“This isn’t a negotiation. You could go to jail while Evelyn’s killer walks free.” Raven took her face in his hands. If she wanted to, she could yank the file from under his arm and bolt out of the room. Race down to the station. Hand over their evidence. But in that moment, with his fingers brushing against her skin, she was frozen. He lowered his forehead to hers, and she told herself not to get her hopes up. He might not want to kiss her again. He might not want to lose himself in the feel of her, the softness of her breath, the taste of her lips.

But maybe he did. Jack tilted her head up and Raven tilted his head down, her stomach tightening as his lips neared hers. She needed him. She wanted him, and she was struck with the all-consuming power of letting yourself want someone you hadn’t believed you could have. All the lies she’d told herself tumbled over her, lies about just wanting to be friends. Of living as brothers in the orchard. Kindred spirits, but nothing more. When he whispered, “Jack,” like an incantation that could make impossible things real, she slid one arm around him, pressing her hand into the small of his back.

Drawing him near.

“Yes, Raven?” she murmured, brushing her lips across his jaw. It was the lightest touch and it was electric. The crackle of energy before the downpour.

“I lost you for three years,” he whispered into her mouth. His breath was life giving. Life affirming. “I will not lose you again.”

He leaned in. Grazed his lips across hers, so softly. And then he left. One second he was cradling her face, and then his hand slid away, twisting open the door. Jack was too shaken to stop him. Too frozen in that moment and heavy with wanting. Lovesick. Love starved. When she finally realized where he was going, her legs stumbled after him, but it was too late. He’d gotten too far away. She arrived in the living room to find their evidence blackening in the flames. Off to the left, she could hear the boys laughing in the kitchen.

But she had no room for laughter in her shaking frame.

“Why?” she demanded, though he’d already told her, hadn’t he? She just refused to believe him. This house was shit. Their yard was shit. And she was just the same—that’s what her mother had told her, over and over until she’d believed it.

Until she’d felt it in her bones.

Now Raven was pulling out his phone to record the destruction of the file. “I won’t let the police lock you up when you haven’t done anything. You would never hurt anyone.”