Would it be wrong to pursue a relationship with Darby when she was trying to find her way out of the minefield her life had been for the last year?

He shook his head at himself as he made his way through the forest, the trees sheltering him from the razor-like sharpness of the wind. Careful of his footing, he kept an eye out for anything that might be alive in the woods, animal and human.

Why did he put so much pressure on them both? Why not let the relationship evolve like any other?

Because he wanted her even though she was vulnerable. And he wanted what he’d never had—a stable basis to build a family. And he had no idea if Darby was even vaguely interested in having kids one day. It hadn’t come up in their conversations—because he’d always been terrified her answer wouldn’t match his.

And did he have to know the answer to every single question before they’d even gone on a single date?

Something swooped past him, a whisper on the night air. An owl pounced on a snow hare that Eban had inadvertently startled out of hiding.

He froze in awe. A single smear of blood on the white backdrop was all the evidence that remained of that life and death struggle. The sight reminded him not to get distracted. Actions had consequences. His focus had to remain on keeping Darby out of jail and keeping her safe.

To do that, the police needed to find and arrest Martin’s real killer.

If he allowed himself to be distracted by thoughts of a future together, that future might be lost forever. Someone might die. And that someone could be Darby.

* * *

Signy frantically wiggled her toes as she made her way up the steps to St. Paul’s. Her feet were frozen blocks of ice from trudging through the woods out near Carstairs’s property. Her fingers were also numb—to the extent she welcomed the thought of being inside, even at a murder scene.

The Evidence Response Team were in even worse shape than she was, as was the K9 unit. The dog hadn’t indicated anything in the woods that the tracks hadn’t already shown them.

They’d lit up the wooded area with floodlights as it was forecast to snow before morning, and they needed to collect and document as much potential evidence as possible before it was lost. Even so, that evidence was technically inadmissible as it was outside the initial crime scene tape and could have been deposited at any time including after the police had left the area that morning. But it might help them figure out exactly what had occurred last night.

The metallic scent of blood hit Signy as she let herself inside the church. The extreme cold tended to dampen scents outdoors or maybe it froze the receptors in the nose. Whatever the reason, inside this warm supposed sanctuary, the smell of slaughter was thick upon the air.