Chapter 14

“How about a Great Pyrenees?” Dee asked on the tailside of a yawn, wiggling down on the bed. It was too warm for covers, even with the window open, so they were bunched at the bottom of the mattress. “My book said they’re excellent family dogs. They guard sheep when they’re…well, in the mountains, I suppose. We’d be like their sheep. They’d protect us.”

Jules wished something as simple as getting a dog could keep their family safe. “Did your book happen to mention how big they get?”

Dropping her eyes to the side, Dee gave an unconvincing shrug. “The girls don’t get more than, like, eighty pounds or…” Her voice dropped to a mumble.

“What was that?” Jules cupped her ear, leaning closer. “Eh? I didn’t quite catch that last part about how they get to be super-dooper enormously huge and would take up all the room in our big new SUV, even where the driver is supposed to go.” She poked a teasing finger into her sister’s ribs, exactly where she knew Dee was the most ticklish.

Starting to giggle, she twisted away from Jules. “We’d just have to teach her to drive.”

“Or you could find a smaller breed to obsess over,” Jules suggested. “Keep reading that dog book.”

“Okay.” Dee yawned again.

“Love you to bits, Dee.”

“Love you, too.”

“Good night.”

“’Night, Jules.”

Although she’d been sitting on the side of her sister’s bed for the past twenty minutes, Jules was reluctant to leave. It had been almost impossible to let the kids finish their first full day at school and not run in and drag them all out of class—kind of like when she’d kidnapped them, she realized. Even if the mention of homeschooling had been a joke, it was enormously tempting after the shooting.

Dee, who had closed her eyes, peeked at Jules before quickly snapping her eyes closed again. With a snort, Jules stood. “Don’t stay up too late reading.”

Keeping her eyes shut, Dee gave a tiny, guilty smile. “I won’t.”

Jules knocked on the odd, small elf door before ducking into Tio’s room. As she’d expected, it was empty. Crossing the room, she stepped into the open closet, pushed a few shirts aside, their hangers scraping against the rod, and knocked again, this time on the side of the opening they’d created.

Ty, lounging on the bed, and Tio, sitting in the hard-back chair—which, along with the adjacent desk, had been another thrift-store find—glanced over at her as she entered. Their weighted silence hung in the air, and she soundlessly sighed as she took a seat on the foot of Ty’s bed. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.” Their synchronized answer just made her more suspicious.

“Is it something that will endanger your health, lives, and/or safety?” she asked and received two negative head shakes in return. “Okay. Just try not to damage anything—or anyone. How was school?”

“Fine.” The chorus had returned.

Crossing her arms, she settled herself a little more firmly on the bed. “I can stay here all night.”

Ty was the first to crack. “School was school. My English teacher is a thousand years old, but Mrs. Lee—she’s my math teacher—is kind of hot. I like getting to repeat stuff from last year. Sometimes, I actually get what’s going on. I’m thinking about trying wrestling instead of football.”

Blinking, Jules absorbed that flood of information. “Wrestling? Okay. You know, you can do both, if you want. Wrestling won’t start until January, right? We’ll figure out a way to pay the fees.”

“Yeah.” The boys shared a private look, and Jules wondered what kind of plotting they were up to. “With everything being all new here and stuff, I’m going to skip football.”

“That’s probably smart.” She turned to Tio. “Your turn, T. Hot math teacher? Old English teacher? Changes in extracurriculars? Share.”

“There’s a science club.” His hushed tone was almost reverent.

“That’s great, T.” A spark of pleasure lit in her chest. She’d dragged them away from privileged lives and dropped them into a small Colorado town. Except for the shooting—which was, granted, a fairly big “except for”—things had been going pretty well for them so far. There was potential for contentment. “How’s the teacher?”

“He’ll be good, I think. Although”—his mouth twisted a bit—“he’s also the wrestling coach.” He ducked as a balled-up sock flew at his head.

