Page 46 of Judgment Day

It was like digging up a time capsule. Something I thought had been buried was suddenly very real and very present. Inescapable fragments of a time I should have wanted to forget. But how did you just forget four years of your life?

My heart cinched in a tight knot of longing and hopelessness.

“Hello, Lyric.” Grey’s voice took me out of my head and dropped me in the now. His smooth accent danced across my name. A confident timbre wrapped around his words. Sheer masculinity drenched a simplehello.

I swallowed, then peered over my shoulder to where he stood with his back against the glass door. He seemed taller now. His presence more demanding, if that was possible.

“Hi.”

Lucifer’s head popped up, but he didn’t move.

Grey pushed off the cedar planks and walked closer. “Lincoln showed the girls to their rooms. Leo said something about cooking. Roasted chicken and potatoes, I think.”

He made it sound like they’d been here for hours. I never heard them pull up.

“We just got here,” he said, answering my unspoken thoughts.

“Leo cooks?”

“I wouldn’t trust it.” He smiled, and my stomach fluttered. “But Lincoln is with him.” He sat in the rocking chair next to me. They were big, cedar chairs made of thick, heavy wood. I’d always thought they were impressive. He made them look plain. “You’re free to go join them.”

I didn’t miss the careful way he chose his words or the tone he said them in. I was free. Everything I did from here on out was my choice.

So many questions lingered between us. Emotions were still there, stirring and unsettled. Fear didn’t hold us back. Grey didn’t shy away from conflict. Neither did I.

Now, here we were, alone, with only the trees as witnesses, and time was no longer our enemy.

“Can I ask you something?”

He smirked. “Does it matter if I say no? You’re going to ask, anyway.”

Ass.

“That day, after Tatum and Caspian’s wedding, when Lincoln took off with me in the boat—you didn’t come after us. You had to have known he’d go back to their house. Or to the airport at the very least. But you never came. You just let me go.”

His expression hardened. “And the question?”

“Why?”

I shouldn’t have cared why he didn’t come. It shouldn’t have bothered me that he’d stopped Mrs. McTavish from running to the end of the pier that day as if he’dwantedme to disappear. Yet here I was, my pulse soaring while I waited for his answer.

“Do you remember when I gave you the phone for your birthday?”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t giving you memories, sweet girl. I was giving you hope.”Sweet girl.He said it like I was a treasure, something to be cherished. His steel-blue eyes locked with mine. “It was never my intention to keep you from Lincoln, not forever, anyway. I only needed to save you fromthem.”Why did his words make my heart pinch?“But I needed time. The moment I decided to bring you to that island, I knew you’d never come back home.” His jaw tightened as though he’d caught his slip. “To my home, I mean.”

He was wrong. I’d made it my home, too. And I missed it sometimes.

“You knew he was going to take me?” My voice was quiet, unrecognizable.

“Yes. I didn’t know how. Or when,” he said casually. “Because I didn’t know Lincoln. But I knewyou. And I know the crippling blow of losing you once. No man in his right mind would let you go a second time.” Conviction etched his handsome features and spilled out of his words. “Not without a fight, at least.”

Lucifer got up, slowly, stretching his legs as he rose. He walked over to Grey, stopping in front of his chair. My heart raced as he stood there, meeting Grey’s careful stare. And then he sat. As if he’d known Grey for years.

I smiled. “I think he likes you.” Lucifer was good with the girls who came, cautious and gentle. Like he knew. But he was a guard dog, bred to protect, and Grey was a stranger in his home.

“I think he’s trying to figure out if I bite back.”

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