Page 233 of Entangled

I glance back down at Eden. She’s staring up at me with wide, nervous eyes.

“Something to say?” I ask, settling her closer against me.

“No,” she says quickly.

Too quickly.

I raise a dry brow. “Uh-huh.” When she keeps staring at me, I snort. “Okay, pet, come with me.”

Arm around her waist, I help her over to the tree where I left my bag. She sits down under the roots as I kneel and flip it open, pushing past the first aid kit and whistle to get to the water bottle.

She takes it and sips the water without complaint, staring up at the candles. There’s a raw kind of beauty about the tree this way, burned and stark and slowly healing, lit with a hazy glow.

“Did you light one?” she asks softly. “Is that too personal to ask?”

I sit beside her, looking up at the reminders of our dead.

“I lit one for my parents.” It seemed only right. We weren’t close—they were distant, job-driven people—but I still loved them. “And I lit one for the Bennetts.”

Eden’s head rolls sideways to look at me. “For Beau’s family?”

I give her bottle a stern look, and she huffs, smiling. When she takes another drink, I look back up at the candle I lit for them.

“They were great. His dad was a crafty old ass. He quoted the Bible too much, but he had a soft heart. Brought Beau a pride flag when he turned eighteen along with a whole speech about how he’d support our lifestyle, how happy he was that Beau found a man like me.” I snort. “I let Beau figure out how to explain that one to him, but it was cute.”

Eden laughs softly, nestling in closer. She rests her chin on my shoulder.

“Mama Bennett’s pies were a slice of heaven. She used to bring them every time we got back from a deployment—spoiled the whole squad.” I smile, remembering. “His sisters were menaces. Beth almost blew up their town marrying Coby Colson—the Colsons and the Bennetts had rival ranches, you see. Then there was Brooke, she was the business head. She got her peach farm up and running and turning a profit in just a few years. And Bailey. Man, Bailey was trouble. Beau and I tried to keep her out of it, but we didn’t know half of what she got up to. The half we did know was enough to curl my damn hair. She was sweet, though.”

They were almost at the center of the first strikes. They would have been dead before they even knew what happened.

Beau doesn’t bring them up often—he grieved them hard and talking about them is like taking a bullet spray to the gut. But it’s also nice. They were good people. They should be remembered.

I twist my neck to look down at Eden, who blinks at me with gentle compassion.

“Did you light any?” I ask.

I don’t know when I started getting curious about her—about her opinions, who she misses, what keeps her up at night—but I can’t turn it off. I don’t even want to anymore.

“One,” she whispers, and her eyes unfocus like a rippling pond. “I lit it for the women Sam has captive. I don’t... I don’t want to forget them.”

Her regal features turn haunted, and grim understanding adds another weight around my shoulders. It doesn’t surprise me that Eden thinks about them. She almostwasthem.

The thought sits like a pile of rancid shit.

“We won’t,” I promise. “It won’t be easy, Eden, not with the amount of men he has—especially not with Alastair and Mateo backing him up—but if we’re ever in a position to try, I swear we’ll get them out.”

Eden flinches, ducking her head, and the acid in my gut etches away at me further. It’s not enough. Not for her, and not for the women kept at the Den.

But this isn’t a problem I can fix. Not right now.

Instead, I shift so I can put my arm around her shoulders, and her head flops onto my chest. Slowly, the tight, worn expression on her face eases.

She yawns like a tired kitten, and her eyes start to wander.

“Pretty shirt.” She nestles her cheek against me. “Soft.”

My heart does strange, unsteady things as I watch her. If she can hear it, she doesn’t let on. I let my fingers sink into the soft ends of her hair. She sighs at the gentle tugs, and the unselfconscious sound cuts me off at the knees.

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