Liz Harper looked delighted. “Declan O’Rourke. I was hoping we’d see you while we were here.”
“Liz.” The seriousness in his face eased just a little. “You’re lookin’ well.”
Lawrence stepped forward and shook his hand. “You crusty old Irish bastard. How are you?”
Deck snorted. “Still better-lookin’ than you.”
“Impossible,” Lawrence said. “I’ve spent a fortune preserving this face.”
Liz rolled her eyes. “The two of you are exhausting.”
Lawrence clapped Deck once on the shoulder. “You watching over my girl?”
Deck’s gaze flicked briefly to Eleanor, then to Reid standing beside her.
“Always,” he said quietly.
For a second, the warmth of it settled over all of them.
Then Deck looked back at Eleanor.
And that serious flicker in his expression didn’t go away.
“I’ve just come back from Charleston,” he said. “There’s somethin’ we ought t’ talk about. Maybe when the courtroom’s not quite so crowded.”
Eleanor felt the hairs rise at the back of her neck.
Deck didn’t use that tone for gossip.
And just like that?—
The easy warmth of the moment shifted.
Something beneath the surface had just started to crack.
39
City Limits Café
By the time they stepped down the courthouse steps, the late-morning sun had burned away the last of the mountain haze.
Liz Harper stretched slightly and smiled.
“Well,” she announced brightly, “I don’t know about anyone else, but watching lawyers argue for an hour has made me absolutely starving.”
Deck chuckled beside her.
“City Limits?” he suggested.
April clapped her hands.
“Oh yes. That’s perfect.”
Reid glanced toward Eleanor.
“Your town,” he said. “Lead the way.”
Eleanor rolled her eyes but smiled.
