Into the Fading Twilight (Starlight Grove, #2) (34)

I gave a chin lift of assent. “Yeah. She needs her own space.”

“Under your roof?” Wylder challenged.

I couldn’t help but bristle at Wy’s words. It was as if he was saying I was doing something wrong. “You have a problem with that?”

“I don’t, but Orion might.”

My back molars ground together. Our middle brother didn’t want anyone but family on ranch land. It had taken him repeated dinners and Brae besting him in a hot-sauce-eating competition to get him to soften toward her. But he’d avoided Nova altogether. Every time she came for dinner, he ditched.

Maverick grinned and held up his phone. “Don’t worry. I already texted him.”

“You’re a goddamned shit-stirrer,” I growled.

Mav just shrugged. “Chill. You know you’ll need to have it out with him eventually, and at least this will get him out of his hovel.”

Orion’s house was hardly a hovel. It was huge—which was ridiculous for a man who didn’t let any of us inside. But since the incident with our father, Orion didn’t like to feel fenced in.

“I needed some time to prepare,” I shot back.

“Nothing’s going to prepare you for Rion’s wrath on this one,” Wylder said. “You know that.”

He had a point.

I heard an engine in the distance and knew it had to be our brother. Another handful of seconds passed, then a door slammed. I winced at the fury behind the sound. And it was only punctuated by heavy bootsteps on the stairs.

Orion filled the doorway. He had a good inch or two on the rest of us, his shoulders wider and his whole frame slightly more menacing. And the dark-hazel glare he cut my way told me he was not pleased with me.

He brought his pointer and middle fingers together with his thumb in a harsh movement. I knew the sign was ASL for no. And, of course, that was all Orion would say.

When he stopped talking after killing our father, it had been a slow retreat. At first, he would write, and then he learned to sign. But over time, he slowly communicated less and less. And when he did, he kept it as brief as possible.

I signed as I talked, a habit I’d picked up so Orion never felt like the outsider. “You don’t get to just say no.”

“No.” Orion made the sign again.

“This isn’t an autocracy,” I shot back.

Orion’s hands moved faster as he continued. “I’m not having a stranger on this property. No one lives here but family.”

“She’s not a stranger,” I argued. But that wouldn’t win Orion over. Because we all knew the truth: anyone could turn on you. So, in Orion’s mind, the fewer people he let in, the better.

I tried a different tack as he glared at me. “She needs this.” There was an almost pleading tone to my voice. “She said she can’t breathe. She needs a safe place where she can start to stretch her wings a little more. She’s not ready for an apartment in town. There are too many potential triggers.”

Dex bristled beside me. Not in a way that said he was shocked, but that he was worried. Still, he didn’t say a word.

A hint of indecision played out across Orion’s expression, but he just shook his head. “I’m sorry. No.”

“She told me she’s scared.” Guilt pricked at me for sharing something Nova had told me in confidence. But I needed him to see. To understand.

Orion scrubbed a hand over his face, but he wasn’t saying anything now.

“Please, Rion. She needs this. And I think I do, too. I need to know she’s safe and healing. What I saw when I found her … it still haunts me.”

He stilled, his eyes locking with mine. “She stays two hundred yards away from my house at all times.”

“She can do that.”

Orion jerked his head in a nod. “Fine.”

Relief swept through me. “Thank you.” I winced, glancing around the room. “Can you keep this under wraps? You can share that Nova’s living on the ranch but not over my garage. It’s a gray area with me working the case.”

Gray area was stretching it. If she found out, Sherri would reassign my ass so fast, my head would spin. And that was if she didn’t suspend me.

Mav gaped at me. “When do you ever dabble in the gray?”

I met his stare head-on. “When it means doing the right thing.”

“Fair point,” he mumbled.

My gaze shifted to Dex. “Hold off on telling Brae. Nova wants to be the one to talk to her.”

He studied me for a long moment. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Hell. I hoped I did, too.





CHAPTER TWELVE


Nova




THE WIND SWIRLED AROUND ME WITH A LITTLE MORE BITE than it normally had, and I was glad I’d worn a sweatshirt. But damn, it was beautiful here—the kind of beauty that reminded you of all the life you had left to live.

The sun made the dark green of the forest glow in a way that reminded me of Kol’s eyes, all that green and gold. As I stood at the top of a steep drop-off, my fingers tightened around the handlebars. I watched two mountain bikers navigating a course that looked like a roller coaster through the wild woods. The one in a bright-orange shirt hit some sort of mound and went flying.

I wanted that. I needed it.