Chapter 32: The Reckoning
The statement took three days to write. Three days of locked doors, silenced phones, and the glare of the city through thirty floors of glass. They wrote it together at the oak table, passing a laptop back and forth like a live grenade. Cynna drafted with clinical precision, carving away emotion until only the stark architecture of fact remained. Pedro then infused it with a strained, painful humanity—the confusion, the betrayal, the love he insisted on naming.
It was a relief map of their nightmare. The unauthorized treatment. The violation of trust. The manipulation by Dr. Maya Alves. The complicity of Graham Mercer. They named it all. They did not ask for sympathy.They demanded accountability.
They released it at midnight, a digital flare shot into the dark. By six a.m., the screaming hive outside their building had doubled in size.
Pedro stood at the window, a cup of coffee cold in his hand. The crowd was a hydra—for every reporter that left, two more appeared. Camera lenses glinted in the morning sun like a field of malevolent flowers. “They’re not going anywhere.”
Cynna joined him, her robe cinched tight. She looked exhausted, but her eyes were clear. “They will. When the next thing happens. We’re just the current cycle.” She sipped her own coffee.“The studio called. They’re ‘postponing’ pre-production on Liminal. Indefinitely.”
He closed his eyes. The film was supposed to be his next directorial project.A passion piece. Of course. “Okay.”
“My agent says the Vanguard series is ‘under review.’” Her voice was flat. “They’re waiting to see which way the wind blows.”
He turned to her. “Do you care?”
“About their money?No. About my story being told?” She set her jaw. “Yes. I care. You deserve to make Liminal. We can do it- independently.”
He pulled her into him, resting his chin on her head. The silence between them was no longer just heavy; it was charged with the grief of derailed lives. The anger was a slow burn in his gut, mixing with a helpless desperation. He wanted to fix it, to shield her, but the enemy was amorphous—a public opinion, a lost contract, a ghost of a father’s betrayal.
That night, the anger found its outlet.
They were on the floor by the fireplace, a strategy map of legal documents and media reports spread around them like fallen leaves. Cynna was dissecting a particularly vicious op-ed piece, her voice a monotone scalpel.
“...‘a tale of pathological codependency dressed up as a love story.’ The syntax is weak. They’re using ‘pathological’ as a crutch because they lack the vocabulary for nuance…”
Pedro wasn’t hearing the words. He was watching the pulse in her throat, the tight line of her shoulder. He saw the weight of every vicious headline, every whispered speculation, pressing down on her. The need to erase it, to overwhelm the external noise with something primal and theirs, rose in him like a tide.
He reached out and took the printed article from her hands. He didn’t tear it. He simply folded it once, carefully, and set it aside.
“Pedro, I wasn’t—”
He silenced her with a kiss. It wasn’t gentle. It was a claiming. A reset. His tongue pushed into her mouth, insistent, swallowing her gasp. He tasted her surprise, then her immediate, answering hunger. Her analytical brain switched off. Her body took over.
He broke the kiss, breathing harshly. “Get up.”
Her eyes searched his, dark with understanding.She stood. He took her hand and led her away from the documents, away from the strategic ruins of their lives, towards the wall of glass that looked out over the city.
The penthouse was dark, lit only by the ambient glow of the skyline. Their reflection ghosted the window—two pale figures in a cage of light. Beyond the glass, the world watched, or so it felt.
“Turn around,” he said, his voice rough.
She did, facing the city, her back to him. He gathered her hair in one hand, pulling it gently to the side to expose the line of her neck. He kissed the sensitive skin there, feeling her shiver. With his other hand, he untied the belt of her robe, letting it fall open. He pushed it off her shoulders. It pooled at her feet.
She was naked before the vast, glittering grid of the city. He saw the goosebumps rise on her skin, saw the slight tremor in her thighs. Not from cold.From exposure. From the sheer, terrifying freedom of it.
He kicked off his own pants, freeing his cock, already thick and hard. He stepped close behind her, his body aligning with hers. He could feel the heat radiating from her. He pressed his erection against the cleft of her ass.
“They want a show?” he murmured into her ear, his voice a low growl. “Let’s give them one they’ll never forget.”
He spat into his palm, a crude, wet sound in the quiet room. He slicked himself, then reached between her legs. She was already wet, her folds slick and hot. He dragged his fingers through her soaking cunt, gathering her wetness, groaning at the feel of it. He rubbed the head of his cock against her entrance, teasing, not entering.
