Val smiles then. All soft, sure, heart-shaped pink lips and eyes like mellow gold. She reaches up and flicks a loose strand of that silky dark hair back behind her ear, and suddenly I think I’ve found the real danger here. It was always hiding in plain sight. A man could fall in love with that shit. When a woman’s this beautiful and lost and fragile, a flick of her hair can bring a dude to his knees far swifter than any barking gun.
