Hayden rested against him, tucked up like an exhausted child. She was part mystery, part fascination to him. Why was she here? Wes, as a childhood friend coming here, made sense, but his little sister? Fenn had done the math. They were ten years apart. If he was Fenn Lockwood, he would have been gone two years before she had been born. So what was his little firecracker’s motivation? Hayden was all bravado and bravery, but he sensed most of her behavior was an act, a carefully erected defense against a world that tried to crush her. It reminded him of that saying about roses having thorns. She was just as beautiful and certainly as prickly, but he sensed she wasn’t always like that. The way she acted was more of a defense mechanism than a real part of her personality.
He was finding ways
