“You don’t know me,” she says.
“No,” I agree. “I know this property is compromised, there’s an active fire investigation hanging over the outbuilding behind you, and you’d be sleeping in a structure with broken access points and no guarantee nobody comes back.”
That one gets her attention.
Her eyes narrow. “Back.”
“If this was set, somebody knew enough about the property to use the rear structure and the brush line. If it wasn’t, you'd still have an unsecured building on the edge of town, and I’m still not leaving you here. And they stayed off anything we could’ve caught,” I add.
Her eyes narrow slightly. “You think they knew.”
“I think they either got lucky,” I say, “or they knew exactly where we wouldn’t be looking yet.”
The night goes very still around that. She studies me for a long second, and I have the strange, unwelcome sense that she’s trying to decide whether I’m worth arguing with further or whether I’ve already crossed into the category of men who won’t leave a thing alone once they’ve made up their minds.
Unfortunately for both of us, she’d be right on that last count.
“I don’t have money for a hotel,” she says finally.
That throws me for half a second. Because the answer sounds less like pride and more like a fact she hates.
“No friends in town?”
“No.”
“Family?”
This time, the pause lasts longer.
“No.”
It isn’t true. Or not entirely. I can hear that much. But I also hear the shape of the real answer underneath it: no one she’s willing to call. That’s different. That I understand.
The dog leans into her shin again, and she shifts him automatically with the side of her boot. Protective without even thinking about it.
I exhale slowly and drag a hand over the back of my neck.
“My mother would lose her mind if I left you out here.”
The words come out before I decide if I’m going to say them.
Her brows pull together. “What?”
I ignore the part of my brain telling me to shut up.
“There’s room at the farm,” I say. “Or at my place.”
The sentence hangs there between us. She stares at me. Somewhere behind me, Beckett makes a low delighted noise that confirms he heard exactly enough of that to make himself insufferable later. I don’t turn around.
Lark’s gaze flicks once toward the truck lights and back to me. “Your place.”
“It’s on the farm,” I say. “Separate house. No one crawling all over you.”
That makes one corner of her mouth twitch before she catches it. Good. At least she’s still in there.
“You make this sound very normal,” she says.
“It’s not,” I answer honestly. “It’s practical.”
