Page 25 of The Fire Line

Elise touched Walt’s arm. “Come help Mom with the wine.”

“I’m not choosin’ the damn woman for him.”

“No. You’re only setting a deadline.”

Walt gave her a look but allowed himself to be redirected. Elise delivered him to Della near the far end of the table. Della listened, touched two fingers to his sleeve, and answered too quietly for Jay to hear. She did not raise her voice or glance toward an audience; she simply held Walt’s attention until his shoulders lost some of their argument.

After a moment, he gave one reluctant nod.

Whatever correction Della offered remained between them. The fact that Walt accepted it did not.

Harris stayed beside the table, looking toward the dancers with the same closed expression he had worn beneath the interview lights. Walt wanted his son happy. He also appeared to possess a specific idea of what happiness should look like and little patience for Harris’s failure to arrange it on schedule.

Then a dark-haired woman approached Harris.

Seriously. Were they waiting in a line somewhere?

Jay had noticed her earlier with a group from town. Tall, attractive, probably somewhere around his age. She touched Harris’s arm, said something that made him answer, then took the beer from his hand and pulled him toward the dancers.

Priya appeared beside Jay. “This evening has become educational.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’ve looked over there several times.”

“Don’t start.”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“You’re about to.”

Priya considered that. “Fair.”

On the dance floor, Harris had stopped resisting.

Of course the man could dance.

Nothing elaborate or performed for an audience. One hand rested at the woman’s waist while he moved with an easy physical confidence Jay had somehow failed to anticipate. The camera would have agreed that his body looked good doing it, had cameras not been constitutionally prohibited from Della’s barn.

The woman looked up at Harris, smiling. Jay disliked her immediately. Not personally. She might have been delightful, generous, excellent in an emergency. Her only documented offense was touching Harris Shaw in a manner entirely appropriate to dancing with him. Still, the same unreasonable possessiveness Jay had felt watching Harris leave for town returned with considerably less ambiguity. The woman said something that made Harris bend closer to hear, his hand remaining easy at her waist.

Jay looked away. No need to keep collecting evidence. Harris Shaw was a straight man dancing with an attractive woman, and Jay had decided to treat the ordinary event as a personal betrayal committed by two people who had made him no promises whatsoever.

Wonderful.

Priya said nothing. For once, Jay appreciated her deeply.

The party stretched past midnight. The pies disappeared. Eli became involved in an argument with Noah about whether fantasy football constituted gambling, and Jay declined to join only because he was conserving ammunition for another day.

The woman Harris danced with eventually disappeared into a group near the far end of the barn. Harris spent most of the remaining evening with his family, carrying one exhausted niece when she demanded it, letting Della pull him into a dance, and listening to Walt tell a story everyone present had probably heard before.

Jay stopped monitoring him.

Mostly.

By one, the neighbors began leaving. The twins had fallen asleep beneath one of the tables, and Walt carried them out one at a time while Della announced that it was still technically her birthday and therefore she was legally prohibited from cleaning.

Jay gathered bottles with Eli while Harris stacked folding chairs along the wall. They crossed paths near the open doors.