“Please,” she whispered, her forehead now pressed against the cool glass.
“Please what?”
“Fuck me. Fuck me against the window. Let them see.”
Her words, filthy and defiant, shattered his last thread of control. He gripped her hip with one hand, steadied himself with the other against the glass beside her head. In one smooth, powerful thrust, he buried himself inside her to the hilt.
She cried out, a sharp, choked sound that fogged the window. He was impossibly deep, her tight channel stretching to take all of him. He held there for a second, letting her feel the full, stretching weight of him.
Then he began to move.
He set a relentless, driving pace, pulling back almost all the way before slamming back in. The slap of his skin against hers, the wet, rhythmic sound of their joining, filled the silent room. Her tits pressed against the cold glass, her nipples hardening into tight peaks. Her fingers splayed against the window for purchase, leaving smeared prints in the condensation of her breath.
“You see this?” he grunted, his thrusts becoming harder, more possessive. “This is real. This is mine. This cunt is mine.” The obscenity was a hot bullet in the air.“Not a story. Not a headline. This.”
“Yours,” she gasped, pushing back against him, meeting every thrust. “Only yours. God, Pedro… don’t stop.”
He looked over her shoulder, out at the sea of lights. Somewhere down there, lenses were pointed at their building. He imagined the flashes, the grainy telephoto shots. The thought, instead of shaming him, ignited him. It was a giant, reckless fuck-you. A primal declaration written in the language of sweat and sex.
He changed his angle, driving upward, and found the spot that made her legs buckle. She screamed, a raw, unfiltered sound of pure pleasure.“Right there! Fuck, right there!”
He hammered into that spot, over and over, his own climax coiling tight in his balls. The world narrowed to the feeling of her hot, slick walls clutching his cock, the sound of their ragged breathing, the panoramic view of a city that wanted to consume them.
“I’m gonna come,” he warned, his voice strangled.
“Do it,” she demanded, her body trembling on the edge. “Come inside me. Fill me up. Mark me.”
Her words were the final trigger. With a roar that felt ripped from his chest, he drove in one last, devastating time and erupted. Hot jets of cum pulsed deep into her womb, his release seemingly endless. The convulsive clenching of her own orgasm began around him, milking him dry, her inner muscles fluttering wildly as she cried out, her whole body shuddering against the glass.
They collapsed against the window, a tangled, sweating heap. He stayed inside her, both of them panting, spent. The city glittered, indifferent and beautiful.
Slowly, he slipped out. A trickle of their combined release slid down her inner thigh. He saw it, a stark, biological truth on her skin. He didn’t wipe it away.
They slept on the floor, wrapped in a blanket, away from the glass. In the thin, gray light of dawn, Pedro woke to find Cynna already awake, staring at the ceiling.
“We can’t stay here,” she said quietly.
He knew she didn’t mean the penthouse. “Where?”
“Somewhere they can’t find the windows.” A faint, tired smile touched her lips. “Somewhere without a view.”
He kissed her shoulder. “Okay.”
Later that day, he made two calls. The first was to his assistant, to begin the silent, complex process of disappearing. The second was to a rarely-used number.
It rang four times before a sleepy, confused voice answered. “Pedro? Jesus, it’s five in the morning here.”
“Ethan,” Pedro said, his voice raspy from disuse and emotion. “I need a favor. A big one.”
The line went quiet for a long moment. Pedro could picture Ethan Hawke rubbing his face, waking up, the cogs turning. “Alright,” Ethan finally said, his voice clearing. “You’re at the place with the big windows.”
“Was,” Pedro corrected, his eyes tracking a news helicopter circling distantly. “We’re leaving it.”
“Somewhere without a view.”
“You remembered.”
“I pay attention.” A rustle, the click of a lighter. “What do you need?”
“A perimeter. A quiet one. Somewhere they won’t look.”
“You know I’m in Texas, right? It’s not exactly a fortress of solitude. It’s a house. With a goat.”
“I don’t need a fortress. I need a friend.”
Another pause. This one felt heavier. “This is about that statement. The one with all the lawyers’ words and your signature underneath.”
“Yes.”
“And the girl? The writer?”
“Cynna. She’s here.”
