In her powerful debut novel, Looking for Smoke, author K. A. Cobell (Blackfeet) weaves loss, betrayal, and complex characters into a thriller that will engage readers until the final word. This Reese’s Book Club Pick is must-read for fans of Angeline Boulley and Karen McManus!
When local girl Loren includes Mara in a traditional Blackfeet Giveaway to honor Loren’s missing sister, Mara thinks she’ll finally make some friends on the Blackfeet reservation.
Instead, a girl from the Giveaway, Samantha White Tail, is found murdered.
Because the four members of the Giveaway group were the last to see Samantha alive, each becomes a person of interest in the investigation. And all of them—Mara, Loren, Brody, and Eli—have a complicated history with Samantha.
Despite deep mistrust, the four must now take matters into their own hands and clear their names. Even though one of them may be the murderer.
Start reading Looking for Smoke now!
Chapter 1
MARA RACETTE
Thursday, July 11, 7:15 p.m.
Something about the beat of the drum makes me stop feeling like such a fraud. Its steady pulse quiets all my doubts. Grounds me. My blood thrums through my limbs to my feet, telling me I belong. This land is mine too.
The pounding beat vibrates in my chest as I follow my parents into the circular dance arbor. We pass between crowded sections of bleachers and skirt behind the men sitting in a circle around their drum. Their cries make my throat dry and constrict, like it aches to sing in their rhythm. They pound the leather-bound sticks against the hide as one, the beat getting faster and their voices getting higher.
I weave behind a man filming on a tripod and take the stairs two at a time, slipping into a half-open row just as the older man at the drum, cowboy hat shadowing his face, whacks his stick harder and the others pause. A younger man in a flat-billed baseball cap sings alone, a wail sinking into his undulating voice, and then each of them hits the drum in sync again. Their voices rise to intertwine with his like a united battle cry.
Goose bumps rise on my skin as I settle into the bleacher bench and focus on the powwow dancers in the circle of turf, just past the drum groups. Women in beaded dresses with colorful shawls and men in buckskin regalia with feathered shoulder and back bustles dance to the beat. They have bells strapped around their legs and plumes of feathers in their hands. Some of their faces are painted in the old ways, with black and red, making them look fierce, powerful. Old women, little kids no older than four years, and everyone in between spin and sway to the drum song. Everyone feels the calling in their bones.
They all belong.
Beside me, Dad’s head bobs to the beat. His black hair trembles over his shoulder with each movement until he pushes it behind his ear, a turquoise ring glinting on his thumb. Mom taps her foot on my other side, one leg slung over the other. Her blond hair is tucked in a bun at the back of her neck, just peeking out of the baseball cap she needs to protect her pale skin from the summer sun.
I sit still in the middle, trying to ease into my place between them.
Like always.
The low sun beats down on us, lighting up the bits of dust easing through the arena on the slight breeze. It smells like dirt and horses and frying grease. It smells like Indian Days.
We’ve traveled here most years to attend our tribe’s annual four- day celebration with thousands of other attendees, where we enjoy Native American traditions like powwow dancing and drumming, stick games, and horse relay races. I thought it would feel different this year, though. Now that we live here, I thought I’d feel less like a visitor. I’m sitting up here watching it all unfold just like before . . . one step removed. Maybe that’s how it’ll always be.
I slip my phone out of my pocket to take a picture of the expansive scenery in front of us and the mass of color and movement below us. The Rockies tower in the distance, smears of snow visible on some of the mountain range’s jagged peaks, Glacier National Park hidden on their opposite side. The mostly treeless, low rolling plains sprawl out endlessly in every other direction, making the blue sky above this tiny town look massive.
Below us, hundreds of dance competitors are on the circular field for Grand Entry, grouped into the categories of dance they’ll compete in during the powwows over the next few days. They bounce their way around the arbor, creating a rainbow spiral of color and texture, until their circle parts and the final beat thuds.
The Elder who led the dancers in for Grand Entry stands in the center of the arbor, garbed in his traditional regalia. His quillwork breastplate hangs still over his chest. There’s a steadiness around him in the sudden quiet. He’s flanked by Native war veterans holding national and tribal flags, and the head man and woman dancers. Higher even than the flags they hold is the eagle staff in the old man’s hand.
