I’m relishing in the calmness and quiet as I swim length after length, no one joining me, no one venturing in to use the Jacuzzis, and no one coming to relax on a sun lounger. But then I hear movement, and I stop mid-length to see who has arrived. My eyes flick to the entrance of the changing area, and then Jesse emerges, wearing a loose pair of black swimming shorts. I sigh in appreciation, and he blasts me with his smile, before diving straight in, his body stretching out, making minimal noise or splash as he slips below the surface. I float in the middle of the pool and watch the shadow of his tall body approaching me under water until he’s right in front of me, but he remains submerged.

Then I feel his palm wrap around my ankle, and I squeal as I’m yanked under the water, just catching a lungful of air before I disappear, my eyes naturally clenching shut. His lips meet mine, his arms surrounding me, and he rolls us around under the water, our skin slipping all over each other, our tongues dancing wildly.

This is nice, but I’m rubbish at holding my breath, and he must be gasping for air, having been down here a lot longer than me. I pinch him to indicate my depleting breath, and my lungs scream a thank you when we surface, my legs clenching around his waist and my arms around his shoulders. I try to grab a hold of my bearings and attempt to open my eyes, and when I do, I’m greeted by a dirty great big grin. I know he can’t touch the bottom himself, so he must me treading water frantically with my dead weight clinging to him. You would never know it, though. He looks like he’s just floating effortlessly in front of me.

I push his wet hair from his face and match his grin. ‘You closed the pool, didn’t you?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He shifts me around to his back and starts swimming to the side. ‘It’s never busy at this time of day.’

‘I don’t believe you.’ I rest my chin on his shoulder. ‘You couldn’t stand the thought of me in a bikini and others seeing it. Admit I’m right.’ I’ve got my Lord worked out.

He reaches the edge of the pool and pulls me from his back, pushing me up against the side. ‘I love the thought of you in a bikini.’

‘But for your eyes only?’

‘I’ve told you before, Ava. I don’t share you with anyone or anything, not even their eyes,’ He slides his hands down my sides and onto my thighs. ‘Just for my touch,’ he whispers. It makes me immediately clench my thighs as he leans in and kisses me gently before scanning my face. ‘Just for my eyes.’ His finger slips into the side of my bikini bottoms, and I hold my breath as he strokes me softly. ‘Just for my pleasure, baby. I know you understand me, don’t you?’

‘I do,’ I shift in front of him and drape my arms over his shoulders.

‘Good. Kiss me.’

I dive right in and show my appreciation with a long, hot, passionate kiss that draws a low moan from each of us. His hands shift to my waist, his big palms circling me completely as he holds me tight, and we kiss for the longest time – there in the middle of the pool, just me and him, drowning in each other, consuming each other, loving each other.

p. 64, last paragraph

Broussard did not like other people interpreting murder scenes for him before he saw them himself. But he always had to weigh that dislike against the relative inconvenience of the time the call came in and the judgment of the detective working the case. Life was too short to throw on your clothes in the middle of the night and dash off to a run-of-the-mill murder that presented no unique or puzzling features. True, he hadn’t eaten yet, but he was already dressed. And if Gatlin wanted him, that was good enough.

“Where are you?”

He jotted the address down on the little spiral pad he kept taped to the counter.

“I’m on my way.”

He tore the page out of the pad, stuffed it in his shirt pocket, and grabbed his bag, which always sat by the back door. He went into the garage, set the timer for the light at five minutes, and paused for a moment on the top step, admiring the sight before him—six 1957 Thunderbirds, all of them in mint condition.

It was a dazzling display—each a different color, their spotless paint reflecting the garage lights like great jewels. The Russians had Fabergé and his eggs; the English, Grinling Gibbons and his picture frames; the French, Falconet and his bronzes. But the United States had Henry Ford, and Broussard had six examples of his finest work, one for every day of the week . . . well, almost every day. He had long believed that six cars was abundance and that seven would be eccentricity. Still . . . there was room for another.

A few minutes later, he backed out of the garage in the white one and headed for the Mississippi River bridge. For neckwear, Broussard owned only bow ties, mostly because the long kind had a tendency to fall into his work when he bent over. Then, too, there really wasn’t enough clearance between the T-Bird’s steering wheel and his shirt for any extra fabric.

The sun was a cool sphere low in the sky and he reached over and flipped the passenger visor down to keep it out of his eyes. After so many years as ME, he rarely encountered any big surprises, but he still found drama in death and his blood still sang in his veins on his way to a scene. When that was no longer true, he’d retire.

As he turned onto the West Bank Expressway a short while later, his stomach rumbled mightily in protest over his missed breakfast. To calm it, he unbuttoned the flap on his shirt pocket, fished two lemon balls out, and slipped one into each cheek.

All around her, women prayed, their heads bowed and covered. Some stuffed pieces of paper into small cracks and crevices between rocks. Harper Jennings stood at the Western Wall of the Old City in Jerusalem, holding her hand flat against a stone block in the structure. It felt rough, sturdy, solid. Ancient. It had kept its place for over two thousand years, outlasting invaders, empires, cultures, gods. Harper pressed her fingers against it, less interested in the bustling women around her than in the inanimate wall, its past. Who had cut the stone, hauled it, placed it there? And what had it seen—worshipers, warriors, centuries of change? How many other hands had touched it? Millions? Her hand on the stone, Harper felt connected to all of them, a chain of hands and shadows of hands, linked by a rock through ages.

