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Bear looked at Oil Can. “Who would want you to run and hide?”

“Whoaaaa…” He was still gaping in amazement at Lila. “How do you read syrup so well?”

“I don’t know…I could be wrong. That’s what jumps out at me, that’s all.”

“You’re a wizard. Now that you say it, you’re right. That’s what it says. Man, Candy Apple’s going to be psyched cause she got closest.”

Bear tried to refocus him. “Have you gotten a threat like this before?”

“A threat? No, man. We got no beef with anyone around here. We’re all about love and happiness and everyone knows it. If we tick someone off, we have our guaranteed ‘get out of jail free’ card, a pan of magic brownies. Works every time.”

“Not this time,” he pointed out. “Seems like someone’s not happy with you.”

Oil Can shook his head. “I’m being real with you. We’re copacetic with everyone in Firelight Ridge. It took us a while, but we got there and we’re careful not to mess it up. This wasn’t anyone who lives here. We had a group meeting and burned some sage, did some meditating. Consensus is, we think it was a prank.”

“Burned some sage?” Bear asked.

“It helps us tune into our inner knowing. In some part of ourselves, we know who did it.”

Bear glanced at Lila, curious if she thought that was as ridiculous as he did. Hard to tell, since she was still staring at the photo of the bloody-looking mess. “So what did your inner knowing tell you?”

“It told us to ask you if you can look into it.”

“Me?” Bear frowned, since as far as he knew, no one in Firelight Ridge, let alone the Community, knew he had experience as a cop.

“Yeah. We all agreed. You’ve got a cool head. We can pay you in brownies.” He winked.

“You don’t have to pay me in anything. I’ll come out and take a look around. Any chance I can do that before you clean it up?”

“Too late for that. Candy Apple and Alex are already on it. We didn’t want it to set up for too long or we might never get it out. Sad part is, the syrup isn’t organic. It’s all chemicals. We thought about trying to use it so it didn’t go to waste, but we made the sad decision that we have to let this syrup go.”

Bear fought with all his might to keep from laughing. “Good call.”

“If they’d been mindful enough to choose organic…” Oil Can shrugged. “We all need to make better choices.”

“You think the syrup hooligan might strike again?”

Oil Can cracked up at that, and repeated it several times. “Syrup hooligan…good one, Bear. The Community will get a kick out of that. Come out any time you’re free.” He angled toward Lila. “Both of you are welcome anytime. Except for between five and seven in the morning, that’s for meditation.”

“Got it.” Bear didn’t make a habit of showing up at anyone’s house between five and seven unless there was sex involved. And he hadn’t done that since earlier in the summer. Hadn’t been tempted.

Oil Can asked for tomato juice with horseradish for the road, and set three Thermoses on the counter. “We’re doing a fall cleanse,” he explained. “Clearing out the toxins before winter.”

While Lila poured out the tomato juice, Bear got directions for the most passable route to the old train station. He knew where it was, of course, but he’d never gone to one of their monthly potlucks, or their midsummer bonfires, or their random ecstatic dance events.

After Oil Can and his Community entourage had left, Lila let out a long breath of relief. “I couldn’t say this while they were here, but Bear…I don’t think that was a prank.”

“What do you mean?”

Did her intuition work even with selfies on a phone?

“It’s something about the train station itself. Not about the Community there. It wasn’t directed at them.”

“How do you know?”

“Look.” She pulled out her own phone and showed him the photo. “I sent it to myself while he was jabbering on about the syrup. “They avoided all the furniture, all those sitting cushions and bookshelves and drum sets.”

“Maybe that’s the most obvious place to dump some syrup.”

“But if they were trying to mess with the Community, why be so careful? And look at this.” She pointed to a sign on the wall just above the pool of syrup. Even though the Community members had nailed up extra boards to keep the place warm, they’d left that sign intact, maybe as a touch of retro nostalgia. “Fangtooth Gulch,” it read. “End of Line.”

Bear could see what she was referring to, but wasn’t convinced it was intentional. “It could have just worked out that way.”

“Really? You think so?” She squinted at it again, zooming in and out with her fingers. “To me it seems intentional. Like a message.”

That seemed like a stretch to him. “But what does it mean?”

“I have no idea.”

“You can’t sense anything?”

