“Then they’re not worth your time.” I stood, closing down the systems we’d been using, trying to push down the anger rising in my chest at whoever had made her think competence was a flaw. “You would’ve been good in the military. You think like a soldier. That’s the highest compliment I know how to give.”
She stood as well, gathering her tablet and radio with practiced efficiency. “Thank you. That means something, coming from you.”
We walked to the door together, and I held it open for her. Not because she needed me to. But because I wanted to. Because some part of me that I’d thought died with my team was waking up and insisting that this omega mattered in a way I wasn’t ready to examine too closely.
She paused in the doorway, looking up at me with those dark amber eyes that seemed to see more than I wanted them to. “We’re good? About earlier?”
“We’re good,” I confirmed. “And it won’t happen again. You have my word.”
“I’ll hold you to that, Hollow.”
“Dane,” I corrected before I could stop myself. “If we’re going to be working together regularly, you should probably call me Dane.”
She considered that, and I watched something shift in her expression. Not quite trust, but maybe the beginning of it. “All right. Dane. I’ll see you next week for the follow-up session.”
“Looking forward to it.”
She nodded and walked to her car, and I stood in the doorway watching her go like a fool who couldn’t quite convince himself to look away.
Three years I’d kept everyone at arm’s length. Three years of making sure no one got close enough to matter, because losing people I cared about had nearly destroyed me the first time.
My team. Six good soldiers who’d trusted me to make the right call. Who’d followed my orders into an ambush I should have seen coming. Who’d died while I was pinned down and helpless to save any of them.
I could still see their faces. Johnson, who’d been planning to propose to his girlfriend when we got back stateside. Martinez, who’d talked constantly about his daughter’s soccer games. Keane, who’d wanted to open a restaurant after discharge. Davis, Kowalski, and Michaels, all of them with families and futures and lives that ended because I’d made a tactical error.
I’d survived. The commanding officer always survived, apparently. Walked out with minor injuries while my team was transported home in boxes.
The nightmares had been bad for the first year. Bad enough that I’d left the military, moved back to Hollow Haven where I’d grown up, and taken a job as county sheriff specifically because it kept me busy and gave me purpose without requiring me to lead a team into danger again. The tactical training was something I did because rural services needed it and I had the skills. But I never let anyone get close. Never let anyone depend on me the way my team had.
It had worked. For three years, it had worked.
And then Sable Wynn had walked into my training facility with her tactical mind and her careful walls and her scent that made my alpha sit up and pay attention, and I had theuncomfortable realization that keeping my distance was going to be a lot harder than I’d planned.
Because she mattered. Already mattered, after just three days of working together. And that was dangerous for both of us.
I pulled out my phone and stared at it for a long moment before typing out a message to Beau Calder. We’d served in different branches, but we’d both been in Hollow Haven long enough to orbit each other’s professional circles. And I’d seen the way he looked at Sable during that drill last week. The same careful attention I’d been trying not to pay.
The emergency coordinator. Sable Wynn. You working with her?
The response came back within minutes.Yes. Why?
I stared at that single word question and tried to figure out how to explain that I’d just spent an hour redesigning tactical scenarios with an omega who made me feel things I’d sworn off feeling three years ago. That I’d intervened in a training scenario because my alpha had screamed MINE loud enough to override three years of careful control. That I was standing in an empty training facility thinking about cedar smoke and autumn rain instead of the tactical evaluations I should be writing.
Just curious,I typed back, which was a lie and we both probably knew it.
Right. Just curious. Let me guess. You noticed her too.
I didn’t respond, which was answer enough.
My phone buzzed again.Coffee shop. Tomorrow morning. 7 AM. We need to talk.
I typed back a confirmation and pocketed my phone, staring out at the empty parking lot where Sable’s sedan had been.
This was going to be complicated.
And complicated was exactly what I’d spent three years avoiding, because complicated meant caring, and caring meantfailing, and I’d already failed the people who’d mattered most once.
I couldn’t do it again.
