She looked at him.
“For now,” he said.
Eleanor smiled.
“That’s reassuring,” she said. “Though I’m not sure ‘safe’ is the word the internet would pick for us right now.”
“Good thing we don’t work for the internet,” he said.
Reid hesitated for a second.
He could have said goodnight and let her go. Given the day they’d both had, it would have been the careful choice.
Instead, he leaned down and kissed her.
Soft.
Warm.
Long enough to make her forget the entire day for a moment.
When he stepped back, she was still smiling, a little breathless.
“Well,” she said softly, “that was worth staying late for.”
Reid rested a hand briefly on the car door.
“Good,” he said. “Then it’s not all subpoenas and bad headlines.”
She slipped into the driver’s seat.
Reid closed the door for her and stepped back.
As she pulled away, he watched the taillights disappear around the corner.
Somewhere else, a red recording light was on in a studio a few hundred miles away. Somewhere online, the comment feed on a stranger’s face and fate was still scrolling.
But down here, for a few stolen minutes between crises, it was just him, those one hundred and four courthouse steps, and the faint taste of her still on his mouth.
21
Mercer Development Site
The sharp crack of nail guns echoed across the hillside.
David Mercer stood near the edge of the framed structure, one boot propped on a stack of lumber as he studied the plans spread across the hood of his truck.
Below the ridge, the Tuckasegee River curved through the valley in a ribbon of silver.
It would be a beautiful development when it was finished.
Six custom homes. Mountain views.
He tapped the blueprint with a pencil.
“Move that retaining wall another two feet,” he told the foreman. “You’ll get a cleaner line on the driveway.”
The foreman nodded.
