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She led him out and looked back at Dani one more time before she closed the door on her and Kate. Then she took Dean in. “What is it?”

He swallowed. “I’m sorry I hit you.” It seemed to pain him to say the words, but they didn’t feel entirely unauthentic. “I thought you’d killed him.”

“I didn’t.” She kept the sting out of her words.

“I know.” He ran a dirty hand through his hair. “Look, my dad was right where you left him, and now we get to bury him at the Homestead. Toby gets to go and visit and stuff. That’s important for him.”

For you too, I bet. She didn’t voice the thought. “And if Dani makes a full recovery, it all works out in the end.” She couldn’t quite blunt the sharp edge to those words.

He drew his shoulders up like a turtle taking shelter in its shell. “Yeah, exactly. So, um, no hard feelings?”

She stared at him. “There are hard feelings, Dean, but none I can’t live with once the dust settles.”

He didn’t seem to know what to do with that and shifted from one leg to the other. “So it’s all good?”

Lynn snorted. “Yeah, just don’t go around punching me anymore, and we’re good.” She held out her hand. “Deal?”

He wiped his hand on his pants and gripped hers. For a moment, he looked very young and very lost. “Yeah, deal.” He shook her hand, then let go. “I’ll uh, let you do whatever you were going to do. Bye.” Before she could respond, he slipped past her.

Lynn turned and watched him walk off. She tried to wrap her head around what had just transpired. Maybe getting Richard’s body back really was what they all needed after all.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

Lynn looked up from the campfire to find Kate standing over her. “No, I guess not.” She scooted to the side to make room for her on the log.

Kate sat and glanced aside. “Dani and I caught up, in as much as that’s possible with her current limitations.”

Caught up or made amends? Lynn decided it wasn’t her place to ask. “That’s good.” She turned her mug slowly around in her hands and stared down at it.

Kate nodded slowly. “It was.” The firelight etched extra-thick grooves into her skin and accentuated just how haggard she looked. “That leaves you and me.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” She fell silent again and sipped her tea.

Beside her, Kate cleared her throat. “I was hurting. I wanted… vengeance, I suppose. I wish I could say ‘justice,’ but I wanted someone to blame, and I didn’t care who that person was.”

When Kate stopped talking and didn’t resume, Lynn turned her head toward her. “So validating my story makes it all okay again?”

Kate flinched. “No, but I know I can’t blame you for his death anymore. It’s this forsaken world.” She motioned widely, encompassing the darkness beyond the edges of the roof. “That took him away from me… Not you.”

Damn right, it wasn’t me. “You put my life in danger.” She finally turned her head toward Kate. “You put Dani’s life in danger.”

Kate shifted and added another log to the fire. “I know.” Pain flashed across her features. “It… it was a terrible plan.”

Lynn groaned. “Yeah, your plan.” She shook her head. “Well, it got you what you wanted.”

“Not if Dani takes a turn for the worse. Not if she won’t make a full recovery.” Kate dug her nails into her own thigh. “Then it didn’t work out at all like I wanted.”

“True.” One thought had been eating away at her. “Kate, I know I didn’t give you much choice, but how could you think sending only Dani with me was a good idea? I could have left her—I could have killed her.”

Kate dug her nails deeper into the leather of her pants. “I should have forced you to take us all, but I convinced myself Dani could handle whatever you or the Wilds had to throw at her, even though she’d never spent that much time away from the Homestead. Dani even assured me she could once you and me struck our deal.” She glanced aside. “But you’re right, I knew you might try to hurt her, and I still let her go because I—” Emotion cut off her words. She cleared her throat. “I needed him home, and as bad of an idea as it was to let you two go alone, it could have worked—it did work.” She looked down at her hand. “But Dani was the victim of my grief.”

Lynn could see Kate’s pain, and she only had to think of the chance of losing Dani to sympathize with her. After a few seconds of contemplation to test her own limits, she reached out and laid her hand on Kate’s.

The older woman stiffened, but then the grip on her thigh relaxed under Lynn’s touch.

“Dani will pull through.” Lynn stared into the fire. “She’ll be out there hunting before you know it.”

Kate sighed. “You’re hopeful about her recovery.”

Lynn shrugged and freed her hand, growing uncomfortable with the prolonged touch. “Yesterday morning she was all but dead to the world. Now she’s looking around and answering questions. I’m taking that as a sign that from here on out, things will get better.”

“Have you… thought about what you want to do in those weeks? And afterward?”

Kate’s gaze made the skin on the side of her head tingle. Lynn swallowed. “No.”

“We are short a hunter until Dani is up and about. Once she recovers, we are still short a scout.” Kate’s voice didn’t betray any emotions, but from the corner of her eye, Lynn could see she was plucking twigs and grit off her pants with great intent.

Lynn took a few seconds to absorb the words and to analyze the surge of longing warming her insides. She picked up a piece of bark to occupy her hands with instead of fidgeting. “What makes you think I’d want to stay?”

“Dani. You and her have become… friends. Probably more, from what I’ve seen and heard.”

Lynn felt a blush coming on and tossed the piece of bark into the fire as a lure for Kate’s gaze. “Maybe.” Topic change. If she stayed, she wouldn’t just be dealing with Dani, after all. “I get that I’m useful to you and to the rest of the Homesteaders, but it’s not easy being around people who like my skills, not me.”

“I understand.” Kate paused for a few seconds. “But maybe that’s just because we don’t know you yet.” Affability underlay her words.

Lynn checked on her and found her, indeed, smiling. An unfamiliar touch of warmth flitted through her chest. Except for Dani, no one had expressed an interest in getting to know her in a long time, not since she’d been a child. She shrugged, trying to appear unaffected. “Maybe.”

Kate didn’t appear to be deterred. “You might like us too, if you got to know us as colleagues, even friends, instead of captors.”

Would I? And could Kate speak for the whole group? Cody hated her guts, and the others had threatened her life up to a day ago. Was Kate just trying to play her again? Instead of asking, Lynn took the offensive. If Kate snapped at her again, that would tell her all she needed to know about what kind of person she was. She turned to watch Kate in the light cast by the fire. “I really dislike being used, Kate. I thought that was pretty clear by now. If that’s why you’re offering to keep me around, that’s a really shitty foundation for any type of relationship—working or otherwise.”

Kate tensed. “Richard and I built this haven with our own bare hands. All that remains of him is here.” She cast a sweeping glance about and drew in a deep breath. “I wouldn’t open it to people I didn’t believe would make it better. Yes, we—I—would take advantage of your unique skillset, but you’d have access to ours as well. Perhaps you could consider it less of a situation in which you are used and more as a way to thrive instead of just surviving.”