You're standing with Bella by the picnic tables, a half-empty soda in your hand, when the atmosphere shifts. You feel it before you see it. A ripple through the crowd. Heads turning. Conversations stuttering.

Then the passenger door opens.

Sam Uley climbs out.

He's back. After three weeks of nothing. No calls. No texts. No explanation. He just… left. And now he's standing here at a community barbecue like nothing happened.

He looks the same. Same broad shoulders. Same dark hair. Same serious jaw. But something's different. The way he holds himself—too still, too alert. His eyes sweep the crowd with a precision that doesn't feel human. Like he's tracking threats you can't see.

Leah catches your eye from across the parking lot. Her expression cracks for just a second—relief, hurt, anger, all of it bleeding through before she slams the wall back up.