Page 18 of Her Mountain Man Protector

I take the phone to the hall.

Banks says, "Tell me you're not on the mountain road."

"Safe house. Far side of the falls. Equinox property."

"Good. Because I cracked a slice of the diner payment Marin flagged. The money hops through a Helix vendor that also paid a private crew out of Halo City last month. Same crew that went dark the week Nash and Sin were taken. Your photographer didn't only walk into your search, Colt. She walked into the same machine that took our brothers."

The hall feels colder. I look at the bed, at the shape of her under the blanket, at the camera on the crate beside the bed. "How sure?"

"Sure enough that you don't bring her back through town in daylight. Sure enough that I'm looping Crewe. Sure enough that Dad's trail and her dock photos are the same road. Get some sleep. Tomorrow we stop treating this like two separate hunts."

I hang up and stand there longer than the call requires, listening to the house, listening to her, listening to the falls. Then I climb back into the bed and try my hardest not to pull her against me.

When I close my eyes she murmurs, without really waking, "If that's another decree, save it."

"It isn't," I say, and I let my hand rest on the blanket over her shoulder, heavy and careful, while Woodbridge Falls keeps its lights far below us and the night holds, for now, without breaking.

6

Oakley

Morning finds me in the big bed on the far wall, tangled in dark blankets that still hold the shape of him, and the first thing I see is Colt Hawthorne standing at the narrow window with a mug and a scowl, flannel open at the throat, looking like the mountain built him on purpose and then forgot to install manners.

The house is one room. That's the whole trick of it. Kitchen along the left. Bed pushed against the far wall like someone decided privacy was a rumor. The hearth holds the middle of the room hostage. No hallway to hide in. No second story to climb. Just this wide timber box and a man who slept on top of the blanket for half the night and under it for the rest, his hand a heavy, careful weight on my shoulder until the sky went pale.

I sit up. The Equinox shirt has slipped off one shoulder again. His eyes hit that bare line of skin and bounce away so fast I almost laugh.

"You're staring," I say.

"I'm counting exits."

"There are two. You already counted them. Repeatedly. Before dinner. After dinner. In the middle of the night when you thought I was out."

"You talk in your sleep."

"I don't."

"You told me to save my decrees. That's talking."

Heat crawls up my throat. I swing my legs off the mattress and the cold floor bites my feet, a sharp little reprimand I feel all the way up my shins. The room is dim and blue with leftover foglight. His mug steams. Mine is empty on the table, which I take as a declaration of war.

"Coffee," I say.

He nods at the pot. "It's there. I'm not pouring it for you."

"Romance isn't dead. It's wearing flannel and refusing basic hospitality."

"Hospitality got my cabin shot. Coffee's on the left."

I pour. I drink. It's strong enough to strip paint and I love it anyway. He watches the tree line like the trees owe him money. I watch him instead, because the alternative is staring at the bed we shared and inventing a speech I'm not giving a man who still calls the floor tactical.

Seconds tick. The quiet of the room presses in, thick and expectant, until even the falls outside feel like they're waiting for somebody to blink.

"We need food," I say. "Real food. The pasta last night was a stay of execution. The pantry's still a sad little joke."

"There's coffee."

"There's coffee and half a box of noodles and hot sauce. I’m going to the store." Let me start by saying I have no intention of actually going to the store.