The Elder raises the staff lined with eagle feathers, and we all stand as the drum group starts the Flag Song, honoring the colors and, more significantly, honoring the eagle staff—the first flags of this land.
I may still be figuring out how I fit in here, but I feel that pull, that reverence, watching the Elder honor the eagle feathers and our tribal Nation. Like those hanging feathers, I sway in time with the beat until the drummers stop and grip the sticks in their hands, catching their breath. My chest feels empty with the beat’s sudden absence. Only the gentle jingling of the dancers’ bells leaving the circular field matches the lingering buzz threading my skin.
The audience sits back down. “I’ll get us some frybread,” Mom says, touching my shoulder as she sidesteps past us. Dad squeezes her hand before she dips down the stairs with an easy smile. She knows she doesn’t exactly belong here, but she doesn’t mind. She’s been part of this world longer than I have. She may not be Native herself, but she has Dad.
Dad swings his arm over my shoulders. “You should’ve learned.” He nods toward the dancers gathering at the bottom of our section. I recognize a few of the girls from school. Their hair is tied back into sleek braids adorned with feathers and colorful ribbons. Intricate beadwork in striped patterns cascades over some of their shoulders and hangs in fringes down their backs.
The tallest of the group, Loren Arnoux, wears a sky-blue jingle dress. Rows of slender, cone-shaped, rolled tins line the entire skirt of the dress. One row loops around her chest and upper arms. A belt of rainbow beadwork and matching cuffs hanging on her wrists glimmer in the sun as she leaves the group. She’s stunning. All their regalia is. Whether they’ve been passed down in their families or made only recently, each piece is painstakingly handcrafted. Every colored glass bead stitched with precision. Every piece of leather fringe cut just so. “Maybe,” I finally answer over the garbled conversations around us. Part of me wishes I did learn to dance . . . a bigger part of me wonders what other people would think. If I’d even be accepted out there.
If it would be anything like the last few months at my new school, I’m glad I never learned.
Even now, the worst of the group, Samantha White Tail, watches my mom pass by, then glances my way with heavily lined eyes and a curled lip, hand sliding over her intricate regalia as if to remind me I’m not wearing any. I might be higher than her in the bleachers, but she’s still looking down on me. She’d be sure to find a way to make me feel like more of an outsider if I were out there.
A mix of annoyance and anger curls my fingers into fists. She doesn’t know anything about me.
She didn’t bother to try.
I raise my fist to flip her the bird, but not before Dad notices the tense energy between us. His body goes still, as does my quarter of a bird. He opens his mouth to ask, but the emcee taps the microphone just in time.
I shrug off Samantha’s rude stare as the murmuring dies down and relax into my seat like nothing happened.
Nothing Dad needs to know about at least.
The emcee’s voice blares into the arbor. “Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together one more time. Our first Grand Entry of this year’s North American Indian Days . . . what an honor it is to be here!” The bleachers erupt with whistles and cheers. “Hoh man, you guys look good out there! And let me hear you holler for our host drum group, the Yellow Mountain Singers!”
The drummers raise their hands and nod to the cheering crowd before regripping their sticks.
“Thank you, thank you. And thank you to all of our wonderful dancers out there and all our concession businesses who came out. If you haven’t grabbed yourself a frybread, you better do it before they close down all the stands later on, hey. I know I’ve had a few myself.” The emcee laughs and adjusts his flat-billed cap.
“I know you competitors are ready to get out there and show us who the best dancers are, but we have something special happening here first.” He clears his throat and bobs his head a few times. “The Arnoux family is going to do an Honor Song.”
Even the visitors here must feel the air still.
“As most of you know, the Arnoux family has been through quite a lot the last couple of years. Rayanne ‘Charging At Night’ Arnoux went missing a few months ago.” He pauses, his eyes moving over the audience as he gives the moment the reverence it deserves. It happened just a few weeks after we moved here: Rayanne, Loren Arnoux’s older sister, never showed up at school one day and hasn’t been seen since. It didn’t exactly help me settle in here. “Her disappearance is one we’ve felt deeply here in Browning. This is a terrible tragedy to strike the Blackfeet Nation, one that happens far too often, and we band together in prayer for our lost member.
“Rayanne was raised by her grandmother, Geraldine, and her grandfather, Dillon. Dillon Arnoux passed away close to two years ago, and even though Rayanne hasn’t been brought home yet, the family would still like to honor Dillon here at the North American Indian Days, when so many of our Blackfeet tribal members have come out.”