Ethan exhaled, a long, smoky sigh. “Okay. Tell me the plan you don’t have.”
Pedro did. It was nebulous, half-formed, built on the desperate assumption that distance equaled safety. Ethan listened without interruption. When Pedro finished, the silence stretched.
“You’re asking me to be a port in a shitstorm,” Ethan said.
“I am.”
“The press finds out, they’ll be in my mesquite trees.”
“They won’t find out.”
A dry, humorless laugh came down the line. “You’re a terrible liar, Pascal. Always have been. That’s why you’re a good actor.” The sound of a chair scraping. “Fine. But we do it my way. You listen. You follow instructions. No fucking heroics.”
Relief, cold and fluid, washed through Pedro’s veins. “Okay.”
“And you bring that goat a present. She likes red licorice.”
“Ethan.”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t. Not yet. Get here first.” The line clicked dead.
Pedro lowered the phone. The absence of its weight felt significant. A decision had been made. A path, however fraught, now existed. He walked back into the living room, where Cynna was mechanically folding clothes into a black duffel bag. The blanket from the floor was already packed.
“He’s in,” Pedro said.
She didn’t look up. “What’s the catch?”
“There’s a goat. We need to bring it red licorice.”
A ghost of a smile touched her lips, gone as quickly as it came. “Texas.”
“Texas.”
The packing was a silent, efficient purge. They took only what was essential: laptops, hard drives, a few changes of dark, nondescript clothes, their passports. Everything else—the scripts, the awards, the carefully curated art—stayed behind. It felt less like packing for a trip and more like evidence disposal.
Cynna stood before her walk-in closet, staring at a row of sleek designer dresses. “I feel like I’m shedding a skin,” she said, her voice detached. “A very expensive, tailored skin.”
“It’s just stuff,” he offered, though the words felt hollow.
“It’s armor.” She pulled a simple black t-shirt and jeans from a drawer, adding them to the bag. “This is just… skin.”
They left as the sun dipped behind the skyline, casting their penthouse in long, accusing shadows. They used the service elevator, exiting into a dank underground garage where a generic sedan waited, keys under the mat. Ethan’s first instruction. Pedro drove, his knuckles white on the wheel. Every pedestrian, every slowing car, felt like a threat. Cynna stared straight ahead, her posture rigid. The city receded in the rearview mirror, a glowing bruise on the horizon.
They drove for hours, switching cars in a dusty lot outside Bakersfield, following another set of instructions left in a locked gas station bathroom. The new vehicle was an old, boxy SUV that smelled of cigarettes and horse feed. The mundane reality of the escape was its own kind of torture. The silence between them thickened, pressurized by everything unsaid.
He finally pulled into a dimly-lit motel court off a forgotten highway. The sign flickered, a dying neon ‘V’ in ‘VACANCY’. Room 17 was at the back. The key was under a fake rock.
The room was a study in beige despair. Thin floral blankets, a painting of a sad clown, the pervasive smell of bleach and mildew. Cynna stood just inside the door, her duffel bag at her feet, as if contaminating the space further.
“Home sweet home,” Pedro said, trying for lightness. It fell flat.
She walked past him to the bathroom, closing the door. The lock clicked. He heard the shower start. He sank onto the edge of the bed, the springs groaning in protest. He was exhausted, but his mind raced, a frantic animal in a cage. The image of her against the window, of the city watching, played on a loop. It had felt like reclamation then. Now, in this drab room, it felt like a scar.
The shower ran for a long time. When she emerged, her hair was damp, her face scrubbed clean. She wore only an old t-shirt of his. It hung to her mid-thigh. She looked younger, and utterly drained.
He reached for her. She let him pull her down onto the bed, her body stiff at first. He wrapped his arms around her from behind, spooning her against the hum of the outdated air conditioner. The faint scent of the motel’s harsh soap on her skin.
“I can hear you thinking,” she murmured into the pillow.
“It’s loud in here.”
“What’s the thought?”
He pressed his face into the nape of her neck. “That I broke us. To get us out of that glass cage, I shoved us into this… beige one.”
She shifted, turning to face him. In the sliver of light from the parking lot, her green eyes were dark pools. “You didn’t break us.” Her hand came up, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw. “We’re bent. Maybe in a way we won’t fully straighten from.” Her thumb brushed his lip. “But not broken.”
