Page 34 of Song Bird Hearts (Green River Hearts #4)

Valerie

T he fire crackles low in the hearth, casting amber light across the wooden beams of the main room.

I sit on the floor, my back against the couch, as Kevin lies curled up like a meatloaf beside me.

He’s snoring faintly, and every now and then, he kicks in his sleep and oinks quietly.

I’m nursing a whiskey—two fingers, neat—and trying not to think about the way Wolf’s absence feels like a crack in the floor beneath me.

Gilden sits on the arm of the couch, his legs splayed as he rests his elbow on his knee. His shirt is wrinkled, more than usual, and he’d forgone shoes entirely, his loafers abandoned by the door. It’s the most casual I think I’ve ever seen him, but he’s not relaxed. Not really.

Knox stands at the far end of the room, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed. His jaw is tight as he watches the fire like he wants to fight it. Of all of us, he has the most right to say, “I told you so,” but he doesn’t. God help me, he doesn’t.

I swallow. “I don’t know what to do.”

Gilden’s eyes soften on me. “You don’t gotta know, cher . That’s the trick.”

I turn my glass in my hands. “That’s not comforting.”

“Ain’t meant to be,” he replies with a small smile. “It’s just the truth. You can’t logic your way through this one. You just gotta trust your heart.”

I raise a brow. “That thing’s a damn mess. It got us into this trouble.”

“Even so. Mess or not, it still knows what it wants.” Gilden shrugs, then leans in, his voice gentler. “You still love him.”

I hesitate. “I. . . wasn’t even aware I did until he’d admitted everything. Even now, it makes sense though. In the way everything else makes sense. Like I knew it before I knew it and I just never looked too closely at it.”

Knox scoffs from across the room. “I think we should kill him the next time he shows his face.”

I look at him, my heart pinching. “Knox?—”

He holds up a hand. “I said I think. Not that I will.” He looks away, jaw clenched, then exhales through his nose and drops into the chair across from me.

“You want the truth? If it were me, I’d have done the same thing.

Lie, play it close to the vest, make sure there were no loose ends.

And I wouldn’t have told you unless I had to.

I just. . . wouldn’t have let myself get attached if there was some other motivation. ”

“But you are,” I say softly.

Knox’s mouth twitches. “Yeah. I am.”

Silence settles between us. It isn’t cold, but it also isn’t easy.

“I don’t trust him,” Knox says after a heartbeat. “Not yet. It depends on what he brings back, if that changes. If he brings back something worth a damn. . . maybe I’ll forgive him. But that’s not a promise.”

I nod. “That’s fair.”

Gilden’s voice cuts in, quieter now. “You’ve already forgiven him though, huh, mon rossignol ?”

I look down into my glass, the firelight dancing in the amber. “Yeah,” I whisper. “I think I have.”

We were quiet after that. Just the sound of the mountain wind outside and the soft pop of burning logs breaks the silence.

Knox leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he looks at me. Gilden slides off the arm of the couch and stretches out beside Kevin.

I just lean my head back against the couch cushions, caught between them. My heart aches in every direction.

But for the first time in years. . .

. . . I feel anything but alone.