Page 35 of Taken Away

Downstairs, the heavy brass lock clicked.

Aubrey froze, her mind instantly flashing to the folded note tucked into her coat pocket downstairs.

6:42 a.m. She wasn’t dressed. She was still tangled in the white duvet, wearing nothing but tiny black silk sleep shorts and an oversized, faded gray college sweatshirt. Her hair was a soft, disastrous cloud around her face.

Heavy footsteps scuffed the hardwood in the foyer.

“Aubrey?” Bennett’s low, gravelly baritone boomed up the stairwell. “You awake? We’re losing daylight.”

“I’m upstairs!” she yelled back. “And you don’t walk into someone’s house without knocking!”

“I have a key, remember?” His voice drifted up, entirely unbothered. “And it’s Mabel’s house. I’ve walked in here at dawn every Tuesday for five years to go over the sulfur schedules. Get moving.”

Aubrey threw back the sheets, marched out onto the landing, and stopped dead at the top of the stairs.

Bennett stood in the center of the foyer, looking up.

He’d traded his funeral suit for dark jeans and a faded charcoal T-shirt that clung to the broad set of his shoulders. Brown work boots, already dusted with dried red clay, grounded him.

His gaze traveled slowly up the staircase, landing on her.

Aubrey didn’t move. She stood there, her legs bare, the sweatshirt sliding farther off her shoulder to expose the line of her collarbone.

Bennett drew in a slow breath, his knuckles tightening on the strap of the canvas field bag slung over his shoulder. The ghost of the Drift Bar patio flared between them so sharply Aubrey could practically taste salt and tequila on her tongue.

His eyes darkened, a muscle ticking once in his cheek as he tore his gaze away, focusing instead on the grandfather clock.

“You’ve got ten minutes,” he muttered, his voice dropping into a rough growl. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

“I’ll take twenty,” Aubrey snapped. “And next time, use the brass knocker like a civilized human being.”

She retreated into the guest room and slammed the door.

When she walked into the kitchen fifteen minutes later, she wore narrow black heels, slim black tech pants, and a crisp, sleeveless black linen top. Her hair was pulled back into a high ponytail.

Bennett stood by the marble island, a steaming mug of black coffee in his hand. He didn’t look at her, but his shoulders went rigid.

On the floor beside the range, Moose lay like a deflated snowdrift. The moment Bennett took a step closer, the dog’s ears twitched. Moose lifted his massive head, his dark eyes fixing on Bennett, and his heavy tail gave a single, dull thump against the soapstone floor.

“Hey, buddy,” Bennett murmured. He sank to one knee, burying his large, calloused hand in the dog’s white ruff. His face softened completely. “Yeah. I miss her too, boy. You gotta eat today, you hear me?”

Moose let out a long, trembling sigh and rested his chin back on Bennett’s boot.

Aubrey paused by the sink, something in her chest cinching at the sight of Bennett with the dog, his big hand buried in Moose’s fur.

She crossed to the coffee maker, reached for a mug—and caught a faint, expensive note in the air.

She sniffed once, eyebrows lifting.

“Oh. Nice perfume,” she said lightly as she poured. “What is that?”

Bennett straightened, a small frown creasing his brow. “What?”

She didn’t bother to hide her small, knowing smile.

“Yeah. Tom Ford. Jasmine Rouge, right?”

Bennett went still.