Morgan held very still. “Hi,” she said carefully.
The dog huffed. Made several slow circles. Dropped heavily onto the mattress beside her, the heavy weight creating a dip in the mattress that hadn’t been there before.
Morgan stared at the ceiling as it adjusted and readjusted until it budged solidly up against the length of her body.
Within thirty seconds, it was snoring.
She lay there for another few minutes, listening to it snore, then carefully extracted herself from the bed. The dog didn't seem to notice, or more likely, didn’t care.
The house was dim and cool, the heat not yet kicked up for the day. Morgan moved through it quietly, unwilling to disturb the silence. She had no idea if Frank was an early riser, but there was no sign of him.
The kitchen was the same as she'd left it the night before. Clean, tidy, with nothing on the counters that didn't belong. She found the coffee without difficulty and got the old percolator running. Then she pulled on one of Frank's heavy flannels hanging by the back door and stepped outside.
The back property was grey and still in the pre-dawn hour, with a low mist hovering just above the ground. The clearing beyond was barely visible through the tree line, just a suggestion of open space in the semi-darkness. Somewhere in the woods, something small moved through the underbrush.
It was calm. Peaceful. Silent, except for the birds and whatever was making those chirruping noises. She stood there for longer than she'd intended, taking deep breaths of fresh, autumn-scented air and drinking it all in.
She was used to being up before sunrise. Less used to having nothing to do and nowhere to be. Back in Philly, there was always a case, a scene, a report, or a question that needed following up.
There was a certain appeal to the quiet stillness of the morning in the mountains, but for a girl who’d been raised in the city, it would take some getting used to.
When she figured enough time had passed for the brewing to complete, she went back inside.
She poured her coffee, added two teaspoons of sugar and a healthy dose of the heavy cream she'd found in the fridge, and moved to the bookshelves she’d seen on the way in.
The shelves ran floor to ceiling along the full length of the living room wall, built-in, functional, and stuffed without any concession to aesthetics. Books on military history occupied the top two shelves: Congressional investigations. Declassified programs. Documented records of things that had been denied for decades and then quietly confirmed when the evidence became impossible to ignore. She recognized some of the titles, having read a few of them herself.
The middle shelves held more practical material. Almanacs that went back fifteen years, each one more worn than the last. Field guides for the region, documenting wildlife, edible plants, and tracking. Survivalist guides that predated the current trends, written by real survivalists, not influencers.
She wondered vaguely if Frank even knew what an influencer was. Probably not. He didn’t seem like the type to have a social media presence. And, judging by his reading material, wasn’t keen to leave a digital footprint anywhere.
She continued her perusal of the shelves, finding a half-dozen suspense novels with government agency plots too procedurally detailed to be entirely fictional. Several histories of Irish immigrant labor organizers, specifically the Molly Maguires. Biographies—both authorized and unauthorized—of political figures, whistleblowers, and people who'd gone on record about things their governments would have preferred they didn't.
Tucked into nearly every volume were receipts, envelopes, and newspaper clippings acting as bookmarks. Curious, she eased one free from between the pages of one particularly well-worn volume. It was a newspaper clipping from the Ridge Courier, dated five years back, about a zoning decision near a local campground. She didn't know why it was there, but she didn’t doubt it was there for a reason.
She replaced the clipping exactly as she'd found it and returned the book to the shelf.
Then, as it had several times over the last twelve hours, her mind went back to the day before for no logical reason whatsoever. Black hair. Amused blue eyes. A crooked smile. A fitted Henley doused in coffee, and a man who hadn’t seemed to mind.
She picked up her coffee and took a long sip.
There was no reason he should keep popping up in her thoughts, other than the fact that she had nothing else to focus on.
She heard Frank moving upstairs and was grateful for the interruption. Within minutes, he descended the stairs, dressed appropriately in jeans and flannel. The bed-hogging dog followed, walking past Morgan without even a cursory glance, and went to the back door, which Frank opened without preamble.
“What’s his name?”
“Shadow.”
Seemed appropriate for something that big, dark, and quiet.
After pouring himself a cup of coffee, Frank stood at the counter for a moment with the mug in his hand, looking at her in that level way he had. Not warm, not cold. Just Frank.
“He crawled into bed with me this morning.”
Frank sipped his coffee. “Did he now?”
“Should I be honored?”