I find Loren Arnoux a few sections of bleachers away, near the emcee. She stands tall, her delicate chin tilted up, but her face is dark, her jingle dress still as stone.
The emcee pulls out a paper and smooths it across his jeans. “Dillon ‘Weasel Moccasins’ Arnoux was a very respected member of our community. He served six years on the tribal council and did a lot of great work helping the tribe develop ecotourism businesses on the reservation. He was a veteran who gave many years in service of this country. He is honored by his wife, Geraldine ‘Good Shield Woman,’ and his granddaughter, Loren ‘Different Black Bird,’ along with three brothers, many cousins, in-laws, nieces, and nephews.”
The emcee nods to the group of drummers. They remove their hats. Their eyes dart between each other, a shadow passing over their circle, and the old man taps his stick against the hide. The group joins him like one mind, one body, gently pounding a soft beat.
“They ask for these people to please come forward for the give- away.” He rattles off a list of names, but my mind is already sinking into the subtle beating of the drums. Until I hear Racette.
Dad grips my knee. “Mara Racette,” he whispers. I forget how to move. Everyone in the bleachers has already stood for the Honor Song. Dad urges me to my feet and shoves me toward the stairs. I pass Mom on the way down, her hands full of greasy concessions and her mouth hanging open.
I slip to the bottom of the bleachers as Loren and her grandmother, swathed in a yellow shawl with long baby-blue fringe, enter the circular arena with their family members. I’m next to the emcee’s table, hair damp against my neck, before I really even know what’s happening.
BRODY CLARK
Thursday, July 11, 7:30 p.m.
Dad used to say all change comes with a warning first. He called it a sacred Blackfeet proverb—that’s what he said about all the one-liners he pulled straight from his butt. He loved spewing that old Indian wisdom like a bad cough.
The thing is, he was wrong.
Maybe you can see change coming sometimes, like how he saw the warning signs that Mom was going to leave us. She got tired of helping Dad scrape by and split. Found a man with money and started a new family. She decided she wanted an entirely different life.
I didn’t. Screw that.
A couple years after that, Dad had a heart attack and slunk dead in front of me. I was only twelve. There was no warning for that. No signs to see. Only me and my older brother, Jason, fighting against the ripple effects of it.
There was no warning that Loren Arnoux’s sister was going to disappear and turn our whole friend group upside down.
You can’t prepare for change. The best you can do is try like hell to get back to how things used to be.
Or as close to it as you can get.
My brother, Jason, turns off the emcee microphone and tucks it under his arm as the drum group increases their intensity and begins the Honor Song for the Arnouxs. Loren’s grandma, Geraldine, leads the procession of dancers onto the circle of turf, gripping a framed picture of her late husband, who’s holding both Loren and Rayanne on his lap in the old photo. The other Elders of the family, probably Dillon’s siblings, dance alongside Geraldine, with Loren and other younger family members in a group behind. They step in time with the drums, moving slowly around the circle. Plumes bob. Bells jingle. The audience in the circle of bleachers hardly moves after they stand to watch the procession. I shuffle past Jason and his co-announcer and stand in front of the emcee table to wait for the giveaway. I would’ve been surprised to hear Jason include my name on the give- away list if I hadn’t read it over his shoulder a few minutes ago. I guess Loren still appreciates me even if she’s been a recluse lately.
Even if my dumb jokes don’t make her laugh like they used to.
Even if I haven’t exactly been there for her since her sister vanished.
Maybe that means we really could go back to how things were before all this. With a little more time. More patience.
Loren’s best friend, Samantha White Tail, appears at my side. Even their friendship got all screwed up after Rayanne’s disappearance. You can see it in the way Samantha stands tense. Face sunken. Eyes hard. A choker of red, yellow, and blue patterned beadwork locks around her neck, matching several pieces in her regalia. A single feather sticks up from her beadwork headband, and two long braids hang down her chest. Her competition number card is pinned to her shawl, which she grips the edges of like she’s holding on for dear life.
As the others who were called for the giveaway approach, I follow Samantha’s gaze to the slow procession in the arena. The Arnouxs are dancing to honor the grandpa—but we’re all thinking of Rayanne.