“Hey!” Ty complained, lobbing a second missile at his brother. “Just because someone’s athletic doesn’t mean he’s a dumbass.”

“Ty’s right,” Jules said, and then sent him a quelling look. “Although he could’ve picked a better way to express it. Keep an open mind, T, and I bet you’ll be happily surprised by your teacher.”

“And if he does suck,” Ty added, “we’ll have the entire wrestling season to get revenge.”

With a groan, Jules stood. It was too late to start a revenge-is-wrong discussion, especially since she felt like she’d been beaten by a very large, very heavy stick. She’d resume her attempt to drill morals into her brothers tomorrow. “No revenge,” she simply said, and that would have to do for the moment. “Don’t stay up too late.”

“We won’t.” The chorus was back again.

Leaning down, she kissed Ty’s forehead before he could wiggle away, and then walked over to give Tio a side hug. “So, you think you can be happy here?”

T’s return hug was quick but unbearably sweet, although it was Ty who answered. “We are happy here, JuJu.”

That warmed her heart as she headed for Sam’s room. Even though he would’ve heard the squeaks and thumps and occasional muttered curses as she climbed the narrow stairs, Jules knocked and waited for Sam’s invitation before she entered his room. Like Tio, he was sitting at his desk, although he didn’t look nearly as happy as T to be doing his homework.

“Hey, Sam-I-Am,” she said, crossing to flop down in the armchair next to him. “Oh, it’s so much cooler in here than it was. That fan is miraculous.”

“Yeah.” He glanced toward the window fan that had cost her skinned knuckles and two hours of frustration. “Th-thanks for th-that. It’s easier to sleep n-now.”

“Probably kills some of the noise from the twins below, too.”

Although he gave a half smile, he said, “I c-c-can’t hear m-much up here.”

“I’m jealous.” Jules studied him carefully. He was so guarded, it was hard to guess what he was thinking or feeling. “How was school?”

“Ok-kay.”

“Okay good or okay bad but you don’t want to worry me?”

That brought another crooked smile. “J-just ok-kay ok-k-kay.”

“Well, okay then.” She grinned back at him. “The other three seem to be adjusting well, although the Ts are up to something.”

“Wh-when are they n-n-not?”

“Good point.” Jules brought her feet up so she could sit cross-legged. “Are you going to be bored repeating sophomore year again?”

“N-no. The cl-cl-cl-cl…” He let out a frustrated breath. “Ev-veryth-thing’s d-different. And I g-get t-t-to learn t-to d-drive.”

“Makes up for a lot, doesn’t it?” Although she said it lightly, Sam gave her a direct look, his expression serious—even more so than usual.

“You d-don’t n-need to m-make up for anyth-thing, J-Ju.”

“I feel like I do,” she admitted. “I mean, I took y’all away from so much.”

He snorted. “Yeah. So m-m-much sh-shit.”

“Sam!” she protested, although she laughed. He just shrugged unapologetically.

They settled into a quiet moment, until Jules broke the silence.

“You’ll tell me if things are not okay, right? So we can figure out how to fix whatever’s wrong?”

Sam studied her for a moment before answering.

“Yeah, J-JuJu. I pr-promise.”

* * *

A few hours later, Jules started awake, her body jerking into instant awareness. She lay unmoving, trying to quiet her breathing so she could hear what had woken her. Everything was silent. Even the usual groans and squeaks of an elderly house were absent. Somehow, the absolute stillness was more unnerving than any sort of suspicious noise would be.

After a long minute of fruitless listening as her muscles grew tighter with each passing second, she slid out of bed and turned on her lamp. The bedside clock, an old-fashioned thrift-store find Jules had loved from the moment she’d spotted it, showed it was almost twelve thirty. Closing her eyes with a sigh, she accepted that waking up in three and a half hours was going to be rough.