Her kiss was slow, exploratory. It wasn’t like the window. This wasn’t defiance. This was diagnosis. A careful searching for the shape of what remained. He responded in kind, his hands mapping the familiar territory of her body through the thin cotton. The curve of her hip, the dip of her waist, the weight of her breast in his palm. She made a soft sound against his mouth, and the carefulness began to burn away.
She pushed him onto his back and straddled him, the hem of the t-shirt riding up. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath. The sight of her, pale and deliberate above him, knocked the air from his lungs. She leaned down, her hair a curtain around their faces.
“I need to feel something that isn’t fear or rage,” she whispered, her breath hot in his ear. “I need you to fuck the silence out of my head.”
She reached between them, her fingers wrapping around his cock. He was already hard, straining against her touch. She guided him to her entrance, slick and hot even through her earlier shower. She didn’t lower herself slowly. She sank down onto him in one decisive, claiming motion, taking him deep inside her with a sharp, gratified gasp.
“Christ, Cynna,” he choked out, his hands flying to her hips.
She began to move, a slow, rolling grind of her hips that concentrated the friction right where she needed it. Her head fell back, her eyes closed. This was different. She was using him, and he welcomed it. He let her set the pace, his hands roaming up under the shirt to grasp her bare breasts, pinching her nipples until she groaned.
“Harder,” she commanded, her rhythm becoming more urgent, more vertical. “I don’t want gentle.”
He obeyed, thrusting up into her from below, meeting her downward drives. The cheap bed frame slammed against the wall in a rhythmic, protesting bang. The sound was obscene in the silent room. She rode him with a focused intensity, her inner muscles clenching around him in tight, milking pulses.
“Talk to me,” she panted, her eyes opening, blazing down at him. “Tell me what you’re doing.”
“I’m fucking you,” he growled, grabbing her ass, spreading her cheeks to take him even deeper. “I’m filling this perfect, tight cunt. My cunt.”
“Yes,” she hissed. “And I’m so wet for you. I’m dripping all over your fucking cock.” She leaned forward, bracing her hands on his chest, changing the angle. “You feel that? That’s how much I need it. That’s how much I want it.”
Her words, so crude and direct, stripped everything else away. There was no press, no past, no future. There was only this bed, this joining, this raw physical truth. Her orgasm built silently, a tightening coil he could feel in the clamp of her body around him. Her movements became erratic, her breaths short, sharp gasps.
He slid a hand between their sweat-slicked bodies, his fingers finding her clit. He pressed and circled. Her control shattered.
A broken, shuddering cry tore from her throat as she came, her body convulsing around him, her channel fluttering wildly. The sensation ripped his own climax from him. He held her hips down, buried himself to the hilt, and pumped his release into her in deep, pulsing waves, a guttural groan ripped from his chest.
She collapsed onto him, a dead weight, their hearts hammering against each other. The only sound was their ragged breathing and the relentless hum of the air conditioner. The clown in the painting seemed to leer.
After a long while, she slid off him, onto her back. They lay side by side, staring at the water-stained ceiling.
“Ethan agrees,” Pedro said into the darkness, the words a concrete anchor in the aftermath.
Cynna turned her head on the pillow. “Good.”
It was the only thing, in this beige room at the edge of nowhere, that felt certain.
The drive east was a fugue state of diesel fumes, static-bleed radio, and the hard, flat light of the desert. They spoke little. The landscape through the SUV’s dusty windows felt like a reflection of their internal terrain—scrub-brush resilience and vast, empty stretches.
Cynna watched telephone poles whip by, their rhythm a mute metronome. Her mind, usually a latticework of patterns and projections, was silent. It was a relief that felt like grief.
“You hungry?” Pedro’s voice was rough from disuse.
“No.”
“You should eat.”
“I said no.”
He let it go. The space between them wasn’t hostile. It was excavated. Filled with the phantom weight of lost careers, shattered privacy, her father’s name unspoken between them like a curse.
They crossed into Texas as the sun bled out over the horizon. Ethan’s coordinates led them off the highway, down a rutted caliche road that kicked up a ghostly plume of dust behind them. The SUV jolted over cattle guards. Darkness swallowed the world, complete and absolute save for their headlights cutting a frail tunnel through the night.
A single porch light glowed in the distance, a pinprick defiance against the immense dark. As they neared, the shape of a low, rambling ranch house resolved. It was all weathered wood and sagging eaves. A figure stood silhouetted on the porch.
