky. She raised herself to her toes so he could hear her mutter, “For God’s sake, handsome, stop while you’re ahead.”

“When was I ahead?” he wondered out loud.

“Mavis thinks well of you,” she pointed out. “She rarely thinks highly of anyone. Be a good soldier. Keep to her good side.” She spoke briskly. The arm pat became a squeeze before she moved on, and Gavin found himself murmuring a quick, “Yes ma’am.”

He’d already decided that he liked the mistress...er, matron of the manor. Meeting her in person, he’d had difficulty assimilating the keen woman with old age despite her pixie mop of silver-tinged hair. She was tall—like Harmony, nearly as tall as him—narrow as an arrow, and shrewd. Like Mavis, she smelled great. Herbal, refreshing. He saw the bright streak of her head scarf as she moved to the counter. She made him think of jewel-colored birds in the tropics.

The river house was everything Mavis had promised. Clean lines. Open space. In the daytime, there was the added benefit of a flood of natural light with the outside literally coming in, as he’d discovered in the shower. The furniture was sparse and, oddly, close to ground. The low-level effect from the dining room to the bedroom brought to mind an Oriental theme. Judging by some Mandarin words he’d traced on the wall of his bathroom, he didn’t think he was far off there.

Zelda lived in the bedroom downstairs facing the river. My wing, as she called it in her deep silky voice. Rules are, I don’t enter your space, you don’t enter mine.

That’s fair, he’d said.

He was told to expect an odd assortment of visitors on weekdays and weekends and phones ringing late into the night. He’d thought that was due to Zelda’s so-called yoga school, which also operated out of the river-facing first floor. Now he knew to attribute it more to her and Mavis’s side business. Thankfully he’d found the soundproofing in his wing of the house to be impressive, despite the warning.

“Stunning rhododendrons!” Zelda said, approaching a tall spray of bright flowers in the corner. “Carlton Nurseries. Must be. The Bracken family trade always comes up with the best.”

Mavis made an assenting noise. “Dad picked it out. The Leightons sent it, as a thank-you for Saturday.”

“I’ll have Errol plant it in the front bed, in front of the office window,” Zelda announced. “That is, if he doesn’t mind working in the rain. We’re going to have a wet week. How’s the research coming for the Muculney case? Find anything?”

“It’s more in what I’m not finding,” Mavis said, her head low over her book again. “I can trace the girl’s Acadian line to Canada, but it stops expanding after the Civil War. No records that I can find of a child born of the Isnard estate after fighting broke out. Nothing at all under her name anywhere in Louisiana.”

“Did you try the internet?” Zelda asked as she fussed over the stovetop. Pots rang with the sound of silver as she removed a lid. The scent of soup filled the air. “Censuses? Area cemetery records?”

“I spent most of the afternoon at the computer.”

“Omissions can be telling. How hungry are you, Gavin?” Zelda asked him. “Soup’s been simmering since the a.m. and there’s more than Mavis and I can eat.”

Gavin lifted a hand. “I don’t expect you to cook for me. I can find my way around the kitchen.”

“Yes, I see you’ve been at the apples. Errol brought these from his backyard.”

“Who’s Errol again?” Gavin wondered aloud.

Zelda’s tone warmed over a purr. “Mon choupinou.”

Gavin frowned. “Is that code for boyfriend?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s French for ‘cabbage,’” Mavis said.

Gavin leaned into Zelda. “You sayin’ there’s another man around here?”

“Don’t you worry, toots.” She dug her elbow into his side. “There’s plenty of Miss Zelda to go around.”

Gavin felt a grin cracking across his face. “I like her,” he said, pinpointing Mavis over Zelda’s bright head scarf.

“Peas in a pod,” Mavis decided for herself.

Zelda used the ladle in her hand to tap him on the rear. “Have a seat at the counter, sugar loaf. There’s nothing heartier than minestrone soup at the day’s end. And you look like you could use some soul food.”

Gavin thought about going up to the solitude of his room. They were talking business and he couldn’t pretend not to be weirded out by the ghost-hunting side of it. However, the fragrance of minestrone hit him in the gut.

He crossed the room and rounded the counter, following the edge of it with his hand around the elevated bar. He tripped over something and looked down to see the prone dark lump on the floor. There were sounds coming out of it. Gavin realized it was Prometheus. “Is he okay?”

“Just sleeping,” Mavis informed him. “Why?”

Gavin waited for the noise to rise from the beast again. “When a helo makes that noise, it’s time to bail.”

“You know this from experience?” she inquired.

“Among other things.” From his previous, adrenaline-loaded life.

“The only thing he’s suffering from is exhaustion,” Mavis said. “I don’t know if you noticed, but he’s shadowed your every move since you got here.”

“I noticed,” Gavin said. He skimmed the side of his foot along what felt to be the dog’s ruff in a quick rub before grabbling for the back edge of the stool next to Mavis’s and pulling it out from under the ledge.

“If he bothers you, all you have to do is say so,” she said while he took his seat.

“He doesn’t.” Gavin had forgotten how companionable the silent presence of a canine could be, though he’d felt a clench when the shaded form of Prometheus had blurred into another dog’s as the late-afternoon light failed.

Gavin turned his attention to the stacks of books on the countertop. The rubbed scent of lignin stirred memories of libraries and secondhand bookshops. They were old books, he assumed. Big, from the sound of her closing and stacking them. He squinted at the spine of one. When the letters blurred, he scowled. He’d never been a big reader, but there had been freedom in knowing, should he choose, it could serve as a distraction.

A bowl clacked onto the granite in front of him. The steam wafted up his nose and his stomach grappled for the contents. Sustenance. “Mmm,” he said, unable to help it. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“No ma’am,” Zelda insisted, waving a napkin in front of her face before she set it down next to his bowl with a spoon on top. “It makes me feel retro.”

“Are you?” he asked experimentally, picking up the utensil.

“You’re a rascal,” Zelda realized. “I like that in a man.”

“Is Errol a rascal?” Gavin muttered in an aside to Mavis.

“He’s been known to listen to metal on occasion...”

“All men are rascals in some vein,” Zelda chimed in. “Even the deeply repressed type.” Zelda stopped in front of Gavin. “I doubt you’re the repressed type.”

The corner of his mouth curved upward and kept tugging. “What makes you think that?”

“Well, for starters, look at our girl. Does she look like she’d go for that?”

Mavis looked up as she became the center of attention.

