Across the Vanishing Sky (Starlight Grove, #1)(53)

Waylon cleared his throat. “We can help without letting her know about the side project.”

The side project being the Hourglass Network: our volunteer missing persons assistance. The website no one knew was attached to us. The network we’d put together in the shadows because time was slipping through fingers for so many.

“Doesn’t matter,” Kol gritted out. “It still gets us on Miller’s radar. We need that like a hole in the head. He’s made life hard enough for us just because of who our father was.”

Orion bristled at the word father, his fingers fisting so tightly I worried he’d dislocate a knuckle. The muscles in his forearms rippled as tension radiated through him in waves.

Miller had made his opinion of the Archer brothers crystal-clear a number of times, but it was the touchiest for Kol. When he applied to be a Forest Service investigator, Miller had made sure his superiors knew every twisted detail about what we’d come from. Thankfully, Kol’s bosses hadn’t been supreme assholes and still gave him the job. But it exposed Kol in a way he hated.

“She doesn’t have anyone,” I said quietly. “Imagine if we didn’t have each other to get through what we have.”

Sympathy swept across Wylder’s face, and he gripped his root beer tighter.

“Her parents kicked her out when she wouldn’t put her baby up for adoption. The kid’s dad isn’t in the picture. Nova was the only person who was there for her, and then she disappeared almost in front of Brae’s eyes. That should turn someone dark. Make them look at every single person with suspicion.”

“But it didn’t,” Mav surmised. “I could see that much. She’s like sunshine.”

No, it was more than that. She wasn’t just the sun. She was the sunrise. Even though darkness had claimed her for a time, she still rose. Every damn day.

My fingers flexed and clenched. “She does everything humanly possible to give her son an amazing life. She trained a dog to help search for lost people. She uprooted her whole life to look for her missing friend. She’s fighting with everything she’s got but doing it alone. I’m not going to let her.”

“Me either,” Wylder said quietly. “I get why you don’t want to be involved, Kol. But I don’t have the same risks as you.”

A muscle fluttered in Kol’s cheek. “I’m all Skylar has.”

I knew he felt that weight like a hundred-ton stone on his shoulders. He had no room for missteps or fuckups. He felt like he was already failing as a father and didn’t have room for any other mistakes. It was a toxic mix of him blaming himself for not being there when everything went down with our dad and the bullshit Sky’s mom had filled his head with.

His fingers gripped the edge of the table. “But Brae shouldn’t have to do this alone. No one should.”

Everyone was quiet for a long moment, but I could feel Orion stewing from across the table, his anger and annoyance mounting. I did my best to ignore it. Instead, I focused on the concession from Kol. It was as much of a win as I figured we’d get from him.

“We keep it aboveboard,” Wylder said.

“You mean we keep him on the boring shit,” Mav cut in.

I jabbed him with an elbow. “If there are risks on this one, I’ll take them. I’m the one who brought her in. I carry the liabilities.”

Because there were always risks. My less-than-legal walks through firewalls and security software to start. But there was more on the rare occasion we were on the scene. Potential trespassing, breaking and entering, theft. All of them were sometimes necessary to figure out what had happened to someone who’d vanished.

Orion shoved back his chair and stood, glowering at me. His hands lifted in quick, staccato beats. “I hope you aren’t putting your entire family at risk because you want to fuck her.”

And with that, he stormed out, the screen door slamming in his wake.

My fingers fisted, and I was glad my brother had left. Because if he hadn’t, I likely would’ve decked him.

Waylon cleared his throat. “I want to meet her. Bring her for dinner. Think she likes three-pepper chili?”

Jesus.

I hoped Brae was as strong as I thought because she’d need it to get through a dinner with my family.





22





BRAEDYN





“Please, nectar of the gods, be kind to me today,” I whispered as I bent, leaning my head against my coffee maker and breathing deeply.

Early-morning sun cascaded through the glass back doors. Hopefully, that would help, too. Because tossing and turning the entire night certainly hadn’t.

As the coffee machine began to hum, I straightened. My back ached from the various uncomfortable positions I’d tried last night, and my palms and knees were still sore from the glass shards. If Nova were here, she’d try to talk me into one of her pretzel stretches and maybe a little meditation.

But she wasn’t here.

I swiped my phone off the counter and opened my one and only social media app. I’d been slacking on posting since the move, but when I hadn’t been able to sleep last night, I’d finally uploaded a new shot.

This one was Yeti running through a field with wildflowers springing up around her and Mount Lupine in the distance. My caption read, Sometimes playtime is just as important as training time.