Page 5 of Crosscurrent

The bell over the front door banged open.

“ACT scores post on Saturday,” Piper announced. The teen stormed inside carrying her backpack, car keys, and enough nervous energy to power the state of Oregon for at least several days.

“Mm-hm,” Diane said.

“Time is a wheel, Diane.”

“Mm-hm.”

Piper rounded the counter, scooped Agent off his towel, and immediately began explaining standardized testing anxiety to him in rapid detail.

Agent tolerated this with visible resignation.

Across the kitchen, Wade caught Piper’s eye over the cat’s head.

You okay? He mouthed.

Piper paused mid-spiral and gave him a quick nod before resuming her monologue about the math section.

Cara went back to shaping cinnamon rolls, warmth spreading quietly through her chest.

Not that long ago, all of this would’ve felt impossible.

The bakery. The basement headquarters downstairs. Sweet & Sawyer Investigations.

The fact that they were all still here at all.

Two months earlier, billionaire heiress Elena Whitfield had quietly funded the team after Cara and the others helped expose the nightmare Elena’s family had spent years hiding around her.

Sweet and Sawyer Investigations was now a fully funded, state-of-the-art operation, able to take on any cases they wished, no client fees required. Now Wade and Tom weren’t paying expenses out of pocket anymore. Piper had a college fund. Reagan was finally considering reducing her seventy-hour workweeks at the Saltwater Grill.

And Cara herself had started doing something even stranger.

Planning for a future.

That thought still startled her some days.

So did the fact that most of those future thoughts somehow included Gabriel Sawyer.

Which was significantly more complicated.

Gabe was honest in a way Cara still found mildly alarming. Fifteen years at the FBI had sharpened him into somebody observant and disciplined and almost painfully decent. Meanwhile the woman he knew as Cara Sweet had once been Carly Reid, professional grifter and current federal fugitive.

Not exactly a fair matchup.

She was praying before she fully realized she’d started. Lord, thank You for this.

For dough and rain and a fisherman trying to feed sushi-grade tuna to a cat. For a Wednesday, I’m tired in instead of running through. The prayer softened as her hands worked the dough. Maybe You brought me here for more than hiding.

The bell over the front door dinged again.

Cara looked up.

Gabe Sawyer had a face women loved. Strong jaw. Steady eyes. Dark hair perpetually in need of a trim. He carried competence the way other people carried jackets — effortlessly and without appearing aware of it.

Especially unfair was the fact that he somehow looked even better wet. Mud darkened the cuffs of his jeans and spotted the shoulders of his jacket. Rain still glimmered in his hair.

Wade straightened immediately.