She couldn’t sleep now, though, not while this unnatural silence was eating at her nerves. Opening her eyes again, she grabbed her cell phone and slipped into the hall, trying to keep her bare footsteps quiet. With each press of her weight, the ancient floorboards whined and complained with small cracks and squeaks. Tiptoeing up to each room, she peeked inside, comforted by the Ty-, Tio-, and Dee-shaped lumps on each bed.

Glancing at the door to Sam’s third-floor room, Jules decided against checking on him. The stairs were noisy enough to wake him if she attempted it, and she didn’t want to disturb his sleep just because she was having a paranoid moment.

Instead, she checked the other second-floor rooms. The nearly full moon streamed into the uncovered windows, making the light spaces brighter but the shadows deeper. Even her almost-silent footsteps seemed to echo in the empty rooms, and Jules kept having to stop to listen, unsure if she’d made a sound or if it came from somewhere else.

By the time she crept down the stairs to the first level, her heart was racing and her breathing came fast.

“Stop it,” she hissed at herself, and then jumped at the loudness of her whisper. The absurdity of that made her laugh quietly, and her heart slowed slightly. Now that the risk of waking her siblings was lessened, she forced herself to walk briskly through the hall to the living room, rather than tiptoe in like a jumpy mouse.

Moonlight slanted through the windows, breaking the room into geometric shapes of light and darkness. Familiar objects—the couch, Dee’s open backpack, a book on the coffee table—looked foreign in the strange illumination. Drawing herself up, Jules made her feet step into the room, and she checked each shadow, each dark corner, until she was satisfied no boogeymen were hiding in there.

In each first-level room, she did the same, until she ended up in the kitchen. When she glanced at the door to the basement, her stomach dropped to her feet. There was no way she was going down to the cellar-like, dirt-floored, lit-by-a-single-bare-bulb, creepy-as-heck basement in the middle of the night. Jules didn’t care if there were multiple serial killers taking refuge in the subterranean space; that was how people got their dumb selves killed in horror movies.

With a shudder, Jules turned away from the basement door. Through the window above the sink, a dart of movement caught her eye. Startled, she stepped back, but then caught herself. A few weeks ago, she might have been able to avoid checking it out, to run back to bed and hide under the covers. Now, though, she was responsible for four other people, younger people, vulnerable people. If something—or someone—was outside, she needed to know so she could decide what to do.

Her phone slid in her damp grip, and she switched it to her other hand. Dialing 9-1-1, she kept her thumb next to the send button and took a hesitant step toward the window, and then another. When she finally was close enough to see outside, she leaned in, watching for another movement.

The evergreens and aspens danced in the wind, their branches lifting and swaying and making Jules wonder if that was the motion she’d noticed. It didn’t seem right, so she kept watching, her gaze scanning over the forest and the listing structure of their barn.

She’d thought the moonlit living room was creepy, but their backyard was ten times as scary. There were so many dark spaces where someone could be hiding, so many flashes of movement that Jules was almost—almost—positive were the wind in the trees. It was hard to see much from the window, though, much less distinguish what was always there from what might be suspicious.

Her teeth caught the inside of her lip as she headed for the back door. “There’s nothing there,” she muttered. “Just open the door, take a quick look, and then you can go back to bed, knowing for sure there’s nothing there.”

The knob was slick in her hand, rattling loosely as it turned. As she pulled open the door, a gust of wind pressed against her, as if urging her back into the house. Setting her jaw, she stepped onto the back porch, and one of the boards creaked under her weight. Closing the door behind her, Jules let her gaze scan the area. With the trees and weeds and even the barn swaying in the wind, finding something—someone—moving in all that chaos seemed impossible.

Standing outside of this remote house in this mountain town, Jules felt alone and very, very small. How was she supposed to protect her family when she was jumping at every imagined noise? The task seemed impossible. Maybe kidnapping them had been a stupid move, a destructive move, something that would damage them all.

