Page 76 of Taken Away

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “They are.”

Aubrey studied him across the table—the rough, calloused hands around the bottle, the tired lines around his eyes, the way people kept stopping to speak to him like he was woven into the framework of this place. At Blackwood, he was intimidating. Here, he was rooted.

The distinction unsettled her deeply.

After dinner, Bennett dropped cash on the table and stood, his towering height immediately dominating her view. “Come on.”

Aubrey reached for her purse. “Where now?”

“You’ve seen Blackwood.” He nodded toward the stairs leading up to the roof. “You haven’t seen Sylva.”

Upstairs

Sky Bar 9:06 PM

The rooftop terrace overlooked the whole town.

Aubrey stepped through the glass doors and stopped cold, the night air brushing against her bare neck.

Below them, Main Street glowed beneath strings of warm white lights, its brick storefronts and old lampposts stretching toward the courthouse like spokes leading to the heart of the town. The broad staircase climbed the grassy hillside in a dramatic sweep, ending beneath towering white columns crowned by a gleaming copper dome. Behind it, the Blue Ridge Mountains layered into the distance beneath a sky brushed with pink, lavender, and fading gold, making the whole town look less like a place on a map and more like something remembered.

The view stole her breath. “Oh.”

Bennett came to stand right behind her, his large frame blocking out the mountain breeze, wrapping her in his heat. “Told you.”

She didn’t move away. For a long moment, she didn’t say anything.

Music drifted from the bar behind them. Somewhere below, laughter rose from Main Street and disappeared into the night. Bennett was watching her instead of the view, his gold-flecked eyes dark and entirely focused on her face. She felt the heavy, suffocating weight of his attention before she even looked.

“What?” she asked, her voice dropping into a quieter register.

“Nothing.”

“That’s your suspicious nothing.”

“You have categories now?”

“With you? Yes.”

One corner of his mouth lifted, a lazy, lethal tilt. “You looked like you were about to argue with the skyline.”

“I was not.”

“You were.”

“I was processing.”

“Same thing, apparently.”

She laughed, turning back to the view, her hip lightly brushing his thigh as she leaned against the ironwork. “Okay.”

Bennett glanced over. “Okay, what?”

She swept a hand toward the courthouse. “I get it. Get why people stay.”

Bennett looked back toward the mountains, his expression tightening slightly. “I almost didn’t.”

Aubrey turned fully, her cream blazer shifting against her skin. “Really?”