Alex woke slowly, awareness returning in pieces rather than all at once.
The warmth beneath the blankets held her in place longer than she intended. They were heavy and comfortable against the cool quiet settled across the room beyond them. Pale morning light filtered through towering windows and stretched long shadows across exposed beams overhead.
For several moments, she simply lay there staring upward, listening to the faint whisper of wind moving beyond the glass and the distant sounds of Blackthorn slowly waking around her.
Then memory returned of the terrace and the storm. Callan standing beside her beneath dark skies and cold rain, looking at her with that quiet intensity she had spent weeks trying, and failing, to ignore.
I think Margaret knew before we did.
She closed her ey