At that thought, she dragged herself out of her gloomy imaginings. She’d done the right thing, the only thing that could’ve been done. Her siblings had thanked her, and they all seemed surprisingly content in their new, more bedraggled life. It was just the dark and the wind and the strangeness of a new place that was getting to her, making things seem hopeless.

She needed to go back to bed, not only because she had to be up in a few hours, but also because the middle of the night was not a good time to weigh major life decisions. Everything seemed heavier in the wee hours of the morning.

As she started to turn to go back inside, the movement caught her eye again. Jules whipped around as she strained to focus on the shifting shadow—one that was definitely not a tree branch. She clutched her phone tighter.

If she called the police, there would be reports and questions and her name would almost surely be run through some database. Dennis seemed to be good at what he did, but Jules would rather not test that, not for an unconfirmed shadow on a windy night. Instead of hitting the send button, she held her breath and watched the spot where she’d seen the movement.

There it is! Something had moved, a shape that was too big to be a cat or a bunny or any sort of nonthreatening creature going about its innocent business in the woods. She’d been so worried about human dangers that she hadn’t even considered that Colorado was home to all sorts of predators, including bears and mountain lions and—

The shadow moved again, the black-on-black shape moving out of the trees, and Jules jolted, the thought of tearing claws and ripping teeth filling her brain, making her lurch back until her shoulder blades hit the door with a painful thump. As her hand reached for the door handle, the thing—whatever it was—charged toward her.

She grabbed for the doorknob, a shriek building in her lungs, but it evaded her fingers, and she was unable to look away from the dark shape plunging toward her. Her fingers smacked against the doorframe, but she didn’t feel it, couldn’t feel anything except her terror and the scream filling her lungs like overextended balloons. It was so fast, yet she felt like she was bogged down in a slow-motion nightmare. The thing came closer and closer until it lunged onto the porch with her, wriggling with excitement and twisting around her legs.

“Viggy?” she croaked, heart still racing. In response, the dog sat on her foot, a bony part of his haunch digging painfully into her instep. The ache brought back her reasoning skills, and she bent to simultaneously pet him and shove him off her foot. “Holy moly, Vig, you scared the stuffing out of me!”

As her initial panic settled, a new fear rose in its place. Why was Viggy here? Had something happened to Theo? Jules wished she’d gotten his phone number, although there was no way in Hades she would’ve been brave enough to ask, even if she could have come up with a good excuse. After all, how was she to know his dog would end up on her back porch in the middle of the night?

Peering at her phone, she cancelled the call with fingers that shook with residual adrenaline. Pulling up her Web browser, she found the police department’s nonemergency number.

When the dispatcher answered, Jules asked hesitantly, “Can you get a message to Officer Theo Bosco?”

“What message is that?”

“His dog is at my house.”

As the dispatcher asked for her name and address, all Jules could think about was that the call was being recorded, leaving yet another breadcrumb for their stepmother’s investigators to find. She squeezed her eyes closed tightly. It was just one more reason that letting Theo and Viggy into their lives was a horrible, horrible idea.

Viggy whined, and Jules opened her eyes. The sight of the dog, looking at her with sweet eyes and his head cocked to the side, made Jules realize it was too late. A certain cop and his K9 partner had already implanted themselves firmly into her heart.

Swallowing a sigh, Jules gave the dispatcher her address.

* * *

The phone rang, startling Theo out of yet another daydream about Jules. His first instinct, as nonsensical as it was, was that Jules was calling him, and a surge of anticipation shot through him as he grabbed for his phone.

“Hey, Theo, it’s Jackie from Dispatch.”

Theo grimaced at his own idiocy. Of course Jules wouldn’t be calling him. She didn’t even have his number. “What is it?” His tone was short from disappointment, and Theo held back a wince. It was a good thing he didn’t work nights, or Jackie would’ve made him pay for his attitude. She would’ve sent only the worst calls his way, and his shifts would’ve been miserable until she forgave him—or until someone else pissed her off.