I didn’t know Rayanne like I know her sister, Loren. I guess I knew her as much as you’d know anyone on the rez. Knew her enough to know she had a loud mouth, a weakness for studious-type kids, and a pretty face smooth as polished leather. Knew how much Loren loved her. Knew even Eli First Kill had an eye on her.
The drummers’ voices bring me back to three years ago. To the giveaway I helped Jason organize for our dad. I was pretty broken then, but my brother picked me up. Taught me to understand Dad’s journey. Life and death don’t look much different, besides the social aspect of it. We still remember him. Carry his wisdom. We honored him, gave gifts in his name, just as Loren does now.
The procession returns to us. Loren gathers an armful of Pend- leton wool blankets, and for a strange beat, I see her years into the future, walking toward me with freshly folded laundry, kids hanging on her legs with her same mud-brown hair. Smiling. Like she’d ever want that. Like I could ever have that. I blink the image away as her cousin scoops up some bright shawls behind her, fringe spewing from her arms.
Eli First Kill appears on the other side of Samantha, kid sister in tow, as usual. Without his dad, as usual. His eyes are barely wider than normal, only noticeable to a best friend and cousin like myself. The new girl, Mara Racette, freezes at Eli First Kill’s other side, light brown hair hanging bluntly above her shoulders. Her wide eyes are hard to miss, like a doe’s in an open field the moment I raise my rifle and finger the trigger.
Yeah, First Kill was right about her. As he always is. She doesn’t belong here. Doesn’t want to either.
Loren’s cousin pulls an older, non-Native couple from the audience and gives them a shawl and a blanket to honor her grandpa. The couple is probably used to the idea that a person being honored should be receiving gifts. But it’s the opposite for us—we give to others, even strangers, in their name.
Loren places a folded blanket into my arms, pulling my gaze from the couple. Her honey-brown eyes are rimmed with red, and black makeup smears at the corners. I give her a hug, patting the small of her back before she moves down the line and presses the last blanket into the new girl’s arms. Loren puts a hand on her shoulder and leans in close, speaking words I’d never be able to hear even if the drummers weren’t still singing.
Beats me why Loren wanted to include the new girl. I’ve never seen Loren speak to her unless she had to.
New-Girl-Mara secures the square of blanket to her chest like Loren might change her mind and snatch it back.
Maybe she should.
Next to me, Samantha White Tail is given a dark blue shawl, even more intricate than the one she already wears. She sets down a black backpack and pulls the shawl from her shoulders and unpins her com- petition number. Loren helps her repin it to the new shawl as tears spill over Samantha’s cheeks.
Looks like she’s crying about a lot more than the gift, but it’s not like I’d know anything about that.
As Loren’s cousins hand out small pieces of handmade jewelry to random people seated in the audience, I feel a collective intake of breath and follow the gazes from the bleachers beside us across the circle. Loren’s grandma, Geraldine, leads in two white horses with red and blue beadwork plates on their faces. Eli First Kill’s eyes dart between the line of people gripping gifts and back to the horses coming toward us.
The family members part, and Geraldine steps up to Eli. The drumming stops. “Where’s your dad, Eli?”
The color leeches out of his face. “Gone on a work contract.” His voice is barely audible as the row of us shifts to hear their exchange.
“Will you accept this gift—our finest horses—on his behalf? In honor of my Dillon?”
Nobody moves. The gift is massive. Humbling. It honors Loren’s grandpa deeply.
Color seeps back into Eli’s skin in red half-moons under his eyes. He nods once, and Geraldine places the leather reins into his hand and pats his shoulder twice.
“Your dad was there for me in a tough time and helped me in a way nobody else could.”
Eli’s jaw pulses before he says something else to her—probably something along the lines of, at least his dad was there for somebody.
Eli First Kill’s dad works contracting gigs, but because there isn’t much construction happening in a small town like Browning, he has to travel for work for days at a time. I don’t know if it’s better or worse when he is around. Eli never talks about it, but everyone knows his dad is a meth addict.
Eli wipes his eyes with the back of his hand and then eases his shoulders down, sinking back into his typical posture. Cocky. Un- ruffled. Owning the land beneath his feet. He has that way about him, Eli First Kill.
The air is dead around us. Only the horsetails swish.
Geraldine nods, and subtle jingling brings life back into the air as the family members leave the circle of the dance arbor, melding into groups of dancers waiting in front of the bleachers or slipping into the stands.
