By the time I finish typing up my notes, the sun has set and the nighttime cleaning crew is shuffling into the building. The fluorescent lights hum overhead, casting everything in that too-bright glow that makes it clear I've overstayed my welcome. Besides the whirr of a vacuum, the office is silent, empty.

My body aches from sitting all day. I grab my bag and head out into the parking lot, bracing for the chill. Despite the summer time, the air has cooled in that sudden, high-elevation way that makes the night smells sharp and dry. The taste of distant trees and cold asphalt in each breath helps settle me a little, but the sugar rush and laughter has long faded and I'm back to feeling that edge of restlessness. My car is one of the few left. I slide into the driver's seat, start the quiet hum of the engine, and just sit there for a moment.

I miss my mom.

Not in the way I usually miss her, but I wish I could ask her if this is how she felt. Is there some sort of genetic itchy soul disease that runs through us? Was this the way she felt when she'd pour through her Thomas Guide? When she'd pack up all our things? Because the thought of peeling out of the lot and driving down an endless stretch of mountain highway is so tempting that it almost hurts. I want to escape, at least until the panic in my chest stops trying to claw its way out.

Instead, I back out slowly, headlights slicing through the dark. As I ease onto the road, pushing away the desire to run, my brain replays everything from the past week. Hughes' condescension, Andy's smirks, the paranoia I've been pretending not to feel. All the way up to laughing in my office. To thinking about Beau.

Was it only two weeks ago that I'd stayed over at his place? It feels like a dream. The flirting, the casual touches... he'd chased me down in a parking lot, let me stay at his place. I get being a good guy, but I know there was something between us. There had to be. But it feels so long ago that I'm getting all the details mixed up. Maybe it was all a manipulation to try to get some insight on how to fight against Crestline. Or worse, maybe it started as a flirtation but after an afternoon with me, Beau lost all interest.

The tethered string at my chest gives an unhappy tug.

I've always been the one to end my relationships early. Get out before you get attached. It was better that way, what with my mom always uprooting us. As a kid, I'd first tried to keep in touch with my friends, then with my crushes... but my pen pals lost interest, moved on with their lives. And so I'd stopped setting myself up to be disappointed.

Because I hate this feeling. This irritating pining that won't leave me alone. I don't want to worry about needing someone else.

A carefully detached fling was easier. Safer.

The road isn't empty as I make my way home, but there aren't too many cars out now that the sun has gone down. Familiar turns and stretches of trees blur past, and my mind is still caught on Beau. On how his voice was careful, almost tender, with my name. On how easy it was to lean into his warmth... On how quickly he'd shifted into cool detachment.

I sigh and glance in the rearview mirror.

Headlights. The annoyingly bright LED ones.

And another set behind them.

I try to ignore the sudden sharp fear in my throat and tell myself that I'm just exhausted. Overworked. Seeing monsters where none exist. But every time I check, they're still there. And they've been behind me for a while now. Same turns. Same pace.

They're distant. Just enough space between the two vehicles to not feel suspicious—except, I know this road. Most people prefer the main roads that go through downtown, that follow the highway.

My pulse quickens. It's probably nothing. It's probably just another tired worker drone heading home after work. Probably someone who lives near me. Someone who likes to skip traffic with the same semi-shortcuts that I use.

Still, I haven't spent all week drowning in paranoia to just ignore it. I take a right instead of the usual left.

The headlights follow.

Okay.

I take another right.

Another.

The headlights follow.

My brain buzzes with adrenaline, caught between wanting to slow down to see who might be following me and demanding that I gun the motor. Between booking it home and locking the door and trying to shake them off at a police station or something. Fuck. I don't know where the nearest station even is. Do I even call 911 in situation like this? I'm sure the operator will tell me that I'm being ridiculous, because I am.

But what if it is Crestline? What if they're trying to intimidate me? Or silence me? What if that "strange" phone call Hughes had was him revealing that I'd seen wolves? How far was this company willing to go to protect their shareholders? Their bottom line?

