Jen lifted a stack of coveralls off the shelf, checking the labels.Men’s medium. Large. Extra-large.
She glanced back at Wyatt, trying to assess him through the wet flight suit clinging to his frame, and immediately regretted the exercise when her brain stalled on details that were absolutely not mission-critical.
“Um. I don’t know what size you need.”
Amusement flashed across his face, and he stepped past her and reached for a folded set without hesitation. “These’ll work.”
She grabbed a small for herself, her fingers clumsy.
“You take the locker room.” He was already turning back toward the control space. “I’ll change out there.”
She nodded quickly. Grateful, absurdly, for the distance. Her head was still fuzzy from the cold and the memory of his hands at her waist. She needed separation to get her feet under her again. The locker door shut behind him, a strip of fluorescent light cutting under it.
Jen blew out a breath and shook her head once.
Get a grip. Get dry. Get warm. Think later.
Without Wyatt, the small space felt suddenly too quiet. The hum of the station vibrated faintly through the walls, a familiar presence she usually took comfort in. Right now, it just reminded her how thin the barrier was between them and everything hunting them.
Her hands shook as she reached for the zipper of her sodden coveralls. The metal teeth resisted at first, and she had to pause—press her forehead briefly to the wall and breathe until her fingers remembered how to work.
After shrugging off the arms, the coveralls peeled away reluctantly, heavy with water, clinging like they didn’t want to let her go. When she finally kicked free of them, the relief was immediate and almost dizzying, even as the chill bit at her skin. She shivered in her underwear, the air prickling across exposed flesh as she unzipped the dry coveralls.
This morning she’d dressed without thinking. A normal day on Seven.
It felt like a different lifetime.
The coverall fabric was slightly stiff from being folded, but warm, so blessedly warm, against her skin. She zipped up withhands that were already steadier, her body’s violent shaking subsiding to occasional tremors as her core temperature finally edged back toward normal.
Sounds carried through the thin wall—muted, indistinct. The dull thud of boots hitting the floor. The clink of a belt buckle.
Wyatt.
Awareness hit her sideways, her brain latching onto it despite everything, screaming that this was not the time. They were being hunted. Seven was compromised. People she cared about were on their knees with guns pointed at them.
And yet her body noticed.
Jen dragged her hands through her damp, tangled hair.Hypothermia.Nothing else.
She tugged on dry socks, boots, then squared her shoulders.
Get back to work.
When she opened the door, she meant to apologize—some automatic politeness for taking longer than she should have.
The words died in her throat.
Wyatt stood six feet away, his back half-turned as hereached for a clean t-shirt laid across the console.
Too close.
The fluorescent lighting carved him into sharp relief.
Oh.
Broad shoulders tapered to a strong waist. A back built for pulling people from places they shouldn’t survive. Ink traced packed muscle. The SEAL trident on one arm.
So that was the answer he wouldn’t give her in the vent.