Jackie was talking, and Theo forced his attention back to the call. When her words started to penetrate, Theo was startled out of his self-recriminations. “Viggy’s where?”

Even as she repeated herself, Theo was rushing downstairs and shoving through the back door.

Sure enough, Viggy’s kennel was empty.

“The caller’s address is—”

“I know it,” Theo interrupted, knowing he was being rude again but too distracted to care. On one hand, it was embarrassing and worrying to have his canine partner escape his custody, but a part of him was glad to have the opportunity to leave his sleepless bed and visit Jules. “Thanks.”

He headed for his SUV, ending the call after that half-hearted attempt at civility. As usual for that time of the night, the streets of Monroe were quiet. If any wildness was happening, it was behind closed doors. Glancing at the darkened houses, he wondered what crimes were being committed, what arguments were being held, what desperation was being felt. That’s the problem, Theo thought as he turned onto Jules’s street. How was he supposed to help people when they hid their problems, acting like everything was fine until it all went to shit? Things were fixable up to a point. After that point, all he could do was grieve.

Shaking off his introspection, Theo slowed to a crawl when he saw the start of Jules’s driveway. He scowled. The mailbox listed to the right, just waiting for the gentle breeze that would send it to the ground. The landlord needed to step up and start fixing some of these issues. A crooked mailbox was one thing, but Jules shouldn’t be having to deal with faulty appliances and a leaking roof and the hundred other dangerous situations in the making. At least the porch was no longer a death trap, but Jules and the kids shouldn’t have to wait until Theo had time to fix everything around the place. He resolved to get the landlord’s phone number from Jules so Theo could give the slumlord a…gentle nudge to start some home improvements immediately.

He lurched across a final pothole and came to a stop outside her house. The porch light turned on, and the front door opened, the entrance framing a pajama-clad Jules. At her feet sat Viggy, who was looking as innocent as a runaway dog could look.

Jules stepped onto the porch, followed closely by Viggy. The dog—his dog, the one that ran off and forced him to visit Jules in the middle of the night—stretched out on one side of the entrance. Closing the front door behind them, Jules took a couple of steps to the front of the porch, closer to Theo. The wind whipped her hair around her face and plastered her sleep shorts to her body in a very enticing way. Theo tried not to look obviously eager as he joined her, but he was pretty sure he failed at that. He did take the six porch steps in two strides, after all.

Once he was standing next to her, Theo was at a loss. Even before he’d disappeared into a cloud of rage, talking to women had never been his strong point. Now, faced with Jules in all her sleep-mussed glory, Theo had nothing. His mind was a blank.

“I thought he was a serial killer,” Jules blurted.

He was so grateful to her for breaking the silence that it took a second for her words to make sense. Except, even then, they didn’t make sense. “Who?”

“Viggy.”

“You thought my dog was a serial killer?”

“It was dark!” she protested, starting to laugh. “A strange noise woke me up, and then something moved in the trees, so I went outside, and then Viggy ran toward me and scared the holy spit out of me.”

“The holy spit?” he teased, before the rest of what she’d told him registered, and all humor left him. “Wait. You thought you saw someone, so you went outside to check?”

Jules winced, ducking her head and peeking at him through a silky fall of hair. Theo tried not to focus on how she even made cringing cute. “I know. It was stupid.”

“Yes.”

That made her frown. “It wasn’t that stupid. I mean, it wasn’t really a serial killer. What if I’d called 9-1-1? Cops would’ve arrived, gun blazing, and all for Viggy.”

No one made him smile as much as she did. No one else made him smile at all. He pretended to scratch his nose in order to hide it. “Guns blazing?”

Just like that, her temper was gone, and she was laughing again. “Don’t you mock my colorful vernacular, Officer Bosco!”

“I just don’t think I’ve ever done anything with my gun blazing. What does that even mean?”

“I’m not sure. But it does sound very dramatic.”

