Page 34 of Beckett

“Sit.” I pointed at the table with the spatula. “Coffee?”

“Please.” She moved carefully, like everything hurt. Probably did. Sleeping on concrete would do that. She lowered herself into a chair, hands wrapped around themselves on the table. “Beckett, about last night?—”

“Food first.” I set a mug in front of her, already doctored with cream and sugar the way Todd used to take his. “We’ll talk after.”

I loaded a plate while she watched. Eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, toast with butter and jam. I set it down in front of her like an offering.

She stared at it. Just stared, hands still twisted together, and I realized she was fighting tears.

“It’s just breakfast,” I said gruffly, turning back to fix my own plate so she wouldn’t see how her reaction affected me. “Nothing fancy.”

I heard her pick up the fork. The quiet clink of metal on ceramic. When I finally joined her at the table, she’d made a small dent in the eggs. Color was already returning to her cheeks.

“Are you running me out of town?” The question came between bites, carefully casual.

I put down my coffee harder than necessary. “What? No. Jesus, Audra, is that what you think?”

She shrugged, attention focused on cutting her sausage into precise pieces. “I trespassed. Broke in to Lark’s building. You’d have every right?—”

“Stop.” The word came out harsher than intended. I forced myself to soften my tone. “Look at me.”

She did, reluctantly. Those hazel eyes held too much resignation, like she’d already packed her bags in her mind.

“You’re not getting run out of town. Lark left me in charge, and I say you’re welcome here. I know I was upset last night, but it was about the circumstance as a whole. That shed—” I had to pause, swallow the anger that wanted to surge up. “Nobody’s kicking you out for trying to survive.”

“Even though I lied?”

“Did you? Lark asked if you had a place to stay. You said yes. Technically true, even if that place was a glorified tin can.”

A ghost of Todd’s smile flickered across her face. There and gone, but I’d seen it. “That’s some creative reasoning.”

“Military taught me to work with technicalities.” I pushed the plate of extra bacon toward her. “Eat more.”

She took a piece, chewed slowly. I could see her gathering courage for something.

“I need to ask you something,” I said before she could speak. Had to get this out of the way, for both our sakes. “And I need you to be straight with me.”

Her knuckles went white around the fork.

“Are you running from the law?”

The exhale that escaped her was part relief, part something else. “No. I promise you, I’m not wanted by any police department anywhere.”

“Okay.” I believed her. Had to. This was Todd’s sister, and that meant something. “But there’s more to your story than car trouble and financial problems.”

It wasn’t a question. She looked at her plate and pushed eggs around with her fork.

“There’s more,” she agreed quietly. “But it’s my problem to handle.”

“Not anymore.”

Her head snapped up. “Beckett?—”

“You’re Todd’s sister.” The words carried weight, promises, obligations that went soul-deep. “He saved my ass more than once overseas. Watched my six when things went sideways. I couldn’t…”Couldn’t save him from a car accident. Couldn’t even make it to his funeral.“Just because you’re down on your luck doesn’t mean we abandon you. Nobody gets left behind. That’s not how this works.”

“I’m not one of your fellow soldiers. This isn’t a battlefield.”

“Isn’t it?” I gestured at her, at the exhaustion carved into every line of her body. “You’re surviving, not living. Running on fumes and stubbornness. When’s the last time you felt safe enough to actually sleep?”