“No.” The word comes out lower than I mean it to, a growl that echoes flat off the trees around the porch. “She's not bait. Not for four seconds, not for four feet. She stays here where I can put my body between her and anything that comes up this mountain, or she moves to my backup place two ridges over where nobody but you and I have ever set foot. You want a decoy, use me. I'll ride the route myself if it draws them in. But Nora stays out of the line of fire completely, or this whole plan is off the table and I find another way.”
“Colt, she's already in danger just by existing right now, whether she's in that vehicle or sitting in your cabin.” Mason counters, but I hear the understanding underneath the argument. He knows me well enough to know I'm not bending on this one, not an inch. “If we don't control when and where this happens, they pick the time instead of us, and that's a version of this I like even less than the one I just proposed.”
I stare out at the snow heavy pines, branches dripping meltwater bright in the last of the sun. “Then we make damn sure we're ready enough that it doesn't matter who picks the time. I won't risk her, Mason. She watched a man die and lost her whole life over it in the space of one afternoon. I'm her shield now. That's not up for negotiation, not even with you.”
He's quiet a moment, and when he speaks again some of the fight's gone out of his voice, replaced by something closer to respect. “Copy that. We'll build the plan around keeping her clear entirely. I'll use one of the junior agents as the decoy instead, somebody roughly her build, and we run the transfer far enough from the cabin that nobody comes looking up here at all.”
We hammer out the rest of it over another twenty minutes, refining the timeline, who covers which approach, the signals we'll use if something goes wrong faster than expected. Mason will coordinate his end, pulling Jax and Kane in fully once the warrant in Missoula clears, while I prep the ground here, every trap and trail and choke point this mountain has to offer. By the time we hang up, the plan feels solid enough to bet a life on. Which I am. Hers, and mine right alongside it if it comes to that.
I slip back inside, warmth wrapping around me like a welcome after the cold porch air. Nora's still asleep, but she's shifted onto her side, one arm stretched out across the empty space where I was lying a few minutes ago, reaching for something that isn't there yet. I shed my clothes and slide back under the blankets, pulling her close again. She murmurs something soft and presses her face into my neck, breath warm against my skin, and my hand settles on her hip like it was always going to end up there.
“I've got you, darlin'.” I whisper it into her hair, voice rough with everything I'm not saying out loud yet. “Nobody's taking you from me. Not the Armenians. Not the feds. Not a folder full of new names. You're mine, and I'm keeping you right here.”
She doesn't wake, but she smiles in her sleep, fingers curling against my chest like she heard some part of it anyway. I lie there holding her, listening to the fire pop low and the distant drip of snow melting somewhere outside, my heart beating steady now with actual purpose instead of just want. I fell fast, but it feels right, like the mountain itself pushed the two of us together on purpose and I'd be a fool to argue with that kind of math. I'll end this threat. Draw the Pertrosyans out on my own ground, my own terms, and then I'll build whatever life she wants with me, here in this cabin or somewhere else entirely, as long as Iget to wake up next to her every morning after. I don't care how it sounds. Love like this doesn't wait around for good timing. It grabs you by the throat and dares you to fight for it anyway.
So I will. With every trap, every plan, every ounce of whatever's left of this heart I've got. Nora's not going anywhere except deeper into my life, right where she belongs.
19
Nora
I wake up slowly, wrapped in the heavy quilts and the even heavier warmth of Colt's body curled around me. My cheek rests against his chest, and I can feel the steady thump of his heart under my ear like the most reliable metronome in the world. I love this man. The realization hits soft and overwhelming at the same time. It's fast, how completely he's taken up residence in my heart in just a few days, but I don't question it. Not when his hand is splayed across my lower back holding me like I'm something worth holding carefully. Not when every breath he takes rustles my hair and makes me feel safer than anything else in my life ever has.
But safety comes with a cost. If I let them put me into witness protection, I'll never see him again. No more mornings like this. No more of his rough voice calling me darlin', or the way his palms map every inch of me like he's committing it to memory. No more watching him split wood with those powerful shoulders, or sharing quiet laughter over burnt pancakes in this tiny kitchen. The thought squeezes my chest tight, like one of those overly dramatic hugs in my cartoon panels where thecharacters get smooshed into hearts. I can't let that happen. I have to fix this myself somehow. I have to end the threat from the Armenians once and for all. For us. Because I love him too much to just disappear on schedule.