“I don’t know,” Gavin said. “I always thought deep down Mavis was kind of a tight-ass.” The snug grin dug in further when her oval face slowly revolved his way under the light. His smile pulled at the scars on his face.

“Pat my head and call me Freckles,” she said. “I dare you.”

Zelda chuckled. “Here’s your soup, dear. Stop and eat.”

“Thank you,” Mavis said, taking the bowl in both hands. She took the spoon and napkin, then began to stir. Her elbow nudged his. Then again. “This isn’t going to work, lefty,” she told him. “You should sit on my other side.”

He nudged her elbow again. “You’re wearing wool,” he said as her sweater grazed his arm.

“Yeah, why not?” she asked.

“It’s ninety degrees out,” he pointed out.

“I’m cold,” she said, her shoulder lifting close to his. Muttering, she went back to her reading. “I’m always cold.”

“What would you like to wet your whistle, Gavin?” Zelda asked him. “There’s water. We have herbal tea. There should be some organic orange juice. No liquor. Neither Mavis nor I drink much, particularly during working hours.”

“Water for me, thanks. And some working hours, by the way. You don’t drink?” he asked, turning to Mavis.

“Only once in a blue moon,” she admitted. “Dad’s a recovering alcoholic. Mom never kept liquor in the house. Some of us had better things to do in high school and college than binge drink.”

“Not me,” he remembered fondly.

“No, I never said anything about you, did I?” she said drolly.

“So you don’t drink when you go out?” he asked.

“Out where?” she asked, mouth full of soup.

“Out,” he said. “That place people tend to go when they leave the house. Particularly single people on Friday and Saturday nights.” He peered at her when she turned her face to his without answering. “You do know what I’m talking about, don’t you, Freckles?”

“Do I look like an idiot?”

“You look like a blur,” he said. “A sweet, spotted blur.”

He could tell she was frowning. “I work three jobs. One fielding customers at Flora for Mom. Another doing bookkeeping for Dad at the garage. And another on nights and weekends here with Miss Zelda. My social agenda is pretty limited. Not that I mind. And not that it’s relevant.”

“I think it’s relevant,” he claimed.

“Why?”

He shrugged, scarfing another bite. He stopped for a second to enjoy its impact before spooning another. “Because you are a tight-ass.” She scoffed at him and he added, “And in another life, you might’ve been a cheap date.”

Mavis made a choking noise, then coughed. Gavin dropped his spoon into his bowl, lifted his arm over the back of her chair. He gave her several raps on the back.

“Another life?” Zelda spoke with all the nonchalance of an innocent bystander. “Why not this one? Gavin, I assume you’re single. That Leighton boy was the last one to tickle Mavis’s fancy. And that was back when he was still a man-baby.”

Gavin demanded, “Which Leighton?”

Mavis choked again.

Zelda called his bluff. “So you are interested. Hot dog!”

When Mavis reached desperately for his glass of water, he asked, “Are you okay?”

“Mmph.”

He heard the water going down her throat. He thought about it—her throat.

Stop being weird, Savitt, he chided himself.

She was talking again, to Miss Zelda. She sounded husky. Vital. He felt an odd stir, the same one she’d cranked to life in the bougainvillea. Something told him to reel it in, but he kept his arm across her back, cupping her slender shoulder blade through the thin wool of her sweater. He’d never been good at listening to sense, especially when it came to warm, smart women of the unconventional variety.

This one happened to be his best buddy’s sister. But Kyle was training hard somewhere out in California. Helicopter rappelling. The bastard. And Mavis. She was in arm’s reach. The threat of Kyle was lessened by the miles between them and conversation with Mavis... Her proximity had kept the lingering threat of that afternoon’s headache at bay.

“The meal’s put color in your face,” Zelda observed as she ate from the other side of the counter. Her tone slid homily into something sly. “Or is it the company?”

Gavin felt Mavis go rigid and circled the spot of her shoulder blade beneath his hand before removing it, going back to his meal. “Both are unrivaled,” he granted. Zelda’s low laugh was one of approval. The knuckles of his drinking hand knocked into something hard. Another book, he surmised. Cautiously, he asked, “What about this genealogy thing? How does that factor into...whatever it is you do?”

“Cases are confidential,” Mavis informed him shrewdly.

“He’s living here,” Zelda reminded her. “There’re things he’s bound to overhear. Such as, Vincent and Phyllis Muculney out of southern Louisiana are investigating the family lore of an alleged presence in her family’s planation homeplace. Vincent and Phyllis are friends of mine from the eighties so I knew a drive there wouldn’t be a waste. They’ve drawn attention to the property over the last year because of its rich landscape. Phyllis is very into conservation; Vincent is very into history. Local media have drawn widespread interest in the family lore and reports of paranormal activity. We got some interesting EMF readings off what’s left of the Isnard Plantation, didn’t we, Mavis?”

“Sure,” Mavis said mildly. Pages flipped. She was back to her research, multitasking as she spooned more minestrone into her mouth.

“Excuse me,” Gavin said, holding up a hand. “EMF?”

It was Mavis who answered. “Electromagnet fields. The theory is that ghosts are able to manipulate them. Our EMF meters can detect this.”

“And this is how you find Casper? Beetlejuice? Bruce Willis?”

She stared at him a second or two before answering with amusement. “If you will.”

“The audio was most revealing,” Zelda said, excitement growing. “Tell him about the audio.”

Mavis spared a weary glance for Miss Zelda before continuing. “We often take voice recordings, particularly in areas of EMF anomalies,” Mavis told him, adjusting her glasses. “While playing back the Isnard tapes, we found something.”

“You heard voices?” he asked, back to skeptic.

“Just one,” she said, nonchalant. As if they were discussing the ingredients of minestrone soup.

“What did it tell you?” he asked. “Have you unlocked the mysteries of the universe? Should we call Stephen Hawking or—”

“No,” she replied. “After passing what we heard on to Vincent and Phyllis, they told us about twin brothers who owned the planation jointly before being called off to service in 1862.”

“Here’s where it gets intriguing,” Zelda said conversationally.

Mavis paused. “Neither Josiah nor Daniel returned from battle,” she said finally. “Those who remained were convinced that the family line ended there. Until, of course, a kitchen girl revealed that she was pregnant with an Isnard heir.”

“So?” Gavin said.

Zelda smiled. “She didn’t know which twin was the father.”

