Page 61 of Finding Denver

“Probably. She’s ruthless.”

It’s tempting. So tempting. The only times I’ve laughed this week are because of messages from Holly and Helena. The latter has sent me some photographs of her and my mom from years ago and is constantly begging me to come to family dinner. Apparently, it’s a big deal in the McEwan household, and I have a standing invitation.

I glance at Lewis eating, at the quiet hotel room where I know I’ll have fun but … not as much fun as I would with Holly.

“Does Wilder know I’m talking to his daughter?”

Colt sighs softly. “Yes. She told him about her new redheaded friend.”

“And?”

“And … he’s hardly in a position to consider you a threat,” he says, but my lack of response is all he needs to keep going. “Are we enemies, Denver?”

I stare at the floor, kicking imaginary rocks in my hotel room. “We’re not.”

“Do I have anything to worry about when it comes to my family?”

“No … of course not. Especially with Holly.”

“Then why shouldn’t we spend time together? Wilder trusts my judgement, and I trust you.” The words have my lips tilting into a small smile, but still, I say nothing. I certainly don’t tell him that I think I might trust him, too. “Come trick or treating with us. Please.”

Please. Colt Harland is asking me politely to spend an evening with him, and neither of us has murder on our mind. What a difference a few days makes.

“Okay, text me the address.”

I quickly change into thick leggings, a sweatshirt and fur-lined boots. I snatch open the hotel room door. “Charlie, can we go out?”

Charlie turns to me, almost having to duck his head to see past the doorframe. He’s six foot eight, bald, a mountain of a man. His biceps are bigger than my head, and when I called him after Colt gave me his number, he came over the same day. I almost didn’t let him in.

After I’d discussed my issue with Ranger, he laid out a plan of hotels he knew were safer than the one we were in, named several men he trusted to watch me, and backupplans for every possible scenario. It all sounded so serious. So overwhelming.

And then he’d taken out a red lollipop, and it was hard to take him seriously after that. But Lewis likes him. I like him.

He’s eating a lollipop right now, which makes him far less threatening. “Where?”

“Trick or treating.”

His eyes light up. “Yes. Give me details.”

I forward him Colt’s text, and twenty minutes later, we’re on the move. Once we approach the residential buildings, Halloween is everywhere. Decorations, children dressed up, doors thrown open to makeshift haunted houses. When we pull up outside a row of townhouses, I spot Holly immediately.

She bounces over to the car in her panda costume, plastic pumpkin in hand.

“Look! I’m extinct!” she says, grinning.

Colt is close behind, wearing a dark knee-length coat over jeans and a knitted jumper. Several women eyeball him as he passes, but he’s focused entirely on Holly, only looking at me once he has a hand on his niece’s shoulder. “She just learned that pandas are close to extinction. You’re not extinct.”

She shrugs and reaches her hand out to Charlie. Colt told me that before Holly moved into his house, Charlie was her security. He took her to school, to playdates, to anywhere she needed to go.

“Little Holly,” he says.

“Big Charlie!” She seizes his hand, dragging him toward the houses.

Colt faces me, tucking his hands into his pockets. Hehas a bright pink backpack on his shoulder. “You didn’t wear a costume.”

“Neither did you,” I point out.

“I’m a ghost,” he whispers, and I laugh. He searches through Holly’s backpack, producing a headband with cat ears on. He slides it onto my head. “Now you’re a cat.”