Page 56 of The Guilty Trial

Inside, the chili simmered on the stove, filling the kitchen with the warm scent of cumin and roasted tomatoes. Ethan gave it a stir, tasted it from the wooden spoon, and added a pinch more salt before replacing the lid.

He moved to the sink and stared out the window as he washed his hands. Shepherd was now attempting to convince Duke to drop whatever he’d found in the tree line. The ordinary rhythm of the scene should have settled him, but his nerves had been humming all afternoon in a way that caught him off guard. He kept glancing at the clock on the microwave. And checking the driveway through the front windows. And running a hand through his hair like a teenager before prom.

Allie was coming for dinner, and for reasons he couldn’t entirely explain to himself, his pulse was running about ten beats per minute faster than it should have been.

Their shared investigation had ended several months ago. Sadie Talbot was dead. Owen Drexler was in prison. Rose’s murder had finally been accounted for, and the tangled web that had brought Ethan and Allie together in the first place had been cut loose. Since then, life had returned to something resembling normal. The feed store kept him busy during the week, with Aunt Teri holding things down on the days he ran classes at the range. Shepherd started a new school year and was making friends, resiliently adjusting to his life in Pickens. Ethan had spent the past few months rebuilding the quiet, purposeful existence he promised himself when he left the military.

But through all of it, his thoughts kept drifting to her.

He would be restacking shelves at the store and suddenly remember the way she had laughed at something he said over the fire pit, her head tipped back and her guard completely down. He would be driving home from Clyde’s place and catch himself wondering whether she had eaten dinner or if she was still at her desk with a cold cup of coffee and a stack of case files. At night, after Shepherd was in bed and the house was quiet, Ethan would sit on the back deck and find that the silence felt different now.

He missed her. He knew that much with certainty. The last time he was at her place, he finally worked up the nerve to kiss her, and the memory of it still surprised him. Not because it happened, but because of how right it felt. Her hand against his chest, the brief hesitation before she leaned in, and then the warmth of her lips, tentative at first and then sure. He thought about that kiss more times than he cared to admit.

The crunch of tires on gravel pulled him from his thoughts. Through the front window, he watched Allie’s car roll up the drive. Shepherd had already spotted her and was running toward the vehicle with Duke loping behind him, the animal’s tail wagging in wide, frantic arcs.

Ethan dried his hands on the kitchen towel, tossed it on the counter, and stepped outside.

She looked tired. That was the first thing he noticed as she climbed out of the car and bent to scratch Duke behind the ears. Her smile was genuine, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes the way it usually did. Ethan felt a pull in his chest that had nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with wanting to lighten whatever was weighing on her.

He crossed the yard and pulled her into a hug that was gentle and unhurried. She leaned into him, her forehead resting against his shoulder for a beat longer than a casual greeting would allow. When she stepped back, her eyes were softer.

“It’s good to see you,” he said.

“You too.” She looked around the property, taking in the smoker trailing its blue haze, the football abandoned in the grass, Duke now attempting to herd Shepherd back toward the house. “I needed this.”

“Well, there’s ribs on the smoker and chili on the stove, so you picked the right night.” He gestured toward the range at the back of the property. “You interested in squeezing off a few rounds before dinner? I’ve got some new targets set up on the two hundred.”

Allie shook her head. “Not tonight. Honestly, I just want to sit somewhere quiet and not think about work for a few hours.”

“Done.” He studied her for a moment before a grin formed. “At least I didn’t have to come find you in the back of some wilderness this time.”

That drew a real laugh out of her, the tension in her shoulders easing by a fraction. “You and Jason with that park ranger, tromping through the brush like a search party. I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

“Not a chance.” She shoved his arm lightly, and he caught her hand for just a second before letting go.

They settled into the evening. Ethan pulled the ribs off the smoker and brought them inside, where Shepherd had already set three places at the kitchen table without being asked. The boy eagerly talked about school through dinner, about a science project involving volcanoes, about the buck he’d seen at the edge of the property the previous morning. Allie listened with genuine, attentive interest, asking questions about the volcano design and whether the buck had been alone or with a herd. Shepherd ate it up, and Ethan enjoyed watching the two of them from his side of the table.

After dinner, Shepherd retreated to his room to finish homework, and Ethan grabbed two beers from the fridge. They moved to the back deck, where the evening air carried the first real bite of November. The trees along the property line were nearly bare, and their branches traced dark patterns against a sky that was just beginning to darken. Ethan handed Allie a bottle and dropped into the Adirondack chair beside hers.

For a while, neither of them spoke. The quiet out here was different from city silence. It had texture to it, layers of easy sounds that only became apparent if you sat still long enough to hear them. Wind through the dry grass. A hawk calling from somewhere over the ridge. The faint creak of the deck boards shifting beneath their weight as the temperature dropped.

“How’s Grams doing?” Ethan finally asked.

Allie turned the beer bottle slowly in her hands. “I’m worried about her, honestly. The last time we talked on the phone, she sounded weak. Not so much tired, but genuinely weak.” She kept her gaze fixed on the tree line. “She’s been in Colorado for so long now, taking care of Gladys, and I think the traveling and the caregiving and the grief of watching her friend go through this... it’s catching up with her.”

“Has she said anything about how she’s holding up?”

“You know Grams. She’d rather talk about her garden or what I’m eating for dinner than admit she’s struggling.” Allie took a slow drink and set the bottle on the arm of the chair. “Sometimes I can barely push the thought out of my head. What happens when she’s gone? I know that sounds selfish, worrying about myself when she’s the one going through it, but she’s all I’ve had for so long that the idea of losing her...” She trailed off.

“It doesn’t sound selfish,” Ethan said. “It sounds like you love her.”

Allie glanced at him, and something shifted in her expression, a softening that made him want to reach for her hand. So he did.

“I know what it’s like to lose the person who holds everything together,” he said quietly. “After Rose, I spent a long time trying to figure out how the world was supposed to keep turning without her in it. It does keep turning, but it takes time to find your footing again.”

Allie laced her fingers through his in a warm and deliberate action.

The silence that followed was full of things neither of them was quite ready to say, and Ethan was content to let it breathe. But as the evening drew on, and the last of the light was thinning at the horizon, there were words he’d been carrying for weeks that felt too heavy to hold any longer.