I follow Samantha White Tail toward the break in the bleachers, her old shawl twisting in her tight, white-knuckled grip. She looks like she’s in a hurry to go teepee-creeping until the incoming Golden Age dancers block her path.
All of us from the giveaway are backed up, waiting for the dancers to move. I stare at the geometric beadwork stitched onto the carry loop of Samantha’s backpack until Jason announces the dancers into the circle to the beat of another drum song. Just as we’re moving, Jason hands the mic to the other announcer and steps away from the emcee table, blocking Samantha’s path again. He gives Geraldine an upward nod. “I’m sure you want a picture of everyone,” he says, “in his honor.”
Geraldine nods. “Sure.”
Jason puts a hand on Samantha’s shoulder and ushers the group of us holding large gifts from the giveaway past the drummers and between the bleachers. Loren and Geraldine walk with Eli, fingering the horse’s reins like it’s painful to really let them go. I don’t know what the First Kills will do with such fine horses, besides parade them in and out of Indian Days every year.
Eli’s dad may just sell them for drug money.
We pass a tribal cop, Detective Youngbull, at the back of the bleachers on our way toward the concession tents. He’s in his plain clothes, here to enjoy the powwow like everyone else, but he’s got his chest puffed out with a cop’s usual arrogance. Thinking he’s all somethin’. It only got worse when he became a detective last year. Dry dirt shifts beneath our feet as Jason gives him an upward nod.
Samantha’s gaze clings to Youngbull as she bites her lip, either because she’s wary around law enforcement like a lot of us are or because she’d like to wrap him around her finger.
I’d put money on the second one.
I wonder what Detective Youngbull felt when we honored Dillon Arnoux—the grandpa of the girl he’s failed to locate. Would ol’ Dillon have given him even more hell than Geraldine? Does guilt weigh down his gut just hearing the name Arnoux?
Instead of going left to the many rows of crowded vendor tents, we hook a right toward a quiet area of trailers parked tight like a fresh pack of cigarettes. Jason finally says, “This’ll work.” Sweat shines on his forehead as he waves us into a group between two rows of horse trailers, the distant mountain range creating a jagged backdrop. We inch together, a group of Blackfeet, two horses, and a couple of light- haired, non-Native visitors who know nothing about who we honor. Or why.
Jason takes several pictures before he returns Geraldine’s phone. Sweat drips down my back in the harsh sunlight. He catches my gaze for a beat and digs his fingers into my shoulder like only a big brother can before the large group breaks apart into separate conversations.
I head straight to the horses, rubbing my shoulder. “What did the First Kills ever do to deserve this?” I ask as I run my hand down one of the horse’s necks.
“Psh.” Eli’s cheek splits into an angled smile. “Usually, we did something, and usually, we deserve a beating for it.”
I pat the horse’s sturdy back, suddenly hoping his dad will sell the horses to Jason and me. Even if he uses the money for drugs. “Ol’ Geraldine must have you confused with some other First Kills.”
Eli’s brows waggle. “Better leave now before she realizes her mistake.”
“No, Eli,” his kid sister, Cherie, says, stubbornness laced into her high-pitched voice. Her crow-black hair is in perfect braids, and a shoe is untied. “We are not missing the intertribal dance. That’s the only one I can do!”
“I know, I know,” Eli says. He glances over the groups still mingling around us, pausing to catch Samantha’s lingering gaze, then eyes the horse trailers. “We just need to get these horses settled some- where.”
Samantha peels her eyes from Eli and whispers to Loren, her talon-like nails digging into her arm, but Samantha turns her back the instant she sees me watching her. Of course. She’s made it pretty clear she’s not interested in me.
Loren whispers something and shrugs out of Samantha’s grip. I only catch one word: “Later.”
“They’re beautiful,” New-Girl-Mara says as she approaches us, blocking my view of Loren and Samantha. I guess she’s done with her conversation with Geraldine and the random visitors. Probably trying to learn more about our culture just like them. Her eyes dart briefly to Eli and me, then to the horses as she rubs one of their soft noses.
“Do you ride?” Cherie asks.
Mara’s full lips part into a hesitant smile. “It’s been a while.”
“My big brother and Little Bro do. They’re doing Indian Relay Races tomorrow!”
“Little Bro?” Her eyes flick back up to me. Measuring. Judging. Why did Loren even want her here? She’s never been a part of any of this. Never wanted to be.