“And unsafe.”

“Yes. That too.”

Her laughter faded, leaving them in a weighted silence. “So Viggy is your dog, then? I thought you said he was your partner’s?”

“He was.” A wash of grief ran through him, erasing any traces of laughter. “He was Don Baker’s dog.”

“Was?” she asked tentatively, looking at him in a way that made him feel like he could tell her anything, anything at all, and she’d get it. She’d get him. Jules settled onto the top step, patting the spot next to her.

As he struggled to find the words, Theo sat down next to her. “Don was my partner, my friend…more than that. He was like a dad to me.” His throat got tight, making it hard to continue, but he forced out the words. It seemed important, somehow, for Jules to know this, for Jules to know him—the real him, not the angry mess he’d become. “He killed himself two months ago.”

Her breath caught, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. “Oh no. I’m so sorry!” Her free hand reached out and caught his. As she squeezed, he braced for the flare of anger to hit him, for the need to escape to overwhelm him, but it never did. Instead, he felt relief, as if telling her about Don had opened up something inside him, allowing all the anger and pain to escape.

“Since I lost my K9 partner to cancer last year, Hugh assigned Viggy to me. It’s been…tough.” Theo almost laughed at the understatement.

“He seems to be doing better, though,” she said, still holding tight to his hand. “You both do.”

Sometimes it felt that way, but other times all the frustration and rage and grief threatened to drown him. It felt right to tell Jules, though. Even though he’d known her for such a short time, but there was something about her—and her whole family—that settled him, brought him peace.

Jules’s fingers tightened around his again, and he looked down at her. His blood instantly started to warm. Peace wasn’t the only thing she made him feel. He squeezed her hand as he studied her, feeling as if he could look at her all night and not get bored. Everything about her was beautiful—her eyes, her cheeks, her laugh, the smooth fall of her hair, her mouth…especially her mouth.

Theo couldn’t stop staring at her. At first, her full lips were curled up at the corners in a sympathetic smile, and then they grew serious, parting slightly. His breath stopped, his lungs stalling out and refusing to work anymore. He shifted toward her, unable to resist. It felt as if there was an invisible but powerful thread connecting them, reeling him closer. The wind gusted, tossing her hair across her face again.

Jules reached up a hand, but Theo beat her to it. He caught the stray strands, tucking them behind her ear. In the process, his fingertips just barely grazed over her cheekbone and around the shell of her ear. Her skin was cool, and goose bumps rose on her arms.

Frowning, Theo let his hand drop. Her gaze followed it down and then found his face again. Her breaths were coming quick and light, and the rise and drop of her chest was extremely distracting. Shoving away his confusing jumble of emotion for the moment, he released her hand so he could pull his hoodie over his head. Jules was staring at his stomach, making Theo realize the movement had made his T-shirt ride up, exposing his abs. He tugged it back down, loving how Jules’s face dropped in obvious disappointment when his skin was no longer showing. She shivered again, and he remembered what he’d been about to do.

“Here,” he said quietly, lifting the sweatshirt so he could put it on over her head. “You’re cold.”

She raised her arms once she realized what he intended, allowing the “Monroe Police Department” sweatshirt to envelope her, the bottom hem falling to the porch floor, the fabric puddling around her hips. For some reason, Theo liked seeing her in his sweatshirt. He decided he’d give it to her. That way, during the long, lonely, sleepless nights, he could imagine her wearing it.

A surge of heat ran through him, and he cleared his throat, trying to refocus. “Warmer?”

“Much.” Her voice was throaty, lending the word a secondary meaning, one that Theo wasn’t sure was intentional or not. Either way, it brought his attention back to her mouth. This time, when he leaned closer, there was no chilled skin to distract him. His gaze was locked on her and hers on him, and he could see she felt the same pull of the invisible thread, that same irresistible tug that linked them together.

It didn’t matter then whether he had the right thing to say. Silence was fine.