“Which means either one of them cornered her in one of the secret passages under the cover of night,” Mavis said admonishingly.

“Or she was having an affair with both,” Zelda finished.

“The first theory’s more likely,” Mavis murmured. “I don’t see a ménage à trois happening in the grand master suite.”

“People back then were no different from people today,” Zelda informed her. “There was scandal. And secrets aplenty. Besides, I like the idea of the servant girl getting her own.”

“Was this voice you heard on the tapes by chance female?” Gavin asked.

“Why, yes,” Zelda said, glad he was catching on.

“So you think it was the kitchen girl,” he surmised.

“It’s a sound theory,” Zelda said. “One Mavis, Phyllis and I are in agreeance on. But what’s most interesting is that she spoke two names. The first in what remained of the living quarters above stairs. Josiah.”

“And the second in the chamber Phyllis told us about behind the servants’ stairwell. Daniel,” Mavis added. “That’s where the family claims most activity has occurred throughout the years.”

Gavin scraped what remained of his soup from the sides of his bowl, mulling the information. “Did this baby and its mother wind up reaping the estate benefits and carrying on the line?”

Zelda laughed. For once, it didn’t ring true. “Hell, no, she didn’t. Cousins came in, Phyllis’s ancestors, and turned the place over. The servants were dismissed and nothing was heard of the girl or her baby. The place wasn’t fit for living for another whole generation. The cousins eventually gave it up cold turkey.”

“Phyllis’s grandfather eventually inherited the mess and decided to rebuild most everything from the ground up,” Mavis told him. “It took years because workmen kept walking off, claiming they felt a tap on the shoulder or they could hear whispering when they were alone.”

“Phyllis’s first encounter herself was in the chamber behind the servants’ stairs,” Zelda divulged. “She was playing hide-and-seek with friends from grammar school. She was alone in the dark, but someone brushed the hair from her face. She lit outta there like someone had planted live firecrackers in her saddle shoes.”

Gavin sniffed. “And which of you ladies volunteered to take your recorder into the servants’ stairwell?”

“Oh, that was Mavis,” Zelda replied. “She usually volunteers for the tight spots. Attics. Basements. Crawl spaces. You name it, our Mavis is there.”

“That’s great,” Gavin said. He downed half his water before letting the glass clack against the counter next to his empty bowl. “Does your family know about this?”

“Did yours know anything about your combat injury for six months after it happened?” she responded in kind. “I didn’t think you were judgmental, Gavin. And I didn’t think you believed in this stuff anyway, much less cared.”

“I’m having trouble with the belief thing,” he admitted. “But I never said anything about not caring.”

“If you don’t believe, why’s it necessary to care?” Mavis asked. “It’s all just a racket. Right?”

“It’s big creepy houses that belong to strange people,” he told her. “Sure, Zelda’s friend Phyllis might be all right, but her family home sounds like it’s been a meal for more generations of termite colonies than you can trace. How carefully do you screen callers before showing up? It’s just the two of you? No muscle?”

“Well, Errol,” Zelda said. “He likes the country drives.”

“How old is this Errol?” Gavin wanted to know. When neither of them answered, he scowled. “Uh-huh.”

“Our screening process is thorough enough,” Mavis explained. Her tone had grown taut from irritation. “You can’t tell us that the process we’ve operated under for the last five years isn’t up to standard. Who do you think you are?”

“I’m a goddamn navy SEAL,” Gavin told her. “I think I know a sight more about the ugly parts of humanity than you do.”

“Try me,” she invited.

“Don’t tell him about that meth lab two weeks ago,” Zelda suggested. “He’ll blow a gasket.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He groaned. The slow-roasting coals were growing in temperature. “Did you know they were cooking meth?”

“They didn’t announce it,” Mavis responded.

“They weren’t hiding it, either,” Zelda noted. “They were nice boys. If you like mullets and missing teeth.”

“These are drug dealers we’re talking about,” Gavin said. “Drug dealers.”

Mavis rolled her eyes when he slowed the words down to mocking speed the second time. “Yeah, we got that.”

“But we scored,” Zelda said. “EMF and confirmed audio.”

“Wait,” Gavin said. “You walked in, saw what they were doing and you went ahead and did the job anyway?”

“Well, sure,” Zelda answered readily. When he cursed a stream and mashed two fingers against his temple, muttering disbelief, Zelda added, “You think we’re simpletons? You think we don’t know to arm ourselves with more than curiosity and flashlights? You’ve known her a long time, handsome. You really think Mavis is crazy?”

“I’m starting to,” he said. At the sound of books closing again, he reached out for Mavis. He closed his fingers around the back of her hand to stop her from scooting off. “Drug dealers, Freckles,” he reiterated. “Drug. Dealers.”

“One of them hit on her,” Zelda revealed, uncovering the mischievous streak Gavin thought he’d gleaned earlier.

Exasperated, Mavis slid from his grip and off her stool with books under her arm. “I’m so glad you two are living together, because you deserve each other. Night-night.”

“I have an idea,” Zelda announced, stopping Gavin from reaching for Mavis again and preventing Mavis from retreating. “You’re going to like this, the both of you.”

“Aren’t we optimistic?” Gavin said.

Zelda went on. “Why doesn’t Gavin accompany us this Saturday...?”

“What’s this Saturday?” he wondered.

“Fieldwork,” Mavis muttered. “For our next case.”

Gavin felt a stone drop in his stomach. It sank to the bottom and spread cold everywhere. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh, why not?” Zelda asked hopefully. “You’d get an idea of what we do. He’d enjoy our approach at least, I think, Mavis. Tell him!”

“Every job we take,” Mavis said dutifully, “we approach as skeptics. Our main focus is debunking claims of paranormal activity. It takes up the bulk of what we do.”

“I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” he said dully.

“Come on, handsome,” Zelda said. “There’s nothing worse for the mind than confining oneself to the indoors. It’ll make you crazier than a holy roller on Sunday. The cure is fresh air and the outdoors.”

“With all due respect, ma’am,” Gavin said coldly, “I’m not going anywhere.” He lifted his hands from the counter. “Excuse me.”

He sidestepped Prometheus, nearly overcompensated and leaned unintentionally into Mavis. When he felt her hand on his arm for balance, he straightened, veered around her and made a quick exit.