But Harper couldn’t linger; Hagit had the baby, and she didn’t know Hagit very well. Following the practice of the other women, she moved away from the wall without turning her back to it, a sign of respect. When she was sufficiently distant, she looked around and saw Hagit and Chloe, holding hands, waiting for her.

Harper went to them, swept Chloe up, got a joyous squeal.

“Did you put in a prayer?” Hagit nodded at the wall.

“A prayer?”

“In the cracks. Didn’t you see? People put prayers on paper and leave them in the wall.”

“I saw them,” Harper tussled Chloe’s curls. Kissed her warm round cheek.

“I’ll wait.” Hagit held out a pen and scrap of paper. “Go—Put it between the stones. Write down a prayer and leave it there. It’s supposed to be like a—a what do you call it? A mailbox? No–Like Fedex for God.”

Harper laughed.

“Even if you’re not religious, it wouldn’t hurt–”

Kat shifted her wrists in the steel handcuffs. Rough, ancient bark pressed against her cheek, and the damp air intensified the resinous tang of the virgin forest. She’d been here since dawn—long enough to be on a first-name basis with Harvey, the Douglas fir. Which, if she let herself consider for more than a minute at a time, was kind of a weird development for a grown woman who had a respectable career. She’d consider it in more depth later. Right now she had enough on her mind.

A gust of coastal wind snatched her hat, and chilly rain plastered her hair to her scalp and trickled down her neck, making her teeth chatter. Nearby, a group of men wielded wrenches on a logging machine that refused to start. One of her students, the school board superintendent’s son, retrieved the hat and plopped it back on Kat’s head.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered, “they’re not going to get that machine going anytime soon.”

Alarm nibbled the back of her mind like a classroom gerbil gnawing a toilet paper tube.
“There’d better not be a reason you know that.”

He laughed. “I’m just saying.” Then, calling to his friends, he trotted off.

Kat wondered whether she’d still have her job at the end of the day.

The superintendent had made it clear she’d lose it in a blink if the kids did anything more than show up, and Kat had made them promise not to chain themselves to any trees. So far, all they’d done was text the protest’s breaking news to their friends… unless they’d messed with the equipment before she got here this morning. The thought made her stomach feel like she’d eaten fir needles for lunch. She stared up into the dense boughs radiating from Harvey’s trunk high above her.

“You don’t think the kids wrecked that machine, do you, Harv? I mean, they know my career is at stake here.” Harvey only sighed in the wind, branches waving toward the broken-down machine. Yeah, it had Kat a little worried, too.

She flexed her shoulders, stiff from the hours she’d spent shackled to the tree. She wasn’t against logging; she lived in a wood-frame house and used reams of paper. What school principal didn’t? And the logging industry in Mills Creek fed a lot of families.
In the last few hours, she’d had a chance to reevaluate her reasons for chaining herself to this tree. This was about so much more than the environment. It was about standing up for someone who couldn’t stand up for herself. Or in Harvey’s case, himself. It was about choices that had been taken away from her. It was about the fact that sometimes, no matter how wrong you were, you couldn’t undo what you’d done.

Her goal wasn’t to stop the logging, this community’s lifeblood. It was to protect something beautiful and precious. If she could win this one small battle, do this one small good deed, save just this one tree, maybe it would somehow make amends in her heart for what she’d let happen to her family.

A Jeep rattled up the steep gravel road and pulled off on the landing, followed a few seconds later by a police car. Kat’s stomach clenched.

A man exited the passenger door of the Jeep. His footsteps scuffed on the dirt road. Craning her neck, she peered through slanting late-afternoon shadows, making out only his easy gait and the set of his broad shoulders. Had they brought in a negotiator? He leaned into the police car for a minute, then stood, head down, hands on his hips, like a man bearing a heavy burden.

She almost felt sorry for the guy. She might look like a waterlogged rat at the moment, but he had no idea what he was up against. A tiny smirk crept over her mouth.

Now that this block of forest had been opened up to clear-cut logging, Harvey would have to watch while his family was torn away, one by one. She knew how he felt because the same thing had happened to her, until she had just one family member left. And she and Lacey weren’t even on speaking terms at the moment.

She dug her fingers into Harvey’s sturdy bark. “What am I doing talking to trees instead of making things right between Lacey and me?”

Soft footfalls on the carpet of needles behind her.

She straightened as much as she could. The chain connecting the two sets of handcuffs slipped and pulled her down with it until she had to slump against the tree trunk.
“Kat, what are you doing?” He sounded as exhausted as she felt. Sounded… disturbingly familiar.

That voice. Evan. Here? Memories grabbed her heart and sliced through it like the blade of the nearby feller buncher waiting to chop the young trees from their roots—if the loggers could get it running again. She strained her eyes to the left, looking without turning her head.

Evan was watching her, jaw clenched, rainwater slicking his blond hair.

She blinked the water from her eyes.

He was still there.

Not a gorgeous hallucination. A gorgeous reality. Her pulse whumped in her ears.

What was she doing? That was easy—she was running away from her failure to keep her family together. But what was Evan doing?