The rational sliver of my mind that's still functioning insists that this is not how corporations work. Not outside of thriller novels and TV shows. But that sliver can't hold a candle to the panicked inferno of sleep-deprived, anxiety-ridden brain.

I try to find some sort of center by exhaling slowly, gripping the wheel tight. Fine. If they want to follow me, they can follow me. They can't scare me off the road like some horror movie bombshell who trips in the woods and dies in the first ten minutes.

Eyes flickering between the road and my phone, I type in 9-1-1 as I ease the car toward home. If it is Crestline, they already know where I live. And I'd rather be on my own territory than some random dark neighborhood.

The two vehicles—dark-colored SUVs—follow at the same pace.

The streets narrow near my apartment complex. I recognize the cracked road, the dented mailboxes out front, the little homes and storefronts that have all had updated facades in the last five years to match the rest of the "luxurious western" vibe the city is going for. I slow down to make the final turn and catch a glimpse of the headlights behind me. Still there.

My thumb hovers over the call button as pull into my space.

With my attention fixed on the rearview mirror, I almost missed that there's someone standing near the curb.

Tall. Hands in his pockets. Familiar.

Beau.

He's just... there.

Casual as anything, in jeans and that flannel he'd let me borrow. He's lit with an uneven light that makes the gold in his hair gleam, like the scene out of a dream. His stormy gray eyes, dark, meet mine for a flicker of a second and I wonder if I am dreaming. Or maybe this is all a nightmare.

The two SUVs slow for a moment, and I whip my attention back to my phone, ready to call the cops.

Then they leave.

Not fast. Not dramatic. Just a smooth U-turn, then another.

I sit frozen behind the wheel, phone clenched in my hand. Realizing too late that I should have written down their license plate numbers or something, like a good witness. But I'm not a good witness, I realize. I'm shaking.

Beau walks up to my car and taps on the window, peering in like it's completely normal that he's standing outside my apartment. Like his presence didn't just scare off whatever the hell that was.

With trembling hands, I kill the engine and force myself from the sanctuary of the car.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" My voice is acid.

His brows lift, but not really in surprise. There's nothing but an infuriating understanding in those dark eyes. "You okay?"

"Don't I look okay?"

His eyes flick toward the retreating taillights. "They were following you?

I don't answer. I can't. My throat is tight, like I want to cry or scream or both. And I don't understand why Beau is here, because it's impossible. So I just stand there, angry and afraid and so fucking tired.

Beau exhales, leaning in, but doesn't touch me. "Let's get you inside, okay?"

I nod—because what else can I do?—and fumble with my keys. He follows me at a safe distance, still occasionally looking over his shoulder at the road. With a sigh, Beau watches my useless fingers struggle with the lock and takes over.

Inside the apartment, the air feels too quiet. Like the silence is waiting. Only, I'm not on my usual game. I'm not ready to crack this perfect, easy stillness into the truth.

Beau follows me in as I flip on lights, but he doesn't remove his shoes like I do. He hovers near the door, like he's not sure if he's staying. He looks too big, too wild to be in my neat, little apartment with the white shaker cabinets and the polished wood floor and the little couches and pillows I've been rearranging every week since I met him.

I toss my bag on the counter and turn to face him. "I think they were from Crestline."

Beau frowns. "The people in the cars?"

I nod slowly. "I think they know I've—" I pause to swallow. "That I've been helping you. Marcus. I mentioned the wolf to by boss, and—"

"Listen. I don't want you helping anymore, Rhea."

His voice is firm, edged with a steel that makes my bones shiver. And I try to remember when I heard him speak like this before: when his tone made me want to curl into a tiny ball. Today, however, it makes me want to cry. Since the stupid town hall where we met, I've felt like I'm living on a fault line, like my careful world is completely unrooted. My composure, my control... everything is crumbling and Beau Forrester can't even be nice about it? It hits like a sucker punch.

