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“It’ll come back,” Gunner assured him.
Landon snorted. “The break is nice though.”
“I made things fun around here,” Gunner joked.
“You set our houses on fire,” Jenna pointed out.
“Never a dull moment though,” Gunner quipped.
Landon took a drink and settled in the big chair behind Lucia. “I hardly have to stitch anyone up anymore.”
Kru mouthed, Bullshit.
Cadence said, “Yeah, you and Lucas bled each other like four days ago. Nice try.”
Hallie drew her knees up. Even with the fire, the breeze chilled her a bit. Gunner saw the movement. “Let me go see if I have an extra hoodie in my truck.”
He moved to stand up, but Cadence waved him down. “There’s extra blankets in ten-ten.”
She started to walk toward the single-wide trailer on the left, but stopped midway and turned with the strangest expression on her face. She locked eyes with Lucia. When Hallie looked at Lucia, the raven-haired woman wore a knowing smile.
Without breaking her gaze on Lucia, Cadence asked, “Hey Hallie, do you want a tour of ten-ten?”
“What’s a ten-ten?” she asked.
“You’ll see,” Jenna murmured softly.
“Umm, sure.” Hallie stood and looked to Gunner, but he wasn’t angry at her leaving without his permission. He wasn’t asking what she was doing, or asking her to mind rules she didn’t understand. She swallowed down the instinct to ask him if it would be okay to go with Cadence.
He rocked up off the back of his chair and grabbed her ass as she leaned down and kissed him. “Have fun,” he murmured as he relaxed back into the chair.
The flapping in her stomach didn’t feel like butterflies anymore. It felt like dragons.
“I like your falcon tattoo,” Jenna said as Hallie walked past her.
She rarely thought of the big tattoo she’d gotten on the back of her leg, because she didn’t see it back there much.
“Thanks,” she told her.
“What’s it mean?”
“It’s a bird in flight, not perched. She’s on a journey.”
An easy smile stretched across Jenna’s face and she nodded once, then lifted her drink to Hallie. Hallie tinked her can against Jenna’s and followed Cadence to the cream-colored trailer with forest-green shutters.
She’d never actually been in a mobile home, so she didn’t know what she’d expected, but when Cadence led her inside this one, she paused in the entryway and was filled with such….such…Hallie frowned, trying to understand herself.
“It happens to everyone,” Cadence said. “Come on.”
The dark laminate floors were a little soft to walk on, and some of the ceiling tiles were sagging in places. She saw a couple of mouse droppings on the floor, but the kitchen was cute. It was all white cabinets and wood-block counters. The living room was small but homey, with worn green couches and a little rug under a coffee table.
“Is this where you and Kru live?” Hallie asked as Cadence led her down a short hallway to a bedroom that didn’t have any furniture in it, save a hope chest near the window.
Cadence knelt down, opened the top of the chest, and dug through a stack of blankets. “No one lives in this one right now.”
“Ooooh. Was it Gunner’s?” she asked quietly.
Cadence shook her head and pulled out a blanket, closed the lid, and sat on the chest. “Probably it should’ve been Gunner’s. Maybe it would’ve made things easier for him.”
