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It was like toppling back in time. Bethan picked up her speed, catching up to Ellen easily and then keeping pace with her. But she found that she was grinning ear to ear herself, because she could remember a thousand races like this one. Ellen, who so often looked ruthless and severe, was lit up.

Bethan was, too. And she found she didn’t have it in her to crush her sister the way she knew she could have.

Maybe knowing was good enough.

She stayed at Ellen’s side, laughing louder the closer they got to the house. It wasn’t the kind of run that should have challenged Bethan at all, but at the same time, she didn’t spend a lot of her time laughing this hard while she was running.

Bethan checked her pace right at the end, almost as if she’d stumbled. Ellen screamed out her victory, her arms up in the air, as they both staggered to the door of the old stone house.

For a long moment, there was only panting, laughing, and Ellen grabbing her sides.

“That was amazing,” Ellen managed to get out. “I don’t even care that you let me win.”

“Let you win?” Bethan asked innocently. “Me?”

Ellen launched herself at Bethan then and hugged her, tight.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said. A little bit fiercely.

And there was too muchstuffinside her. All of it a little too unwieldy. Love. Regret. Nostalgia. Hope. Stuff that had everything to do with home, her family, her sister—and nothing to do with Alaska Force.

“Me, too,” Bethan said, though it felt inadequate at best.

But the strangest part was, as the day wore on, she found she meant it.

Fourteen

That Jonas might not want to spend all day and into the evening with Matthew and his buddies did not seem to occur to anyone. It was, apparently, one of those ritualistic domestic agreements everyone else seemed to take on the chin. No one questioned it. They all went along with it because... that was what people did.

Jonas never felt more like an alien than when watching rational humans respond—usually in the same way—to irrational cues that bypassed him entirely. But while he was irritated with this unexpected, and astounding, wrench in his plans, he didn’t have it in him to disengage from the groomsmen the way he knew he could have.

Almost as if, somewhere inside of him, he wanted Bethan’s family to think that he really was with her. The way he was pretending he was.

That was the only justification he could come up with to explain why he trailed around Santa Barbara with Matthew and his largely boneheaded friends, engaging in activities he would normally avoid like the plague.

Thus far those had included surfing at the crack of dawn; an enormous breakfast composed entirely of carbs and sugar, which had led to an impromptu pancake-eating contest; immersive video games; a lunch that was more booze than burgers; and now what appeared to be a cutthroat pool competition in a questionable bar.

Jonas had voluntarily done exactly none of those things before. Ever.

He would have opted out of the whole male-bonding experience today, but once Matthew had dragged Jonas back to his hotel the night before, his friends had welcomed Jonas as if it had been their idea to have him as part of their rowdy little gang all along. They reminded him of a litter of puppies, wriggling about, all of them irrepressible and remarkably soft.

But once they incorporated someone into their group, they expected that person to stay with them at all times. Something they policed with the tenacity that would have impressed some battalions Jonas had observed.

“I had to see it for myself,” Rory said, grinning widely at Jonas in a dive bar outside the Santa Barbara city limits. The location for the pool tournament, which Jonas could easily have won already. Instead, he was pretending to have the same level of hand–eye coordination as the rest of Matthew’s “boys,” an experience that was a lot like burying himself headfirst in wet concrete and allowing it to dry all around him. “You said you were in the wedding party now, but I didn’t believe it.”

“I’m a frat boy now,” Jonas replied with a huge grin, slapping Rory on the back. Perhaps harder than necessary, though it fit with his bigger than life, everybody’s best friend in a sports bar persona.

“Was there hazing?” Rory asked. “Templeton won’t stop texting me, asking if there was hazing.”

Jonas was entertained by the notion that Templeton Cross was handling whatever missions he was working on up in Alaska, not to mention his trooper, but was no doubtlighting up rooms with that big laugh of his as he imagined Jonas doing exactly this. Not that he showed it.

“I’m assuming the amount of drinking they do is a form of hazing,” he said.

“It’s not living unless it’s liver failure,” Rory agreed.

“What was the situation with the feed?” Jonas asked. He knew that if any of Matthew’s friends were watching, as he was sure they were because they were all obsessed with making sure Matthew was appropriately and constantly celebrated, all they would see was friendly, happy Jonas making a new friend at the bar.

“We’re interrupting it at random intervals,” Rory said, settling in like he was half watching the game on the television and half paying attention to the stranger beside him. “The one in the living room we’re keeping steady, but we’re making the bedroom one temperamental. It should be impossible to tell if it’s a software issue, something about its placement, or even if you’re messing with it.”