Not quick enough to miss Zelda utter, confounded, “He called me ma’am again. I’m not sure I deserved it.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“I KNOW HE’S not eating like he used to,” Briar Savitt said as she walked alongside Mavis through the pecan grove. The salty breeze adhered the clothes to their backs. The swelling heat index hadn’t stopped Briar from taking Mavis aside just as soon as she’d arrived at the Leighton orchard. “He’s so much thinner than he was when we saw him last. But do you think he’s sleeping better now that he’s at Miss Zelda’s where it’s quiet?”

“I couldn’t tell you.” Since the brush-off from him several days ago, Mavis had steered clear of Gavin, opting to stay home for dinner as opposed to lingering at Zelda’s in the late afternoons.

“You and Miss Zelda talk every day,” Briar said. “She must tell you...how things are going.”

Briar was the kindest person Mavis had ever known. Her reasons for the inquest were genuine. Regardless, Mavis wasn’t comfortable. Especially since Gavin had already accused her of keeping tabs on him for his parents. She cleared her throat. “I think Prometheus sees Gavin more than Zelda does. I understand he comes down for meals and weight lifting. Zelda gave him one side of her private meditation room for his bench. She says he isn’t conversational.” Mavis shrugged. “That’s really all I know, Briar. Sorry.”

“I don’t mean to put you on the spot.” She rubbed Mavis’s arm in a motherly fashion, then seemed to remember that Mavis wasn’t the affectionate sort and eased back. “But Cole’s eaten up over the whole situation.”

“Because Gavin’s living at Miss Zelda’s?” Mavis asked.

“No. Well, yes. He wishes he was within arm’s length again. We all do. But the injury. The trauma. I wish we could do something to help Gavin be free of it.”

“He’ll probably never be free of it,” Mavis reminded her. Briar’s mouth folded into a line and worry knit her forehead. Mavis hated to see her this way. “He came back. And he tried to make it work at the inn. He’s never done that before. Not since he was a kid.”

“We think it’s only because it wasn’t working elsewhere,” Briar said, “on his own. He tried that first.”

“In my experience, admitting you need help is the first step to recovery.”

“Yes, but how long before he convinces himself again that he doesn’t need us?” Briar asked. “That he’s better off alone? We’ll do anything to make him stay.”

“You’re doing the right thing,” Mavis assured her. “Letting him be on his own—or with Miss Zelda... Letting him have his own space...it’ll all work out. Especially if he gives in to her. Miss Zelda wants him to try meditation. Maybe some yoga. It won’t help if he’s skeptical. And if Gavin is anything, it’s skeptical.” Of everything—of everybody, Mavis thought. There had been that moment under the bougainvillea where she’d seemed to get through that coarse web of suspicion. It had vanished at Zelda’s.

“It wasn’t just his experience on the far side of the world that made him that way,” Briar said. “You do know about his mother.”

“Yes.” Mavis frowned. Gavin’s mother, Tiffany Howard, had made large upsetting waves whenever she visited Gavin as a child.

“Thank goodness he cut off communication with her,” Briar stated. “I’ll never forget him as a boy, caught between two worlds. I know she tried for the longest time to poison his opinion of us and Fairhope.”

“He was smarter than that,” Mavis said.

“Yes,” Briar said, a small smile making the lines in her brow retreat briefly. “Though I’m afraid when that didn’t work, she tried another tack. She made him think he was different—that he’d never have a place here. That try as he might, he’d never belong.”

“That’s horrible,” Mavis muttered.

“The strongest minds can yield to the basest ideas if they hear them enough. So we understand why he feels he’s never been able to stay, and all we can do is reinforce that he does belong. To all of us.”

All of us.

“If you think he’s in trouble,” Briar said, “or you see he’s about to run, will you...”

“I’ll call,” Mavis assured her. “But I think you’re right. He is strong. He doesn’t think he is.” She thought of the weakness peeking through the bandage he’d placed around his open wounds. She’d seen the strength behind it, flagging but real. “I don’t think he wants to be alone. Not completely.”

“Thank goodness for you, Mavis,” Briar said, ignoring boundaries and squeezing Mavis’s hand as they approached the deck of the Leightons’ brick house. “I feel better knowing you’re close to him.”

“Why exactly?” Mavis asked.

“Because he’s always respected you,” Briar revealed. “A friend can save a life.”

Mavis felt a frisson of awareness scaling her spine. She crossed her arms. Did Gavin need saving? Would he want her to be the one to save him?

Doubtful. Regardless, she couldn’t let Briar down. And just like at the inn, she wouldn’t let him drown on his own. Not without him taking her down with him, if necessary.

The door to the Leightons’ rear deck swung ajar wide enough to bash the handle against the wall behind it. A short blond head streaked through, bounding down the steps to the ground. “Mammy! Mavis!”

“Here comes trouble,” Mavis said, a fond smile tugging at her lips as Briar waved a cheerful greeting.

Briar crouched to wrap her granddaughter up like a present. “The world is right again,” she murmured. She chuckled low in her throat, hugged Bea tighter, then sat back on her heels to skim curls from the girl’s brow. She pressed a kiss to the center of her forehead. “Your grandfather showed up early with you, as promised. Good man. But did he bring watermelon?”

Bea nodded eagerly. “They were selling them on the side of the road. There were hundreds of them, big and dirty—like they’d just popped out of the ground. He let me pick two, but I wasn’t big enough to carry them...”

“Give it time,” Mavis said, amused. The precocious four-year-old was growing like a weed.

“...so Uncle Gavin carried them for me,” Bea concluded.

“What?” Mavis said, slack-jawed, while a surprised Briar said, “Gavin? He came?”

“Uh-huh,” Bea replied. “He might not see so good anymore, but he sure can carry a watermelon!”

The happy report of barking brought Mavis’s head up. Prometheus, who’d been gleefully chasing squirrels since arriving in the back of her Subaru, trampled a shrub of Indian hawthorn as he made a break for the raised deck.

Gavin was ready for him this time, folding to one knee and hooking one muscled arm over Prometheus’s collar. He rocked back from the torrent of kisses Prometheus rained over the surface of his face. “Back,” Gavin said, gentle. “Back.” Prometheus’s wriggling body went still as Gavin found the place behind his ear that made the canine groan. “Good boy,” Mavis heard him murmur. He ran a hand along Prometheus’s spine before glancing up.

The frown was never far from his face. It returned in force. Replacing the Oakley sunglasses he had wisely removed before receiving Prometheus’s attentions, he straightened, his feet braced apart on the decking. He didn’t say a word when Prometheus began to wind circles around them, bumping his head and body against the man’s knees in a motion that would’ve looked feline had it not been for the speedy whip motion of the dog’s tail.