Ethan Hawke looked thinner than Pedro remembered, all lean angles in a faded flannel shirt. He held a mug, his posture one of watchful ease. He didn’t wave.
Pedro killed the engine. The sudden silence was a physical presence, ringing in their ears. Crickets thrummed. Something hooted in the distance.
“Showtime,” Cynna murmured, unbuckling her seatbelt. Her movements were precise, automatic.
They climbed out into the cool, sage-scented air. Pedro’s joints ached from the drive. Cynna hugged herself, not from cold, but from a deep, systemic withdrawal from the world of glass and light.
Ethan descended the porch steps slowly. He looked past Pedro, his eyes finding Cynna. Assessing. He gave a slow, single nod. “Cynna.”
“Ethan.”
“You look like shit.”
“Feel worse,” she said, and the faintest ghost of a smile touched her lips. It vanished.
“Good.” He turned to Pedro. They clasped hands, pulled into a brief, hard hug. Ethan smelled of woodsmoke and coffee. “Place is yours. I’m in the guest house out back. Need anything, you call. Don’t wander. Perimeter’s quiet but it’s not patrolled.”
Pedro nodded, a lump in his throat. “Thank you.”
“Don’t,” Ethan cut him off, gentle but firm. “Just sleep. The air’s different here. Helps.” He gestured towards the door. “Kitchen’s stocked. Bed’s made. You know the rules.”
“Red licorice,” Pedro said.
Ethan almost smiled. “She’s around front in the morning. Doesn’t like the dark.” With another nod, he turned and melted back into the shadow of the house.
The interior was dark, warm, smelling of old books and beeswax. Pedro flipped a switch. A rustic iron lamp cast a honeyed glow over a worn leather sofa, shelves bowed under the weight of books, Navajo rugs on wide-plank floors. It felt like a cradle.
Cynna walked through the living room into the bedroom, her bag dropping with a thud. Pedro followed. A large bed with a wrought-iron frame dominated the room. A patchwork quilt in faded blues and reds was spread neatly over it.
She stood at the foot of the bed, staring at it. Her shoulders were rigid. The stillness in her was immense, a frozen lake.
“Cyn,” he started.
“He called me a liability.” Her voice was a quiet, clear shard in the room. “My own father. In his deposition. He said my… neurology made me suggestible. That Maya preyed on a ‘vulnerable mind.’” She turned to face him. Her eyes were dry, blazing. “He traded me for a lesser charge.”
Pedro felt the words like a physical blow. He had known Graham Mercer was a coward. He hadn’t fathomed the depth of the betrayal.
“I’ll kill him,” he said, the words simple, cold, and utterly true.
“No.” She shook her head, a sharp, final movement. “I don’t want his blood. I want him to see.” She began to unbutton her shirt, her fingers steady and deliberate. “I want him to see what he tried to erase. I want him to see me fucking thrive.”
She let the shirt fall. She wasn’t wearing a bra. The lamplight gilded her skin, the silver scar on her ribs from a long-ago fall, the gentle curve of her breasts. She stepped out of her jeans, kicking them aside. She stood naked before him, not in invitation, but in stark, unadorned presentation.
“Look at me,” she commanded.
He was. He always was.
“This is not a vulnerable mind,” she said, her voice low and fierce. “This is a system he failed to dismantle. This is a fucking fortress.”
He crossed the room to her. He didn’t touch her. He got on his knees. The floorboards were cool and hard under his denim-clad legs. He looked up at her, at the apex of her thighs, the soft, blonde hair there. He put his hands on her hips, his thumbs stroking the sharp bone.
“I know,” he whispered.
He leaned forward and pressed his open mouth against her. He didn’t kiss, didn’t tease. He licked a slow, flat stripe through her folds, tasting her—musky, clean, inherently her. She gasped, her hands flying to his hair, tangling in the curls.
He devoured her with a single-minded intensity that had nothing to do with pleasure and everything to do with worship. He fucked her with his tongue, probing deep, then swirling around her clit, listening to the hitches in her breath, the soft, broken directives she muttered. He gripped her ass, holding her to his mouth as he worked her towards the edge. Her taste, her scent, the soft, pleading sounds she made—it was an antidote, a brutal, beautiful cleansing.