Fraction of an inch by fraction of an inch, he came closer and closer, until he was enveloped in her scent—spicy vanilla—and her heat and the puffs of excited air that warmed his throat.

Finally, he was there.

The first spark of their lips meeting startled him, making him jolt and pull away just a little, until he couldn’t feel her breathe anymore. Almost as soon as he separated from her, he was back, needing to kiss her more than he’d needed anything.

Then she moaned. It was a tiny sound, cute—like so many things she did—and hot and perfect. It vibrated against his mouth, and he was done thinking or debating or being angry or anything else. All he wanted to do was kiss Jules Jackson, who was very likely not Jules Jackson. At this moment, he didn’t care if she was Al Capone’s zombie in drag. Whoever she was, whatever she was running from, it wasn’t going to stop him.

He gently nipped her full bottom lip, and she gasped. Theo took full advantage, deepening the kiss. Stroking both hands down her sides, he shifted forward, erasing the last half inch between their upper bodies.

The feel of her pressed against him was overwhelming. Theo had to break the kiss for a moment, just so he could suck air into his oxygen-starved lungs. At some point—he was not sure when—Jules’s hands had slid to the back of his neck, and she was massaging the muscles there. It ramped up his arousal, but at the same time, it soothed him.

After a few ragged breaths, he kissed her again. Immediately, he was consumed. Need and pleasure raged through him, burning as they flared to life after months of numbness. It was like his emotions had fallen asleep, and now they were waking with a wonderfully painful tingling. Theo kissed her harder, his hands flattening at the small of her back so he could press her against him.

She groaned into his mouth, and he loved hearing that, loved knowing their kiss was affecting her this way. Theo felt so wrapped up in her, always thinking about her, wanting to be with her, and it was a heady sensation to know she wanted him just as much. He stroked up and down her spine, running his hands over the small but strong muscles in her back. Jules scraped her nails lightly over his head, and it was his time to shudder.

Even as lost as he was in her, Theo heard the click of the latch. Ripping himself away from the most intense kiss of his life, he stood and whirled toward the sound, keeping his body between Jules and whoever was interrupting.

“Theo?” Jules’s husky voice questioned at the same time Dee barreled onto the porch, making a beeline for Viggy as she squealed with excitement.

“Hi, Theo.” Dee greeted him absently, all her attention on the dog.

“Dee.” He’d regained most of his composure, although hearing Jules’s audible breaths was not helping in that regard. “Did we wake you?” He wondered how loud they’d gotten. Although it had only been a kiss, he’d been completely immersed in the moment. It had felt so huge, so explosive, he didn’t know how anyone could’ve slept through it.

“Yes, but that’s okay.” Dee hugged the dog. “If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have gotten to see Viggy. What are you doing here?”

Since making out with your sister seemed age-inappropriate, Theo just said, “Viggy decided to visit you.”

“On his own? He ran off?” Her arms squeezed tightly around Viggy. The dog didn’t seem to mind. On the contrary, he leaned into the girl with a low groan. Dee’s expression was guarded as she asked, “Did something happen?”

“To make Viggy want to leave?” When she nodded, Theo continued. “No. I think he just wanted to see you.”

Dee’s face lit up, and she turned her attention back to Viggy, talking inaudibly to him.

“That was kind,” Jules murmured, standing and leaning into his back. Her breath warmed his skin through his T-shirt. Theo got goose bumps. He wasn’t sure how to respond, so he didn’t—out loud, at least. Turning, he looped an arm around her waist and tugged her in front of him, pulling her close. She leaned back against him, and he couldn’t resist wrapping his arms around her.

The wind had quieted to a light breeze, and Theo just reveled in the moment, in the warm body pressed to his front, the cool night, the stars that were so bright they almost didn’t look real. The constant grief and rage churning in him had quieted for now, and Viggy looked happy.

It wouldn’t last. For this minute, though, it was enough.