Page 38 of Not This Night

He paused for a beat before answering. "Good... Yeah," he said with conviction. "I don’t have much to compare to. Asking me if having a big family is good is like asking..." he trailed off, searching for an analogy.

"A fish if water is wet," Rachel supplied, the barest hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

Ethan laughed again, this time louder and more genuine. "Exactly!" he agreed.

Rachel nodded, turning her gaze back to the horizon. The desert was a sea of darkness, with only the star-studded sky providing any semblance of light.

"Sometimes it's tough, though," Ethan added after a moment of comfortable silence. His voice had dropped down to a murmur, barely audible over the soft whistle of wind that whipped around them. "We were always tight on money... and privacy."

"But you wouldn't trade it?" Rachel asked.

A long pause followed before Ethan responded, his tone thoughtful. "No... no, I wouldn't."

“I bet it wasn’t lonely.”

"Yeah," Ethan replied, leaning back against the rail, hands resting loosely by his sides. "A whole tribe of us."

"Must've been... well, it must have been something," Rachel ventured, the words escaping like steam from a pressure valve. She was a lone wolf by nature, but intrigue gnawed at her, a hunger for understanding the pack dynamics that shaped this man beside her—her partner.

"Chaotic. Loud." A smile crept into Ethan's voice, a sound that painted pictures of crowded dinner tables and shared laughter. "But we always stuck together."

"Sounds nice," she admitted, though the concept felt foreign—a language she recognized but had never spoken fluently.

"Sometimes more than others.”

Rachel nodded, absorbing his words, letting them fill the spaces between her own fragmented memories of belonging. She returned her gaze to the darkened landscape, the vastness echoing her thoughts—endless, searching, restless.

Ethan tilted his head to the stars, a map of memories in the endless sky. "We fought like hell," he said, voice gritty with truth. "Small house, big hearts trying to fit in."

"Sounds familiar," Rachel muttered, though her battles had been solitary.

"Mom kept faith at the center," Ethan continued. "Prayers before dawn, grace at every meal. It was our compass, you know? When everything else went sideways."

"Guidance?" she asked, the word unfamiliar on her tongue.

"Exactly." He turned, eyes finding hers in the half-light. "There's strength in believing... in something greater."

She nodded, and she wasn’t sure when she did it. But her hand slid over the terrace’s cool railing, closing the gap between them.

Skin met skin. His warmth seeped into her, an unexpected comfort against the chill of desert night air. Ethan's fingers curled around hers, a firm but gentle clasp. In that simple touch, Rachel felt the unspoken pledge of solidarity. The subtle shift of his thumb, a rhythmic caress against her knuckles, spoke volumes—words unnecessary, a language all its own.

The divide between their terraces was nothing more than a line drawn in concrete; it had no bearing on the space they now shared emotionally. With a steadiness she rarely afforded herself, Rachel leaned into that unseen boundary, her movements deliberate, bridging the scant inches until her head found the broad support of Ethan's shoulder.

His body angled just so, accommodating her without a word, as if he'd been expecting her. The solidness of him under her cheek was grounding, more reassuring than any bulletproof vest or backup call. It was human warmth, human connection, something she didn't know she craved until this very moment.

Ethan's breath was steady, a quiet counterpoint to the distant whisper of the night. Rachel let out a slow exhale, allowing the tension woven through her muscles to unravel, strand by strand. Here, in this fragment of time, supported by the man beside her, she could allow herself this respite, a temporary shelter from the relentless drive that fueled her days and haunted her nights.

As she settled more firmly against him, a blanket of silence draped over them, a shared solace in the midst of chaos. And for once, Rachel wasn't alone with the weight of the world on her shoulders.

But tomorrow… tomorrow, they needed a break in the case.

Someone had to know something about Miguel Ortiz and Lucy Thompson.

Three of their friends were dead.

For all she knew, they were next.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

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