Page 106 of Before the Bond
His eyes found me across the cleared ground, and the red in them was fading back to pale green, and the look on his face when it did — when he found me standing there unhurt and upright and staring straight back at him — was the kind of look I was going to be turning over in my memory for a long time.
I crossed the lawn. I didn't think about it. My feet just went.
He met me halfway.
Neither of us said anything for a moment. I put my hand against his chest, over his heart, feeling it beat — strong and steady and real — and he covered it with his and looked at me and I looked at him and the weight of the last twenty-four hours pressed down on both of us at once and then, slowly, began to lift.
"It's done," he said in quiet determination, like he was saying it to himself as much as to me.
The night was long but not over.
All of us knew it wasn't. Elias was still out there. The Voss pack would regroup. The calm we were standing in was earned but temporary, and everyone in this house was clear-eyed enough to know it.
But we celebrated anyway. We had survived the night intact. That was enough.
It started in the hallway. Jake was the architect of it. He found a bottle of something expensive in the back of the pickup trucks that I strongly suspected Maureen had been saving for a specific occasion, and it all went spilling from there.
From there, everyone gathered in the hallways and the dining room — a room I rarely saw used — and before long the party was in full swing.
I joined Stella in the kitchen.
“They packed all these snacks and booze as ‘contingency’,” she said. “We might as well take advantage of it.”
She had commandeered the stove with the focused energy of someone who had decided that feeding people was the single most productive thing she could do. Three pans rattled simultaneously. The whole room smelled like garlic and something slow-cooked and warm — it hit me somewhere behind the sternum.
Stella moved around like she did at the bar counter. Like she knew exactly where everything was, and had full control of the space. I hadn’t seen her this energized in the house before.
Maureen and I stood at the counter next to her, prepping fruits and vegetables. Maureen wanted to make something alittle healthier and sensible to curtail the amount of grease we were going to consume in the next hour.
“Goodness,” Maureen said. “It feels like forever since you were working with me in this kitchen. Are you going to be alright staying out this late? Won’t the bar need you?”
“I’m fine staying,” Stella said. She turned to me, smiling. “What can I say? I’m glad my friend’s back.”
My chest went warm. No matter what, she always had my back. I was glad I could be here too and perhaps one day return the favor.
“Do you think you’ll drop by more often now, then?” Maureen asked.
This time, Stella’s eyes scanned for something else.
Donovan was in the hallway. Her smile faded, but it wasn’t necessarily out of displeasure.
“Maybe,” she said vaguely. “No promises.”
The kitchen was mostly cleaned up by the time I noticed Stella getting her jacket.
She was at the hook by the back hallway, ready to take herself back to The Blackwater Tap, shrugging into her coat with the easy efficiency of someone who had made this exit a hundred times. I was about to call over and say good night when I caught the shape of things at the front of the hallway.
Donovan was there.
He wasn't blocking her path exactly. He was just — present. Standing in the narrow stretch between the kitchen and the front entrance with his arms at his sides and his expression doing thatcareful neutral thing it did when he was feeling something he had no intention of discussing.
Stella saw him but didn't slow down.
Neither of them said anything for a moment. The hallway went still.
"Leaving?" Donovan said finally.
"Job's done." Stella pulled her jacket closed. "I need a drink. A real one, not whatever Maureen's been serving. I'm thinking at least something 80 proof."
