Page 93 of Taken Away

“Goodnight,” she replied.

She watched him disappear into the shadows of the loft.

A moment later, the faint creak of the landing drifted down, followed by the soft murmur of his radio.

Moose snored, a low, reassuring rumble beside her.

Aubrey let her head tip sideways against the back of the couch, fingers still curled in the dog’s fur.

She stared up at the shadows near the window.

The note.

The words flashed through her mind.

Her breath caught.

In the shock of Burke's announcement, she'd forgotten about it completely. But now it came rushing back. She hadn't told Bennett.

She hadn't told Burke.

At the time, she'd dismissed it as intimidation. A bitter warning from Red Stephens. A disgruntled employee furious that a Philadelphia executive was suddenly calling the shots.

But Mabel hadn't died of a heart attack.

Someone had smothered her.

A cold dread settled in the pit of her stomach.

The note hadn't been about the winery at all.

It had been about her.

Go back to Philadelphia... while you still can.

Bennett stepped into the master bedroom and quietly closed the door behind him.

He hadn't looked back. If he had—if he'd let himself take in the sight of Aubrey curled on his sofa, her hair a mess against the leather and Moose stretched protectively beside her—he wasn't sure he would've made himself walk away.

His hand lingered on the handle.

After a moment, he turned it again and eased the door back open a few inches.

The low, gravelly rasp of Chris Stapleton spilled softly from the speaker on his dresser, a slow, blues-soaked track about cold whiskey and old regrets curling through the room. Outside the wall of glass, the ridge dropped away into a black abyss beneath a dusting of stars.

Bennett sat on the edge of his mattress, elbows braced on his knees, staring blindly down at his left hand.

Slowly, his right thumb found his wedding band. His calloused skin caught the edge of the smooth gold, turning it once, twice, feeling the familiar drag of metal against his finger.

He’d worn it every single day since Claire had slipped it onto his hand in a sun-drenched chapel in Napa. He’d worn it through the brutal haze of chemo appointments, through the hollow finality of the funeral arrangements, and through the reckless move east. For six years alone on this mountain, that ring had been his anchor—a quiet vow to the dark that his heart was permanently off the market.

He'd never once seriously considered taking it off.

He closed his eyes, grip tightening on the band until the gold bit into his skin. He could still feel the static charge of Aubrey’s presence downstairs, could still smell the faint, citrus warmth of her perfume threaded through the air of his house. It was a live wire under his skin.

Vanessa had been comfortable. Safe. A distraction born of mutual need and years of shared history—two people who'd found familiar shelter in the dark. He respected Vanessa. He cared about her.

But he’d never once caught himself imagining a future that extended beyond the next morning. She'd never made the ground tilt under his work boots. She'd never turned his blood to liquid heat.