Briar didn’t hesitate to approach Gavin. “You made it,” she greeted, taking his rigid form into her arms.

“I’m sweating.” Gavin’s hands lifted, lowered, then rose the rest of the way to hug Briar back. After a second, his head dipped so that his cheek touched her temple. He let her go, but not without a small rub over the slender line of her back. “I heard rumors about your potato salad and Gerald’s rum ribs.”

Briar patted his flat tummy. “You could use some of both, I think.”

“Thanks,” he said without seeming to take offense. He reached down and ran his fingers down Bea’s upturned face, pinching her nose lightly between his knuckles. “This one charmed me out of wrestling Harmony for shotgun.”

“He taught me how to make a spitball,” Bea revealed.

“Lord help us, Gavin,” Briar said, and sighed.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry about that.” His gaze relocated—to Mavis. “How’s it hangin’, Frexy?”

Mavis narrowed her eyes. “Frexy?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Since you hate Freckles so much. Thought I’d change it up.”

“Frexy?” she said again.

When he said nothing further, Briar pointed out, “We were just talking, Mavis and I, about Miss Zelda.”

Lines barred the sides of his mouth, his attention all over Mavis again and displeased. “And me.”

Rigid as he was, he still emitted a waver of suspicion around his full lips. “Well, yeah,” Mavis answered. She crossed her arms. “Your stepmother wanted to know if you can do a Fallen Angel yet.”

He hesitated, measuring her. “What’d you tell her?”

“That I can’t wait to see you try.”

His features didn’t ease much. Mavis knew him well enough, however, to see them smooth, even if the frown persisted. He shifted his feet beneath him. “Can you?”

“What?” she asked. Jesus. It’d been nearly a week. She’d forgotten how little effort it took for the center line of his focus to knock her off-kilter.

“Do a Fallen Angel,” he said.

She spread her hands. “Come to class and find out.”

A hint of a grin flirted with the edges of his mouth.

Her heart reeled. Son of a bitch, she thought. Uncomfortable, she snapped her spine straight. There was a crepe myrtle encroaching on the deck. The white blossom heads were heavy enough to bow to the ensuing heat. One tickled her elbow. Irritably, she pinched the crown of blossoms until she rent flowers loose between her fingers. She stared at them for a moment before handing them absently to Bea.

She and Briar made a motion to escape into the air-conditioned house. Mavis’s feet shuffled in an awkward ball change to follow. “I taught a beginner class a few months ago. I could teach you a few poses or help you build your own flow to manage tension, stress...even head and neck aches.”

“I don’t think stretching’s going to solve all my problems,” he said.

“Probably not,” she agreed. She let the door close after Bea and Briar, lingering with her hand on the knob. He pivoted slowly to face her, giving her a second to measure the solid slope of his shoulders and his T-shirt-clad back. Briar was right. He had lost weight. “But if you can’t punch your way through the bigger problems, you might as well start chiseling away at the small stuff. Otherwise, you’re just...standing still.”

He stared. It wasn’t like being bathed in sunlight. More, moonlight. Lots and lots of super moon–light. It was mystical in its intensity—as was Gavin’s effect on her.

When she realized neither of them had spoken in nearly two minutes, she opened the door. The sounds of family conversation lured her in. The door was solid paneling, heavy. She hid a grunt behind her teeth.

A large fist clamped over the top of hers, spreading the door wider from the jamb. He was there, close.

They’d been close before, but she couldn’t remember ever being this aware of him, his large, roughened hands, or his arms roped with muscle and dark hair. Under his white T-shirt she could see the outline of black tattoo work. Body ink was her weakness—the darker, more pronounced and exquisite, the better.

Dark, pronounced, exquisite—like him.

What are you doing? she wondered. She stopped from shaking her head. He didn’t move the frigging earth; he opened a door.

She wasn’t into chivalry. She quelled the urge to trace what she could see of the tattoo’s design through the thin cotton. When her fingertips—and other areas—grew hot at the idea of tugging down the collar of his shirt altogether, she moved over the threshold out of his way.

Harmony seized the moment by shouting across the room, “You two! We’ve got frozen lemonade over here. Stop letting the heat in!”

Mavis rolled her eyes at her friend for calling them out. “I’m surprised you came,” she muttered at Gavin.

“I haven’t had Gerald’s cooking in years,” he pointed out. “When he and Briar get going in the kitchen...it’s like religion. Also, I heard there’d be a show.”

“Oh.” He meant her and Zelda. Olivia and Gerald had called them to their orchard in hopes that their EMF meters might be able to help find a lost time capsule of Olivia’s grandparents. Decades ago, the orchard had belonged to them—Ward and the first Olivia. Rumors of activity at the grove had been rife among their circle for decades. Olivia claimed she could still hear her grandmother’s laughter tinkling on the wind in autumn months. Gerald told intriguing anecdotes about the scent of pipe smoke heavy in the evenings near Olivia’s grandfather’s old woodshop. Their second son, Finnian, could jaw for hours about supposed conversations he’d had with Ward. His brother, William, was more close-mouthed, falling quieter whenever the topic was broached.

Today Mavis and Zelda weren’t here to debunk the Leightons’ claims. They were on hand to aid in what was sure to be an exhaustive search. Mavis had come dressed for dirty work in a gray cropped T-shirt and a thin plaid work shirt unbuttoned over fitted workout capris and black-and-white high-tops. She came prepared with EMF readers and a shovel of her own. Olivia had called on Briar, her first cousin, and Cole. It was Gerald’s idea to prepare the family-style fiesta.

“I thought you weren’t interested in what Zelda and I do,” Mavis said as they joined the queue for plates.

“I’m not interested in joining the revelry,” Gavin claimed. “But I bet from a distance it’s fair entertainment.”

“That proves you’ve never seen EMFs operate,” she said. “Ever worked with a metal detector?”

“At least they find treasure,” he said, handing her a plate off the stack and motioning her ahead in line. “Or tinfoil.”

“Depending on the contents of Olivia and Ward’s time capsule,” Mavis replied, “we might be finding more than that today.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it, Frexy.”

* * *

THE BLADE CUT deep into the dirt. The smells of earth, clay and rain enriched the air as Gavin worked under the baking sun.

