"You're right. You're not a tourist." I pause, choosing each word like I'm defusing a bomb. "But that doesn't make the woods any less dangerous."
She shifts her weight, and I catch the subtle tell—the way her shoulders square when she's preparing to dig in. I've watched her enough these past days to recognize the signs.
"Look," I continue, keeping my tone measured, professional. "I've been sheriff here for fifteen years. I know these woods, and I know what can happen when people go poking around places they shouldn't."
"Places they shouldn't?" Her eyebrows arch. "According to who?"
The question hangs there, loaded with implications I can't address without unraveling everything. My hands flex involuntarily, and I force them still.
"According to common sense." The words come out sharper than I intend. I dial it back, soften my voice. "Look, I'm not trying to... this isn't about your capabilities as a journalist."
But even as I say it, I know how it sounds. Know how she'll interpret the careful distance I'm maintaining, the way I won't quite meet her eyes when the bond pulls strongest.
"The disappearances you're investigating—they happened decades ago. Cold cases. Old wounds that maybe should stay buried." I pause, watching her face tighten. "Sometimes the kindest thing is to let sleeping dogs lie."
"Sleeping dogs." She repeats the phrase like it tastes bitter. "Is that what you call missing people?"
"That's not—" I stop, regroup. "What I'm saying is that some investigations lead down paths that don't have good endings. For anyone involved."
The words feel like ash in my mouth, but I force them out anyway. Better she think I'm dismissive than discover what really lurks in these trees. Better she stays safe and hates me than gets herself killed proving a point.
"I'm suggesting you might want to consider... redirecting your focus. There are other stories in Moonhaven. Safer stories."
“Because nothing says safety like unanswered questions.”
That almost came out as a growl. Congratulations on pissing your mate all the way off, Sheriff.
I know I've miscalculated. Her expression shifts from frustrated to something colder, more distant.
"Safer stories." Her voice drops to that dangerously quiet register I'm learning to recognize. "You mean stories that don't make you uncomfortable. And stories that don’t mean you’ll have to deal with the inconvenience of hauling the body of a dead fat girl out of your woods."
I clock my involuntary gasp at the same time something shifts in her expression—a subtle hardening around her eyes that I recognize from my own mirror. The look of someone who's been underestimated once too often and decided to stop caring about the consequences.
"You know what? Forget it." She steps back, but not in retreat. More like she's giving herself room to maneuver. "I've been polite. I've asked nicely. I've even pretended your obvious deflections were actual answers."
Her flashlight beam drops to illuminate the ground between us, casting our shadows long and distorted against the trees. The practical journalist is gone, replaced by something sharper.
Something I’ve hurt.
"But here's the thing about being the woman I am in my line of work—I've learned to read the subtext. The careful pauses. The way men think they can manage me with just the right combination of authority, condescension, and dismissal. Because there’s nothing easier to dismiss than a woman like me, am I right?"
Each word hits like a precision strike, and I feel my wolf stirring restlessly beneath the surface. Not in anger—in desperation to wipe these thoughts from her mind. But she's not backing down.
"Ellie…"
"No." The single syllable cuts through whatever placating response I was fumbling toward. "You don't get to 'Ellie' me. Not when you've spent the last week keeping me at arm’s length with ‘Ms. Carter.’ Like I'm some hysterical, big-boned city girl who'll pack up and leave if you just ignore me hard enough."
She adjusts her jacket with sharp, efficient movements, every gesture radiating purpose. The fear from moments ago has crystallized into something far more dangerous: determination.
"I came here following a story about missing people. What I found was a town full of polite smiles and selective amnesia. A sheriff who knows more than he's saying and conveniently shows up whenever I get too close to something interesting."
My hands clench involuntarily. The mate bond thrums with her proximity, with the fire in her voice, with the way she refusesto be diminished even when something inhuman was stalking her through the dark.
"You want to know what that tells me?" She takes another step back, and every instinct screams at me to follow. "It tells me I'm exactly where I need to be. Because the only thing that makes people this nervous about questions is answers they can't afford to give."
The beam of her flashlight sweeps across my face, and I know she's cataloguing every micro-expression, every tell I'm trying to suppress.
"So thank you, Sheriff Hart. For confirming that whatever happened to those missing people, it wasn't an accident, and it wasn't random, and it sure as hell wasn't a bear."