It only had to exist.
She rang the bell.
Inside, somewhere deep in the house, music cut off abruptly.
Footsteps crossed hardwood.
Locks clicked.
The door opened a few inches and Cal Voss filled the frame.
He was broader than she remembered and redder in the face. He wore flannel pajama pants, wool socks, and the expression of a man interrupted in the middle of something he considered more important than another person’s life.
For a second, he did not recognize her.
His eyes skimmed the uniform, the wet hair, the duffel, the cane.
Then they dropped to the carbon-fiber curve beneath her trouser leg.
Then to Ranger.
His mouth flattened.
“Well,” he said. “You actually did it.”
Rowan gave a breathless laugh she did not feel. “Hi, Cal.”
He did not say hello.
He opened the door another inch, no more. “Why are you here with a dog?”
The question was so absurd it took her a moment to answer.
“Because he’s my service dog.”
“I can see what kind of dog he is,” Cal said. “I’m asking why you brought him here.”
“Because he goes where I go.”
His eyes hardened. “Not here.”
Behind him, a ring light flared brighter in the entry hall, and Talia drifted into view wearing yoga pants and an oversized sweatshirt that said OFFLINE in block letters. She held an iced coffee and her phone at the same time, like she had grown a second hand just for self-documentation.
At twenty-three, she had perfected the art of looking at people as if they were mildly offensive clutter.
The moment she saw Rowan, she recoiled.
“Oh my God,” she said. “Mom said maybe you’d show up this week, but I didn’t think you’d just appear.”
Rowan gave her a tired nod. “Good to see you too.”
Talia’s gaze flicked to the dog, then the leg, then back to Rowan’s face. “You can’t bring all that inside right now.”
“All what?”
Talia made a vague circle with her coffee cup. “The dog. The gear. The energy.”
Rowan almost laughed. Instead she said, “It’s raining.”
Cal planted his hand on the frame. “This house is not a shelter, Rowan, and I am not taking on a medical case.”
The sentence landed with such practiced coldness that Rowan knew he had been preparing it.
Something inside her went very still.
“It’s one night,” she said. “My flight was delayed. I’ll figure something out tomorrow.”
“No,” Cal said.
The sleet hit the porch roof harder, hissing now.
Rowan shifted her weight and felt the phantom burn that always came when her body tensed too long. Ranger moved closer.
She lowered her voice. “My room is still upstairs.”
Talia barked a laugh. “Your room?”
She shoved past Cal and leaned against the wall. “That room hasn’t been your room in forever. I gutted it in August. Acoustic panels, backdrop wall, new desk, custom lighting. It’s my studio now.”
“You gutted it?” Rowan repeated.
Talia shrugged. “You were gone.”
The simplicity of it stole Rowan’s breath.
Then, from the hallway, a blur of movement.
Owen.
He nearly slipped in his socks on the hardwood but caught himself on the table by the stairs, then ran the rest of the way with all the desperate speed of a child arriving late
