Page 147 of Snowbound Threat

“You made coffee?”

“I’m not ready to step away yet,” I tell her. “There’s something I’m missing, and I need to find it.”

“Don’t you need sleep, too?”

“Not my first all-nighter,” I reply with a half-smile as I turn and head back inside. I close the door behind her, and she shrugs out of the blanket, laying it on the back of the couch as she does.

“Same. And that power nap was amazing.” Beckett retrieves the notebook and her empty mug, then joins me in the kitchen as I pour both of us cups of fresh coffee. “I was going over everything I remember, and there wasn’t anything that seemed off.” Her frustration is evident in her expression and the sharpness of her voice. “This is why I stopped looking before. Even though I knew there had to be more to the story, I kept hitting roadblocks. And now I’ve dragged you down with me.” She looks up at me. “I’m sorry, Shawn.”

“Hey, I jumped in all by myself,” I say, hoping to alleviate some of the guilt I see she’s carrying on my behalf. “And we’ve only been looking into this for a day. Give it some time. I’ve got a friend trying to narrow down where that photo was taken, and as soon as she gets back to me, we’ll have another lead to follow.”

“Yeah?” she asks, hopeful.

“Yeah,” I repeat. “She’s good, too. Finding places is her job.” And because I can’t help myself, I reach out and brush some of the hair from her shoulder. When she stiffens beneath my touch, I withdraw my hand. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She smiles then takes a drink of her coffee. “So, your mom is great. I didn’t get the chance to tell you that earlier. But, she really is.”

“She is,” I agree with a smile.

Beckett chews on her bottom lip for a moment. “It must have been hard. When she was sick. Is that when she stayed with you?”

She’s fishing for information. Trying to understand me better. So, the question I’m facing now is—do I let her in?

Might as well.“She was diagnosed two years ago.” I take a deep breath. “The afternoon of our date, actually.”

Beckett’s eyes widen. “Are you serious?”

Nodding, I cross my arms. “Yeah. I got the call about an hour before I met you at the restaurant.”

The horror is evident on her face as she likely pieces everything together. “Then why didn’t you cancel on me?”

“The truth?” I run a hand over the back of my hair. “I liked you, and I needed the distraction to keep me from spiraling. I lost my dad when I was nine, so my mom is all I have.”

“Shawn.”

“Looking back, I should have cancelled, but in the moment, I wasn’t really thinking clearly. I just knew I didn’t want to be home, and I couldn’t face her when all she was trying to do was makemefeel better.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“If I had?”

“I would have understood why you were so distracted. We could have talked through it.”

She would have, too. Beckett Wallace would have held my hand and talked me through everything. Even though, up until that point, we’d only had tension between us.

“You barely knew me. And the interactions we’d had up until that point weren’t exactly great,” I remind her.

She laughs. “It was a bit combative, that’s for sure. But—” She trails off. “There was something there, wasn’t there?”

“Yeah,” I reply. “There was.”Is.

I stare back at her, trying to think clearly when all I want to do is pull her in and wrap my arms around her. This connection I feel makes absolutely no sense. But it’s there. Explainable or not.

Beckett isn’t just under my skin.

She’s in my blood.

Tattooed on my brain.