Page 36 of The Lovely and the Lost

“Penelope’s on my side,” Gabriel was saying, his voice low.

Bales gave Gabriel a hard look. “Which is exactly why she called me to tell me where you’d been.”

“She would have married my brother, if things had turned out differently. I doubt she’s going to go opening her mouth to the sheriff.”

I froze, all too aware of the sound of my own breathing.What won’t she open her mouth about? What don’t you want the sheriff to know?

Silver stayed by Cady’s father’s side for a moment longer, then began making her way to me. There was enough brush between the shack and my position that I wouldn’t be easy to spot, but Bales and Gabriel were as familiar with the outdoors as I was.

I considered retreating, but my body refused to move.

“You’re eighteen, Gabriel. Not a juvenile—not anymore.”

Gabriel’s head was bowed, but I knew, even from a distance, that it wasn’t a gesture of submission.

“It won’t happen again,” he said.

“Are you lying to me, or to yourself?”

Silver butted my hand with her head. I curled my fingers silently into her fur, warm and steady beneath my touch.

“You’re one to talk about lying,” Gabriel muttered. “Have you told her yet? Your daughter?”

Silver chose that moment to lie down beside me. A twig snapped beneath her. Bales turned toward the forest. I pressed my body to the ground. Bales Bennett’s eyes never found mine, but I couldn’t shake the feeling, as he turned back to Gabriel, that the old man knew I was there.

That feeling was confirmed when Gabriel took refuge inside the shack, and Bales let out a low whistle. Silver padded toward him, and he bent down to her level. “Care to show me what you found?” he murmured.

I could have run, could have melted into the forest, but I didn’t.

“I ought to say a thing or two about eavesdroppers.” Bales came to stand in front of me, as Silver resumed her position at my side. His boots were flecked with mud. “But I’m guessing you were out here first, so maybe I should apologize for intruding on your quiet instead.”

I wondered how different his tone would be if he knew that this wasn’t the first time I’d listened in on one of his conversations.

“I saw Gabriel today. At the library.” My mouth went dry around those words.

Bales settled down beside me, his back up against the tree trunk, same as mine. “And what were you doing at the library?”

He’d left space between us—enough that I could breathe and enough that not a single muscle in my neck tightened at the question.

Asking the librarian to give us copies of police reports. I wasn’t about to offer up that explanation, so instead, I held out the book.

Bales raised an eyebrow. “And the supply store?” he asked. I must have looked surprised, because he elaborated. “Small town.”

“Cady never said we couldn’t explore.”

The edges of the old man’s lips curved ever so slightly. “DidIsay you couldn’t?”

He hadn’t. Nothing he’d said to me so far had sounded even remotely like an order.

“If you take after my daughter as much as I think you do, I’d be a fool to try to tell you what you can and cannot do.”

If anyone else had said those words, I would have sat there in silence, but I could see Cady in her father as easily as he could see her in me.

“Are you?” I asked him. “A fool?”

Bales chuckled and studied the backs of his hands, the skin worn by age and exposure. “I can be, when it’s worth the cost.”

I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that.