“Pedro… oh god, right there. Don’t… don’t stop.”
He didn’t. He sucked her clit into his mouth, applying a relentless, rhythmic pressure. Her thighs trembled around his ears. Her orgasm built, a tight coil, and then snapped. She came with a strangled cry, her body bowing, her release flooding his mouth. He drank it down, licking her through the shuddering waves until she pushed his head away, oversensitive.
Before she could recover, he stood, his own need a painful throb. He undid his belt, shoved his jeans and briefs down just enough to free his cock. It was thick, ruddy, aching. He turned her around, bent her over the footboard of the bed. The old iron was cold against her forearms.
He spit into his palm, slicked himself roughly. He positioned the head of his cock at her entrance, still wet and pulsing from her climax.
“This is yours,” he growled, pushing her hair aside to speak directly into her ear. “This cock, this life, this fucking mess. It’s all yours. You own it.”
He drove into her in one brutal, bottoming thrust.
She screamed, a raw sound of fullness and catharsis. He didn’t wait, didn’t gentle. He set a punishing pace, each slam of his hips pushing the bed forward with a screech of wood on floor. The sounds were obscene—the wet slap of skin, their ragged grunts, the creaking protest of the bedstead.
“Tell me,” he demanded, his voice a hoarse scrape. “Tell me who you belong to.”
“You!” she cried, pushing back against him, taking him deeper. “Fuck! Only you!”
“And this cunt?” He gripped her hip with one hand, the other tangling in her hair, pulling just enough to sting. “This perfect, dripping, tight cunt. Who does it take?”
“You! It takes you! It wants you!” Her words were fractured, gasped between thrusts.
He fucked her like he was trying to rewrite her cells, to stamp out the ghost of her father’s words with the physical fact of his possession. Her nails scraped the quilt. Her breasts swayed with the violent rhythm. He felt his balls tighten, the rush of his climax an imminent quake in his spine.
“I’m gonna come,” he warned, his thrusts becoming erratic, deeper. “Gonna fill you up. Mark what’s mine.”
“Do it,” she sobbed, her own second climax rippling around him, triggering his. “Do it, please, I need it—”
With a final, guttural roar, he shoved as deep as he could go and let go. His release was a hot, pulsing flood inside her, wave after wave, a claiming so profound it left his vision spotted. He collapsed over her, both of them slick with sweat, trembling, breathless.
For a long time, the only sound was the wind outside, a low moan through the eaves. They untangled themselves, peeled back the quilt, and fell into the bed’s cool depths. She curled into his side, her head on his chest. Her breathing slowed, deepened. He stared at the shadows dancing on the beamed ceiling, feeling, for the first time in days, a semblance of peace.
Dawn came not with a sunrise, but with a slow, gray dilution of the dark. A strange, nasal bleating sound pierced the quiet. Maaaaa-aaaaa.
Cynna stirred. Pedro opened his eyes. The sound came again, closer this time. Insistent.
She slipped from the bed, padding naked to the window. She peered through the glass, then let out a soft, disbelieving laugh.
“What?” he asked, voice gravelly with sleep.
She turned to him. The morning light caught the silver in her hair, lit her face with something he hadn’t seen in weeks: wry, genuine amusement.
“The goat,” she said, shaking her head. “She’s at the front door.”
Pedro sat up. He could see it now through the bedroom door, a brown-and-white shape pressing against the screen door, its rectangular pupils fixed on the interior darkness. It bleated again, a demand.
“I think she knows we have her licorice,” Cynna said.
She pulled on his discarded shirt and walked out of the bedroom. Pedro followed. They stood together, barefoot on the cool floor, watching the animal. It chewed thoughtfully, then butted its head against the screen.
“Persistent,” Pedro muttered.
Cynna looked from the goat to him, then back to the animal. A slow, real smile spread across her face. It was tired, it was bruised, but it was entirely hers. “She’s waiting.”
She walked to the door, unlocked it, and pushed the screen open. The goat did not rush in. It stood its ground, regarding them with an ancient, patient intelligence. Cynna knelt, her knees on the worn threshold. She reached out a hand. The goat sniffed her fingers, then nudged her palm with its wet nose.
From the path to the guest house, Ethan watched, sipping his coffee. He made no move to interrupt.
Carefully, Cynna fed the goat some red licorice. “She’s beautiful and so damn defiant.”