“That’s what everyone calls Brody,” Eli says as he slaps a hand to my chest. “He was always following around big brother Jason, so little brother Brody became Little Bro. To friends.”
My dad coined the nickname. I used to like it. Now it doesn’t matter either way. It’s stuck.
“And that’s Eli First Kill,” Cherie says, pointing directly at Eli’s face. “And I’m just Cherie.”
Mara rests her hand on the horse’s neck. “And I’m just Mara.”
“Are you doing the intertribal dance?” Cherie’s eyes light up.
“We can without regalia!”
I laugh and elbow Eli’s arm before Mara can answer. “Yeah, she could rally up with the other visitors. Where she belongs.”
The smile New-Girl-Mara had drops.
“Anyway.” I clear my throat. “We have to get back to the arbor.” I hope she doesn’t miss the inflection.
We lead the horses between the trailers, kicking up enough dust to make Mara cough. Geraldine emerges with a couple of visitors from the opposite end of a trailer and heads toward the arbor and the crowds, still in deep teaching mode. Loren sidles up to Eli as we make our way down the main dirt path. “Take care of the horses,” she says, a glint in her red-rimmed eyes. “Don’t make us be Indian givers.”
“That’s very offensive,” I deadpan.
Loren laughs, but it’s not the deep, rolling sound I’m used to. It’s still too flat. Too lifeless. I wish I could take that from her.
We pass Youngbull again at the break in the bleachers, the Golden Age category still dancing behind him. He trains his watchful gaze on Loren until we walk far enough that the concession trucks finally block his view.
I bet that guilt for being a total failure does eat him up inside.
Loren doesn’t seem to notice his eyes on her. Or she’s gotten good at ignoring it. “I don’t know what to tell you, Eli First Kill,” she says. “Your dad must’ve had some way with my grandma. I’ve never even seen them talk—”
Eli raises his palms. “I know less than you do, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Loren smiles again, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. She squints as she walks, always trying to figure out the puzzle of Eli First Kill. He has a way of opening up just enough to keep you around and shutting back down to keep you wondering over him. He wasn’t always like that.
The trick now is to let him be. Let him keep his secrets. Works for me.
“I’ll pass along the appreciation,” he finally says. “Whether de- served or not.”
Loren nods as we tie up the horses.
“And I’m so sorry they still haven’t found Rayanne.” Eli practically whispers it. Like saying it out loud is what makes her situation final. Or he’s just protecting Cherie from hearing anything.
Loren somehow smiles and frowns at the same time. I pull her to my side, though my shirt sticks to the sweat on my skin.
“Yeah. Me too.” She unfolds herself from my arm and makes a show of checking the competition number on her jingle dress. “It’ll be weird dancing without Rayanne.” Her voice is suddenly distant.
Monotone. So far from the Loren she used to be before all this crap. The Loren that used to make me cry laughing. The one I could picture filling up a row with kids together at powwow. She smooths the number again. I want to take her back to how things used to be, before Rayanne disappeared.
But I can’t.
“That’s the main reason I gifted her shawl to Samantha. So I could still feel her out there.”
She doesn’t have to say it—most of us know Rayanne is never going to be found. Tribal police have all but officially stated she’s presumed dead.
Maybe that’s why they don’t seem too bothered about finding out what happened to her anymore.
They know she’s already past saving.
I force a smile. “That’s a nice idea. She’s with you, though. In life or death, she’s in your blood. She’s always with you.”
“Thanks.” She glances up and down the dirt road, scanning the faces in the concession lines and crowd heading back into the bleachers. “Well, I should find Samantha. She said she’d do the intertribal dance with me.”
“Good luck in the competition,” Eli says as Cherie drags him toward a line of port-a-potties.
“I’ll miss you out there,” Loren calls after him. “You would’ve won this year.”
He doesn’t even glance back.
“Judge Connie ‘Running Mouth’ will miss you too,” I yell. “And ol’ Ron ‘Sits With Crack.’” He doesn’t turn but his head tips back in laughter at my new Indian nicknames for the judges.
Loren rolls her eyes in typical fashion but almost laughs.
I yank my shirt away from my damp chest, fanning myself. “You could win too.”
She shrugs, but a smile tugs at her lips. “Kill it out there.”
A shadow slinks into her eyes, but she’s gone before I realize what I’ve said.
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