“Mind you don’t come up against any bones,” Olivia stated. “‘Round here’s ’bout where we buried Rex.”

Gavin’s shovel paused. Visions of a clumsy Irish wolfhound he’d chased through the inn gardens alongside Kyle hit him full force. Next to him, William Leighton’s shovel stilled, too. “Now you tell us?” he demanded of his mother.

“No worries, gents,” Gerald said, and grunted. He’d joined the digging. The polished vowels of his British upbringing rang clear. “Rex is entombed under that iris bed over there. Remember, love?” He addressed his wife. “To keep a fair distance from the roots.”

The roots. Right, Gavin thought. They’d come up against a rough dozen as they dug around the tree closest to the brick house. It was an ancient specter. On the few occasions he’d visited Olivia and Gerald and their boys at the pecan orchard in the past, it had been an impressive sight. He recalled thick gnarled limbs weighted by healthy green foliage, perfect for climbing. It had had a rope swing tied in its boughs and the initials of Olivia’s grandparents carved into the trunk.

It was difficult to reconcile memories with what remained. According to Gerald, the tree had taken a direct hit from a lightning strike. Now it was as black as night. Not a speck of green decked its stark skeleton. Most of the branches had fallen or been removed for safety. From the house, its bare silhouette looked like a dancer stuck in a painful arabesque.

But the damned roots remained. Gavin’s arms sang as the shovel blade sliced into another thick offender. He lifted the shovel with both hands, bringing it down in decisive strokes to break it up. The tree was dead. How was it that so many of its roots remained lodged in the earth—as if time or disaster had never taken place?

He stopped to sweep his forearm across his brow. Sweat had built there. It soaked through his clothes. He thought of removing his shirt.

“They should take a break,” he heard Briar say. “The heat. It’s getting worse.”

“They can hear you,” William called to her. Humor lilted from his voice.

“Yeah,” Cole piped up from Gerald’s other side. “They’d like a beer, maybe.”

William and Gerald made affirmative noises. Gavin kept slicing the blade through unbroken ground, tuning in to the song of metal and clay. His blood, too, was singing. He ached with effort. The release was sweet.

His head had screamed all morning, since 3:30 a.m. when dreams had tripped him awake. With a meal in his belly, however, and the lull of early afternoon on the orchard, plus the added work...the feeling of industry...he could almost convince himself he was enjoying all of it.

And there was Mavis. It had all started with her, the shovel in her hands. The EMF meters had found anomalies, suggesting activity of some kind. Gavin had heard her struggling with the blade near the woodshed, then the front porch of the house, and finally closer to the irises. When she’d stopped to drink the glass of lemonade Briar brought her, Gavin had yanked the shovel and picked up where she left off. William and Cole had followed his lead. Soon there was a trench around the dead tree beside the irises.

“We close, Frexy?” he called out to her without looking. He felt her watchful eyes.

“It doesn’t work like sonar. There could be something here. There could be nothing.”

“It’s a hotbed, for sure,” Zelda said.

“If it’s buried here, it shouldn’t be but a few feet down,” Mavis said.

“They wouldn’t have buried it deeper,” Olivia said.

A hand found Gavin’s shoulder. He looked around to find his father as flushed as a red pepper. “Dad,” Gavin said, alarmed. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Cole grunted. He leaned into Gavin.

Gavin cupped an arm around his shoulders. Like the others, Cole had sweated through his T-shirt. His breathing was a touch more labored. “Sure?” Gavin asked.

Head low, Cole nodded. “The heat. Can’t take it like I used to, I guess.”

Gavin had already lifted a hand to his stepmother.

Briar linked an arm around Cole’s waist. With the other, she took a firm grip on Cole’s shovel. “Let’s go back to the house for a breather.” Steering her reluctant husband in that direction, she reached back to pass the shovel off to Gavin. “Don’t any of the rest of you let it get to be too much.”

Gavin watched the line of his father’s back retreat until it wavered and became shaded. Damn.

The weight of the second shovel lifted. Mavis tugged at the handle. “Go with them. I’ll pick it up.”

“I can’t let you dig,” Gavin said. “Not after that.”

She tugged again until his hold loosened. “Move aside.”

He watched as she shed her overshirt, the plaid number. She tied it around her waist, then hoisted the shovel. He moved to the right until her blade split fresh topsoil he already knew to be soft. And he watched her, her hair slicing backward just like the dull edge of the long-handled tool. The pale curve of her cheek. The lines of her. She was small with, he suspected, curves that she drowned subtly with her wardrobe of ceaseless black.

There was muscle there, too, he found. Will and might. He considered changing her nickname again, this time to Mighty Mouse. She dug without slowing or even a grunt of effort. She culled clay from its earth bed. He nodded approval, then began working beside her, letting their actions fall into rhythm.

He’d knowingly overlooked her for most of her life. Who knew Kyle’s sister would wind up an endless source of fascination?

The end of his blade met something solid as he sank it decisively into the loose ground. The impact sang up his arms and filled the air with a satisfying thunk. “Aha,” he heard Zelda utter.

Mavis dropped her shovel and knelt as he raised his blade. She didn’t hesitate to sink her hands into the red-tinged dirt, combing it up the sides of the hole.

Gavin took a knee beside her. He took over, leaving her to tug aside loose black roots moist from internment. The smell of earth was darker, richer. Gavin could practically taste it. It coated them both to the elbows as inches gave way to the flat face of a handmade box.

They worked together to loosen the ground hugging it close on either side. Finally, with one hand over and another under, Mavis hefted the box from its resting place. Gingerly, she placed it on the ground as Olivia and Gerald flanked her.

The flat of Olivia’s palm dusted the lid. Gavin leaned in until he could make out the carving of a rose. Until he could inhale Mavis’s mango scent and realized how close he was to brushing his lips across the point of her shoulder.

Gerald found a screwdriver to loosen the lid. As he pried the old screws from their corners, nobody moved.

“It should be you,” Gerald said as he looked to his wife. “Go on, love. Let’s see what Ward and his Olivia found worth saving.”

“Not me,” Olivia said. She beckoned William closer. “Come ’ere, Shooks.”

William obeyed, hesitant. “Mom. You’ve waited...”

“You never knew them,” she told him, scooting so that William could wedge his way between her and Gerald and take a knee. “I should wait for Finny, but God knows he didn’t give me a single patient bone in my body.” Placing a hand on William’s arm, she lowered her voice and said, “Go ahead.”

