Neither of us built a monument out of it. We didn’t need to. What had happened between us—what was still happening—existed in a space beyond language, beyond performance. It was physical, not theoretical—a thing our bodies had decided before our minds had caught up.
I moved to the stove, heated up the pan, cracked three eggs into it, and reached for the bread on the counter. The morning moved forward around us—practical, the easy rhythm of people who understood that what came next would require all of us, not just some.
Jasper came to stand at the counter beside me, not crowding but not keeping his distance either. He reached for the coffeepot, poured a second cup, then leaned his hip against the counter and watched me work.
It was the most ordinary thing in the world—two people making breakfast in a kitchen as the sun came up—and it was also the miracle of a thing I hadn’t known to want until it was already happening.
My phone vibrated against my hip while Jasper was eating, the buzz-pause-buzz that meant my Omaha contact. I excused myself with a nod and stepped out to the porch, pulling the door shut behind me with a careful click.
The morning had warmed slightly, the thin line of clouds to the west breaking up to reveal patches of blue.
I answered on the third ring, keeping my voice neutral, eyes on the road that led from the highway. “Talk to me,” I said, not wasting words on preliminaries.
“One of Gerald’s men was in Black Butte yesterday,” Carver said, voice clipped. “Tall, blond, right forearm tattoo. He was asking at Harmon’s General Store about a male omega, late twenties, dark hair, a nurse. Said he was a friend trying to reconnect. The woman who runs the place—Harmon’s daughter—said she hadn’t seen anyone matching that description.”
The information landed with the weight of bad intel—the kind that changed your understanding of a situation completely. I stood still in the shadow of the porch, phone pressed to my ear, and ran the revised timeline.
Gerald’s man had been in Black Butte yesterday, less than ten miles from where we stood. The ranch was hours away from being identified, not days. The buffer of time I’d been counting on had disappeared.
“They’ve found the area,” Carver continued. “They’re working the grid—checking every town within fifty miles of the airport, showing Jasper’s photo, asking the same questions. The woman at Harmon’s called the sheriff after they left. Saidsomething felt off. The sheriff’s taking it seriously—he’s got two deputies keeping an eye on the store.”
I stood at the porch rail, eyes moving over the gravel road from the highway, the equipment barn, the tree line along the river, the open ground between the outbuildings and the farmhouse—reading the property the way I read any terrain I was about to have to defend.
“You there?” Carver asked, breaking the silence.
“I’m here,” I said. “Keep me updated.”
“Will do,” he said, then hung up without elaboration—another man who understood the value of saying exactly what needed to be said and nothing more.
I went to find Rawley.
He wasn’t in the house or the barn—Jackson said he’d gone north to check the east fence line where it crossed the creek. I found him twenty minutes later, halfway between the main house and the tree line, cutting a fallen branch with a chainsaw that screamed in the morning quiet.
He killed the engine when he saw me, the sudden absence of noise almost physical. “Problem?” he asked, setting the saw on the ground and brushing wood chips from his jacket.
I laid it out without softening it: Gerald’s man had been in Black Butte yesterday, asking about Jasper at Harmon’s General Store. The sheriff had been notified. The ranch was hours, not days, from being identified. My recommendation was to stop waiting and start controlling the ground.
Rawley listened without interrupting, expression neutral, eyes doing the same assessment I’d done from the porch—reading the property for cover, for approaches, for the angles that would give us the advantage if this turned physical.
“What do you need?” he asked when I finished, voice level, no judgment in it.
“Eyes on the road from the highway,” I said. “Someone needs to be able to see vehicles approaching before they reach the property line. Jasper kept close to the farmhouse, not left alone. And a conversation with Burke about what he’s willing to do if this gets physical.”
Rawley nodded once, accepting what I’d offered. “Done,” he said, then picked up the chainsaw and pulled the starter cord, the engine screaming back to life before I’d turned to leave.
What followed was the ranch preparing without looking like it was preparing. Rawley put Jackson on the road watch, positioned at the equipment barn with a sight line to the highway approach.
Jojo quietly redirected two medical questions to Jasper—the Hansen baby’s weight check and a ranch hand’s wife with questions about prenatal vitamins—keeping him occupied and in sight of the farmhouse.
Burke moved a flatbed trailer and two pieces of equipment—an old hay baler and a section of irrigation pipe—to the south side of the yard, repositioning them in a way that narrowed the vehicle approach to the farmhouse to a single lane.
He worked with the unhurried competence of a man who had done this kind of work before and didn’t need it explained, whistling under his breath as he backed the tractor into place.
I walked the full perimeter of the property—equipment barn, bunkhouse, the gap between the hay storage and the fence line, the blind corner at the northeast corner of the main structure.
I moved with the deliberate, methodical pace of a man who had cleared buildings and held perimeters and was now deciding which angles mattered most.
The ranch hands who noticed me doing it—the way I paused at each corner, noting sight lines and distances—didn’t ask questions. They’d been here long enough to recognize thedifference between routine and something else, to understand that certain kinds of work didn’t require explanation.