Colt stirs beside me, his arm tightening around my waist for a moment before he presses a slow kiss to my forehead. “Morning, darlin'.” His voice is rough and deliciously deep with sleep. We linger there trading soft touches and softer words until the sun climbs higher and the cabin warms up around us. Eventually he sits up, the quilts sliding down to reveal tanned muscle and the scars I've started tracing with my fingertips without quite meaning to. He stretches his arms overhead, and I watch shamelessly as his back shifts and his jeans sit low on his hips when he pulls them on.
“I'm going to rinse off,” he says, leaning down to kiss me properly, his beard tickling my chin, his hand cupping my face like I'm fragile and fierce all at once. “Stay in bed a bit longer. You look too good right there to disturb.”
I nod and smile up at him, my heart doing that ridiculous flip it always does around him. The second the bathroom door clicks shut and I hear the shower turn on, water rushing through the pipes, I slip out of bed. The floorboards are cold under my bare feet, and I shiver as I grab Colt's flannel from the chair and pull it on, the fabric swallowing me whole, sleeves hanging past my hands.
My hands shake a little as I find the satellite phone he left on the shelf. I check the call log and see a name. Mason Cole. I dial before I can talk myself out of it, heart pounding loud enough that I'm sure it'll give me away even through a closed bathroom door.
“Mason here.”
“Hi, Mason.” I keep my voice low, letting the shower noise cover it. “This is Nora. Colt's Nora. I need to talk to you.”
There's a pause, and I can almost hear him shifting into Marshal mode. “Nora. Everything okay up there? Colt just called me earlier.”
I pace to the window, staring out at the sparkling snow and the tall pines standing like silent guardians around the cabin. “That's why I'm calling. I love him, Mason. Really love him. The kind of love where you draw silly cartoons of the two of you building a whole life together without meaning to. But if I go into WITSEC, I'll never see him again. I can't do that. I have to fix this myself. There has to be a way to end it for good. Tell me there's a way.”
Mason lets out a slow breath. “There's a plan, Nora. Colt and I talked it through last night. We're going to draw the Armenians out on our terms. Set up an ambush using terrain he knows better than anybody. No more running.”
My mind races, spinning through possibilities like panels in one of my storyboards. The shower keeps running steady in the background, giving me this small window of courage I might not get again. I grip the phone tighter. “That's good. But what if I meet with them myself? What if I offer to talk, or hand over something they want? I could be the one to draw them out. Use me as bait, Mason. I'm the one who saw everything. They want me specifically. Let me help end this so Colt and I actually get a real chance at something.”
The silence on the other end stretches longer this time. When Mason speaks again, his voice is careful and firm, like he'stalking down something spooked. “Nora, listen to me. That's not a good idea, and Colt will never allow it. He made that crystal clear when we were planning. He's not putting you in danger, not even a little. He loves you. I could hear it in every word he said last night. He wants you safe above everything else, including his own plan working perfectly.”
I lean my forehead against the cool glass, watching a clump of snow slide off a branch and land with a soft poof below the window. Of course Colt said that. My big, protective, growly daddy who'd rather face down an entire criminal network alone than risk one hair on my head. It makes me love him more and want to scream at the same time. “But I'm already in danger just by knowing what I know. If I can help finish it faster, we all win. Please, Mason. There has to be something I can actually do.”
“I get it, Nora. You're brave as hell for even suggesting it. But Colt's right on this one. We've got a solid plan without putting you front and center, decoys, routes he controls, the works. You stay put and let us handle it. Promise me you won't do anything rash.”
I swallow hard, throat tight with everything swirling in me. “Okay. I promise I won't do anything rash right now.”
We talk a little longer, Mason giving me a few more details without giving away too much, and by the time we hang up I feel both better and worse at once. Better because there's real momentum now, an actual plan instead of just waiting. Worse because I already know I'm not going to just sit here.
I hang up and stay by the window a long moment, phone heavy in my hand, running through everything Mason didn't quite say along with everything he very clearly meant. Promise me you won't do anything rash. I made that promise honestly, in themoment I made it, and I'm already turning over exactly how much room the word rash leaves me to work with.
I could call the local sheriff, except Colt's already looped in every level of law enforcement that matters, and one more voice repeating what Mason just told me isn't going to move anything. I could try to find Richard Rogers's family, except I don't know their names, and showing up uninvited with information about a murder feels like exactly the kind of decision that gets a civilian hurt in the second act of every thriller I've half watched while inking somebody else's deadline. I could post something publicly, some vague warning meant to draw attention, except the Pertrosyans clearly have resources enough to make inconvenient people disappear quietly, and putting myself on their radar in public feels less like drawing them out and more like drawing a target on my own back in permanent marker.