I rub the heel of my hand across my cheek.

Beau softens immediately.

"Shit," he mutters, running a hand through his hair. "Don't... don't do that."

"Don't do what?" My voice is heroically steady. "Be upset? Be scared? Be confused because two SUVs just stalked me through half the city and now you're standing here like a guard dog who won't even explain why you showed up? I think it'd be better if you left."

Beau doesn't flinch, but his jaw clenches down like he's grinding the words he wants to say into dust. "Don't push me away."

I snort with derisive, horrible, angry humor and it cracks with the threat of a sob.

Something in his face shifts. There's a crack in that solid, unreadable distance he's been holding between us since the bonfire. And then—before I can tell him to get out of my house—he moves. He's kicking off his boots, locking the door behind him. He's moving without urgency, but with a calm, graceful certainty. Like this was always going to happen. Like he's made peace with it.

His arms go around me.

Heat. That's the first thing that registers. Not just the heat of his skin, but a heady warmth that seeps into me. Despite feeling overheated all week, this feeling soaks into me and eases that too-tight feeling of my skin. I lean into him before I can convince myself not to.

The silence in the apartment stretches on, but it's not tense, it's not waiting. It's just quiet.

"I don't know what's happening to me," I whisper into his chest. My voice is horrifyingly small.

Beau's hand rests on my low back, rubbing tiny circles there. He pauses for a moment, just holding me before his mouth goes to the top of my head and I can feel his lips against my hair. "What do you mean?"

"I can't sleep. I can't think. Everything feels wrong all the time. My work is suffering. I've been—" I laugh weakly as tears threaten to crush through my weak control. "I've been dragging around my furniture like a lunatic. I've been jumpy and paranoid and—and now I'm crying in my kitchen because you showed up to scare off some stalkers after making it clear that you don't want anything to do with me."

The words—and, embarrassingly, tears—tumble out of me before I can stopper them. If my display of emotion bothers Beau, he doesn't show it. He only holds me a little tighter. As he does, it gets a little easier to breath. The tugging in my chest loosens. I feel the shivery panic bleed into a gentler exhaustion.

"It's going to be okay," he murmurs. "I'm not going to leave. I'm not going to walk away while you're like this."

I take a steading breath, grasping for the torn threads of my composure. I know I look a wreck. I'm not a pretty cryer. I pull back to look up at the wilderness god that looks like he's just stepped out of a magazine ad. "Like what? A mess?"

His thumb rough against my skin, Beau wipes a tear from my cheek. A flicker of something wild passes through his storm cloud eyes. "Raw."

I flinch, trying to put a little more distance between us, but he doesn't let me. "I don't need you to stay."

Beau makes a vague grunt of disagreement as he pulls me over to my couch and throws a blanket over my shoulders. The loss of his touch is like an immediate withdrawal that both lets me clear my head and makes me tremulous for the next fix.

"Seriously, Beau, what are you even doing here?"

The giant mountain man is in my kitchen, going through cabinets until he finds the glasses so he can pour water for me. He notices the stack of take out menus on my counter and picks up a few at random to bring over. If he heard my question, he's ignoring it. Instead, he's pulling another blanket over me, forcing water into my hands.

"Let's get some food into you and then we can talk," he says softly. Before he joins me back on the couch, Beau turns off the majority of the lights, casting the room with only the faintest of warm light from the silly pink salt lamp my mom had given me for my twenty-third birthday.

I had flipped on all the lights because I thought it would banish any monsters hiding in the darkness, but the world Beau's making for me—soft and dark and warm—feels so much safer.

For the first time in weeks, I feel like I might be able to sleep without tossing and turning for a few hours first. Beau sits beside me and then pulls my legs into his lap and his hands find my calves, my feet. I think he asks about what I want to eat, but I'm already asleep.