She shook off the question. “From a phone? Of course not.”

That answered that. “You want to go out there with me and check it out?”

The door swung open and Martha, along with a group of her crafting friends, crowded inside. Martha raised sheep on her land, and sold both raw wool and yarn she carded herself. Once the busy summer ended, her craft circle liked to meet at The Fang as much as they could manage.

“I’ll stay and help these lovely ladies.” Lila smiled at the incoming women, who were all dressed in some version of fall work overalls and mud boots. “Maybe we can try out the new milk frother.”

Bear lowered his voice. “Are you sure? Could be helpful. You might pick up something if you’re actually there.”

Mistake. He knew it as soon as her head jerked up and her eyes flared. “It doesn’t work that way,” she said sternly. “I told you. It comes when it comes. I can’t control it and I don’t want to. It’s not something to use like that. You shouldn’t even try.”

He froze where he was. Lila was right. He had no right to expect her to act like a trained seal, performing on command. What had he been thinking?

Bowing his head, he mumbled an apology and stalked toward the back door.

Outside, he headed across the frostbitten grass toward his truck. Before he reached it, the sound of footfalls made him pause.

“Bear.”

Lila.

She ran across the grass, graceful even in her rubber boots and tight purple felted wool skirt—a Martha creation, the kind she only bestowed on her favorite people.

“I’m sorry, Bear. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”

“No need to apologize. I was wrong.”

She stopped before him, catching her breath. “All you did was ask. You didn’t push me. It’s just me. I don’t know how to handle other people knowing. With my friends it’s one thing. With you…I’m just afraid.”

He frowned at her. “Afraid?”

“You might think I’m a freak, or a witch, or just too strange to keep around.”

His jaw tightened at the idea that he would think any of those things. “No,” he said simply. “I don’t.”

“But you might. After the novelty wears off and you really start to think about it…” She twisted her hands together. “It’s fine. I don’t expect everyone to understand. I don’t expect anyone to, that’s why I learned not to tell people. However you feel is how you feel. I’m just…I’m just not used to someone knowing.” She trailed off, her gaze lowering, as if whatever impulse had sent her running after him was fading away.

He couldn’t stand to see her hang her head like that. She should feel proud and never ashamed, not for a second.

Stepping closer to her, he put his hand under her chin and gently lifted her face. “I shouldn’t have tried to use your ability. It’s yours. It belongs to you, and how you use it is your decision. I’m glad you told me because now I know you better. It doesn’t freak me out, it doesn’t make me think you’re weird. Hell, I’m not one to judge anyone. Any day now, you’re going to say, what am I doing out there in the mountains working at a dingy dive bar with a half-mute giant?”

She let out a burble of laughter, a sheen of tears softening her deep purple eyes. “You aren’t acting half-mute right now.”

“Sometimes I have things to say. I like having you here. You could turn into a green mini-Shrek and I’d still like it. Got it?”

She nodded. She seemed mesmerized by him, unable to tear her gaze away.

“Another thing. If I overstep or say something that hits you wrong, don’t be afraid to tell me. You don’t have to watch your words. You don’t have to run after me and apologize. This is new to me, too.”

“What is?” Her question was so soft he had to bend to hear it. “What’s new?”

“You. You’re new to me.” He couldn’t explain it any better. Lila rewrote the rules. She changed the game. She changed everything.

And then she changed things even more. She went up on tiptoes, set her hands on his shoulders and tilted her face toward his. Riveted by the look in her eyes, he barely knew what was happening, barely knew he was bending toward her, until her lips were soft and warm under his.

And then he couldn’t get enough.

The kiss pulled them into a wild rush of tumbling emotion and sensation. At first he fought to keep his head above water—Danger! Rocks!—but then he gave in because the current was irresistible and it was taking him somewhere beautiful, somewhere he’d wanted to go for so long, maybe ever since she’d first walked into the bar.

Her kiss was electrifying, like the first time he’d ever seen the sun burst through a storm cloud. Fresh, like the first raspberry of the season. A little spicy and unexpected, a brush of teeth against his lip, a hot sigh mingling with his breath.

She dropped back down off her tiptoes. Her eyes were wide and dark, the purple drowned out by the black of her pupils. “I’m sorry. That was very impulsive. I…I shouldn’t have done that.” And she fled back into the bar.