Then silence.
Then the creak of the couch as he settled in for another night of not sleeping.
Harper pressed her back against the door and wondered what she was doing.
Chapter 13
Caleb found Ronan on the back deck of his cottage the next morning, staring at the water with a coffee mug cooling in his hands.
The place looked different from how Caleb remembered.The last time he'd been here, right after Ronan bought it, the deck had been rotting, and the dock was half-collapsed.Now the boards were solid underfoot, the railing freshly stained, and the dock rebuilt with new posts and planking.Ronan had been busy.
A heron stood motionless at the end of the dock, one leg folded, its neck a gray question mark against the flat water.It had the patience of something that understood exactly what it was waiting for.
"You're up early," Caleb said.
"Haven't been to bed."Ronan didn't turn around."Lila kicked me out of ours around two.Said I was thinking too loud."
"Sounds like Lila."
"She's usually right about that kind of thing."Ronan lifted the mug, looked at the coffee, and set it back on the railing without drinking."I walked the perimeter at three.Checked the road, the boat ramp, and the access point behind the barn.Clean.But the fact that I felt the need to check tells you where my head is."
Caleb leaned against the railing and waited.Ronan would get there when he got there.The man had spent years in operations where patience wasn't a virtue but a survival skill, and he'd never lost the habit of approaching a conversation the way he approached a target—circling, assessing, choosing the right angle before committing.
"Tell me about her," Ronan said.
"Harper."
"No, the other woman living in your safe house."Ronan finally looked at him."Yeah.Harper.Not the operational assessment.The personal read."
Caleb watched the heron.It hadn't moved.Patient, focused, locked onto a patch of water where something was stirring beneath the surface.
"She's sharp," he said."Sharper than most people I've worked with, and I worked with some of the best analysts at Meade.She sees connections in human behavior, the way I see them in data.Different lens, same instinct."
"That's still the operational assessment."
"I know."
"Try again."
"She's been alone a long time.That leaves marks."
"What kind of marks?"
"The kind where she sleeps with one ear toward the door.Where she checks the windows before she sits down.Where she flinches—just barely, you'd miss it if you weren't watching—every time a car door closes outside."Caleb paused."She's been running for fourteen months.That rewires a person."
"You care about her."
The heron struck.One fluid motion—the long neck uncoiling, the beak piercing the surface, coming up with a silver fish that caught the early light before it disappeared.The whole thing took less than a second.All that patience, all that stillness, and then one decisive moment.
"I don't know what I feel," Caleb said."I know she makes me think about things I haven't thought about in a long time."
"Like what?"
"Like what it would be like to not be alone."
Ronan picked up his coffee and finally drank.It had to be cold by now, but he didn't seem to notice."You remember what that feels like.You're just scared."
"Maybe."