William paused only briefly before appeasing his parents’ ill-contained curiosity. He pried the lid free. Mavis, who had shifted over with the others, was practically beneath Gavin. He felt the excitement all but zipping from the top of her head even if it wasn’t her gasp that rent the air. “Letters,” she said.

“What’s the date on the postmark?” Olivia asked as Gerald lifted a ragged envelope to the light. “Is the stamp still legible?”

“It is.” A wondering laugh shook Gerald’s shoulders. “July 18, 1953.”

“Six months before they were married,” Olivia calculated. She handled the envelope with care. “From her to him.”

“It’s not the only one,” William said as he riffled through the collection. “The bundles tied with the ribbons are the ones she wrote, from the looks of it.”

“You can tell by the writing,” Olivia noted. “I’d forgotten how precise her penmanship was...”

“And the ones tied with the leather straps are his,” William finished. “Look, Dad. We found someone wordier than you. But I don’t get it.”

“What don’t you get?” Olivia asked absently as she thumbed through a stack.

“They both grew up here, or close by,” William said. “Didn’t they?”

“He was from Fairhope,” Olivia said. “She lived more toward Malbis.”

“They had cars in the fifties,” William expounded. “Why so many letters? It’s not like they lived on opposite corners of the globe. Even if they did, there were phone lines, telegraphs...”

“People used to communicate differently,” Zelda explained.

Olivia carefully unfolded a page of a letter. She sounded far off, near dreamy, when she added, “And when you love someone that much, there’s nothing like writing it down on paper.”

“It’s recorded,” Mavis concluded. “This way they could relive the feeling and pass it on.”

Gavin frowned at the side of her head. “Since when’re you a romantic?”

She glanced up. Her eyes went round when her nose nearly touched his. The gap widened as she edged back, but he saw her dark gaze race across his face in quick perusal. His mouth went dry. “I’m not,” she claimed and looked away.

“Mmm-hmm,” he said, unconvinced.

Underneath the point of his chin, Mavis’s shoulder hiked in a shrug. “It’s history, right? I like history. Especially the kind I can hold in my hands.”

Like those giant genealogical tomes back at Zelda’s.

A smile crammed, foreign, in the ball of his jaw joint. It felt out of place, but it hung there, like a lazy, back-sliding moon in its crescent. He was aware of it, just as he was aware of Mavis and aware of all the places inside him that didn’t feel dark when she coaxed it out of him.

He should move away. It was too hot to be this close. The contents of the box were too intimate. Ward and the first Olivia’s messages weren’t for him.

But Mavis smelled like earth and life and threw all the shady parts of him into stark contrast when he breathed in and filled up with her scent.

The heel of his shoe caught the lip of a hole and he nearly tripped into it. Stumbling only slightly as he straightened, he looked down to keep from twisting his ankle in any of the rest of them.

They were spread out under the dead eaves of the tree, the grass-covered glade broken up by ruts and dirt tossed haphazardly. A minefield.

No. He blinked. The battlefield couldn’t intrude here.

But he had intruded, and the battlefield was always with him. Damned if he’d ever be rid of it, anymore than the stench of the loner—the outsider.

His mind began to grind into the sick death spiral of anxiety. He braced his palm against his brow. It was covered in clay. Red clay. Even the cloying scent couldn’t stop the visceral flash-bang of memory.

“He’s down! Benji’s down!” he all but wailed into his comms over the sound of cover fire. “Bring the Bradley! Bring that bitch around!”

“It’s four minutes out,” Pettelier said.

Benji was bleeding out against the underside of Gavin’s palm. “Get inside my pack. Get me the gauze.”

Benji struggled to talk through a taut grimace. Gavin couldn’t hear him over the sound of M60s going haywire. He leaned down.

“...in the gut.”

Gavin shook his head automatically. “Nah. The ribs. We’ll stop the bleed. You’ll be a’right.”

“No bullshit,” Benji muttered. “Don’t...b-bullshit me.”

Gavin knew where the bullet had gone through. He knew what gutshot meant as much as the next soldier in line out here in no-man’s-land. And he denied it. “Bradley’s comin’. Gonna be fine.”

Benji coughed.

Don’t do that, Gavin shouted from the walls of his head. “Pete! Where’s the fucking gauze, man?”

“Got it right here,” Pettelier grunted.

Another team guy shouted from behind, “We’re covered up!”

From comms, he heard, “Bradley, five minutes out!”

“Slow son of a...” Gavin pressed his teeth together. They stayed clenched. If they weren’t clenched, damn it, they’d be chattering. He moved his hand to plug the wound.

Blood rushed at him. Benji shuddered. Spasmed.

Gavin pressed his hand against the flow. He wasn’t a goddamn surgeon. He needed a surgeon!

“Harm.”

The name had Gavin riveted to Benji’s pained expression. The light hung there, but it was hard and forced and it caught Gavin like the last blind scream of sunlight off the bay at the end of a winter’s day.

Gavin shook his head. “Shut up, you’re fine.”

“I got somethin’ to say.”

I’m not a surgeon! “We’re not doin’ this!” Gavin said out loud.

The ground shook, the world coming apart with noise. Gavin threw himself on Benji as dust and mortar fell.

“The hell...we’re not,” Benji said. And he coughed again.

“I’m gonna save you,” Gavin persisted. He ground it from the marrow. “I’ll get you to a surgeon. This ain’t but a flea bite on a dog’s ass and you’re going home, you son of a bitch.”

The faint flicker of humor eclipsed pain momentarily. Benji’s mouth fumbled. “A s-s-sheepdog’s ass.”

“Right.” And thinking of his sister, Benji’s wife, thinking of Kyle and his father, Cole, the inn and the bay and everything about life there that was growing harder and harder to retrace in his mind, Gavin placed his hand over Benji’s brow and stroked. “You’re damn right, brother.”

The rest came at him in a rush. The squad hadn’t been able to hold their ground. The Bradley was eight blocks away. Running retreat was all they had. Benji had gone out on Gavin’s shoulder.

He died in the stupid Bradley, less than halfway back to base where even the surgeons couldn’t do a damn thing for him. He’d wanted Gavin to tell her—Harmony. Benji had wanted it to be him.

Gavin had failed there just the same. He hadn’t made it back stateside before Kyle had raced off to Wisconsin where Harmony was flying aerobatics to deliver the news.

She and Benji had been married less than a year. She had only just found out she was pregnant with Bea.

And Gavin hadn’t been there. Because even if he had made it back to the States before Kyle had gotten to her...he wasn’t sure he could’ve told her he was the one who couldn’t save Benji.

It was the anger that came swinging through the flashback, crashing through it like a ram. Gavin grabbed it by the horns, rode it bucking and thrashing—

A hand closed around his elbow. He threw it off to dislodge the hold, poised for attack.

Mavis’s features struck him, freckles dark, eyes round.

He let the fight go out of him when the shock painted her. He stepped away, seeing the others casting looks in their direction.

She shook her head and spoke first. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” He shot it off like a curse. He forced his feet into backward motion, winding away from her and the rest.

“Are you okay?” She reached out.

“Fine,” he said, still verbally swinging. She needed to go. He needed to get away from her before she found out how cold and vast the dark side of the moon really was. He moved in the direction of the house...or what he hoped was the right direction.

She came after him. “Gavin...”

He pointed at her. “Stay. I mean it,” he added in resignation before lengthening his stride.

CHAPTER FIVE

“WHERE IS HE?” Mavis asked. She’d changed from the work wardrobe she’d dirtied up into black jeggings and a tank. After checking on Cole and Briar to see that Gavin’s father had recovered from the heat, she’d hunted Gavin through Olivia and Gerald’s homey abode.

Harmony came down the stairs. “He’s taking a shower.”

Mavis could tell by her expression that she’d seen him. “How is he?”

“I don’t know.” Harmony shrugged. “He won’t talk. Not that he ever has about how he’s feeling.”

Because it’s weakness, Mavis knew. Gavin didn’t accept weakness. Most men like him, soldiers, didn’t. “Where is he, exactly?”

“Liv told him to use William’s room,” Harmony said. She grabbed the stair rail to stop Mavis from climbing up. “Whoa. Where’re you going?”

She’d promised not to let him drown alone. “I’m going up.”

“Mavis.” Harmony grabbed her hand to stop her from passing. “I’m not sure you should. Not right now.”

“Look,” Mavis said shortly, “you’re trying. Cole’s trying, Briar’s trying. No approach seems to be working. The other day at the inn, he was having flashbacks and...and I helped him.”

Harmony’s wide-arched brows lifted. “How?”

Mavis forced an exhale. She couldn’t tell her friend everything that had happened with her brother in the bougainvillea. And not because she didn’t know why, precisely, Gavin had responded to her touch. She couldn’t tell Harmony because of what Mavis had felt the moment she’d sensed Gavin’s walls trembling...when she’d thought maybe she had done the impossible. “All I really know is that for a few moments he felt safe enough with me—he trusted me—to help him out of it, and it worked, if only temporarily.”

Harmony searched Mavis’s face. She stepped aside. “I can’t stand to see him like this. I’m scared of what’s on this path if he keeps going down it alone. Do what you can for him.”

“Okay.” Mavis climbed the rest of the stairs. Glancing back briefly, she said, “Thank you.” For trusting me, too, she added, silently.

When Harmony nodded in answer, Mavis moved from the landing. The Leighton house was laid out with rooms tightly knit. An ideal nest that kept its inhabitants close. The master suite was on one side of the hall and William’s and Finnian’s rooms were on the other, connected by a Jack-and-Jill bathroom. Mavis had been there once. She’d gone from one boy’s room through the bathroom to the other so she could climb out the back window and escape without Olivia and Gerald’s notice.

It felt odd choosing the first door on the left. She’d dated William in secret so their families wouldn’t find out and make noise about the two making things more permanent. It was strange seeking another man through the same door, intruding on the space of her ex.

Gavin’s shirt she found hung at the foot of the full bed, and his shoes near the bathroom door. She heard the shower running.

She bypassed the shirt, stepped over the shoes and came to the door. Raising her fist, she quelled hesitation and rapped her knuckles against it.

She heard a curse. The door was snatched from the jamb. Gavin filled the space of the frame.

Mavis blinked. He was a mountain. Like Prometheus, he was a fricking beast. Toned. Muscled out—definition on top of definition.

There were ribs, however. Enough of a hint that on anyone else might’ve looked ordinary. On him, they smacked of self-neglect. His rib cage as a whole should’ve been lost to the ripple of abs and the scintillating muscles that honed his waistline to perfection. Behind the eyes, she saw truth. There, he looked gaunt. As if the sharp bones of his honest self peered through the coat of naked flesh.

She caught the moment...the very brief moment that his honest self reached for her. She nearly reached back.

Then he blinked. Resignation resumed. Annoyance followed. “What do you want?” he asked.

“No questions.” Placing her hand on the deep-inked, red-eyed wolf as black and forbidding as the storm he held inside him, she moved him back into the bathroom, stepping in, too, until she could shut them both in.

His expression turned puzzled as she shut off the tap in the shower stall. “What’re you up to now?”

“This is me pouring water over the fire,” she told him.

He stared. Shook his head. “No. No, this is you dressing up as a can of lighter fluid and throwing yourself at it.”

“Give me your thumb,” she said, extending her hand.

He held it back. “I’m fine.”

“You let me in the other day,” she reminded him. “Why?”

“I thought we weren’t asking questions.”

“Gavin. Why?”

“Maybe I was desperate.”

“Maybe you do need someone.”

“This is hell. I’m not dragging you into it.”

“I do what I want. And what I want is to help you. So stop being a man—a big stubborn man—and let me help you!”

The staring didn’t cease. She wondered how much he could see in the closeness of the whitewashed room, under the single bright vanity bulb. Not her pulse tripping against her throat. Not the frisson of nerves in her wrists and knees. Hopefully not the desperation pressed between her lips.

He brought his hand up to meet hers.

She fought a tumultuous sigh. There was dirt on his fingertips still. There was dirt on hers, too, despite several scrubbings in the powder room downstairs. It was caked red under both their nails. The scent of it, of their work together, came between them. She hoped he found it as grounding as she did. Gripping him lightly, she extended his thumb toward her. She moved her shoulders back, trying to grind the edginess out of her joints. She started to press her thumb and forefinger against the web between his. Then she stopped and bent her head, releasing a long breath that streamed cool over his thumb.

The shower steam, fine and damp, was suspended around them. Silence closed them in. She saw his lungs expand against his ribs and noticed his pulse trip against the base of his throat. His breath moved over the center part of her hair, at the apex of her brow.

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