Every option collapses the same way when I turn it over. Either it does nothing at all, or it does something and gets somebody hurt, possibly me, possibly Colt, if he comes running to fix whatever I've broken trying to help. I make myself sit with that second possibility longer than feels comfortable. What does it actually look like if I try something and it goes wrong. Not the brave version where the music swells and everything resolves in my favor because I meant well. The real version, where Colt finds out I've done something reckless behind his back and has to choose between the careful plan he built with Mason and rushing in to save me instead, which is exactly the outcome his whole plan has been built to prevent in the first place.
That thought alone nearly talks me out of it completely. Nearly. But underneath the fear there's something harder and more stubborn, the same something that made me lean toward a murder scene instead of running from it, the same somethingthat had me crouching in the snow finding a boot print Colt would rather I hadn't gone looking for at all. I'm not built for waiting quietly while other people decide my future on my behalf. I never have been. It's gotten me into exactly as much trouble as it's gotten me out of over the years, and I don't have a good argument for why this time should be any different, except that this time the stakes are a man I love instead of a missed deadline.
I don't have a plan yet. Not really. Just the beginning of one, small and half formed and entirely unauthorized, sitting in my chest right next to the promise I just made and fully intend to bend the moment I find a way to do it that doesn't get anybody killed.
The shower turns off a minute later, and I put the phone back exactly where I found it and climb into bed again, pulling the quilts up to my chin like they can hide what I'm already turning over in my head. I hear Colt moving around in the bathroom, the clink of something metal, the rustle of a towel. When he steps out, hair damp and tousled, water still trailing down the ridges of his abs, he looks like every rugged fantasy I've ever doodled come to life, and my heart aches with how much I love him and how much I'm already planning to worry him.
“You okay, darlin'?” he asks, climbing back into bed and pulling me close against skin still warm from the shower.
I nod and bury my face in his neck, breathing him in and letting his arms chase away the what ifs for now. “Just thinking about us. About how much I love this. Love you.”
He makes a low, satisfied sound in his chest and kisses the top of my head. “Good. Because you're stuck with me, Nora. Armenians or no Armenians.”
I smile against his skin, but inside, my mind's already turning over ideas, piece by piece, the way I'd sketch out a new comic strip panel by panel before I know how it ends. I have to do something. I love him too much not to. Maybe I can find a way to reach them on my own terms, something that keeps Colt entirely out of the line of fire while ending this nightmare for good. It's reckless, and he'd be furious if he knew I was even considering it, but if it means we get to keep this, keep each other, I've already decided it's worth the risk, even knowing exactly how badly it could go.
For now I let him hold me, tracing patterns on his chest, listening to his heartbeat settle back into its ordinary, unhurried rhythm. But the resolve settles deep in my bones anyway, quieter now, more deliberate than it was an hour ago. I have to fix this. For us. No matter what it ends up costing me to do it.
20
Colt
The cabin feels warmer than usual after dinner, even as the sun dips low outside and paints the snow deep orange and purple through the window. I made a simple stew with what we've got left in the stores, thick chunks of meat and vegetables simmering slow in the cast iron pot, the kind of meal that usually gets Nora talking about nothing in particular for twenty minutes straight. Tonight she just pushes her spoon around more than she eats, her eyes drifting to the window and then down to her hands and then back to the window again, like she's checking something out there that isn't actually visible from where she's sitting.
I notice every small thing about her these days, more than I've ever bothered noticing about another person in my life. The way her fingers tap light and quick against the table edge when her mind's somewhere else. The soft furrow between her brows that shows up when she's turning a problem over without wanting to say what the problem is. I don't know exactly what's sitting behind her eyes tonight, but I know the shape of it well enough by now to recognize when something's there, and it twistssomething protective and a little uneasy in my chest. I want to hold her until whatever it is loosens its grip.
“You've been somewhere else all evening,” I say, watching her push a chunk of carrot around the bowl without eating it. “Anything you want to talk through?”
She glances up, and something crosses her face fast enough that I almost miss it, guilt maybe, or the particular look of somebody deciding whether tonight's the night to say something out loud. Then it's gone, replaced by a small, tired smile. “Just thinking. About everything. It's a lot to carry around, is all.”
I let it go for now, mostly because I don't have the right to push harder than she's willing to open on her own, and partly because I've got my own version of the same weight sitting on me, the plan with Mason, the timeline closing in, the dozen ways this could still go wrong before it goes right. Maybe we're both just carrying quiet tonight instead of sharing it out loud, and maybe that's alright, for one evening at least.
I push my empty bowl aside and stand, reaching for her hand. My palm's rough against her softer one as I pull her gently to her feet. “Come here, darlin'.” My voice comes out calm and even despite everything sitting under it. “Let me hold you a while. Whatever it is, it can wait for morning.”
Truth is, I've gotten protective of these quiet evenings the same way I used to get protective of a good trap line, checking it constantly, worried something might have disturbed it while I wasn't looking. A week ago I'd have called that kind of vigilance paranoia. Now I understand it's just what loving somebody costs, the constant low hum of wanting to know they're alright even when there's no evidence they aren't. My father used to say a man only really understands what he's got to lose once he's gotsomething worth losing. I used to think that was just something men said to sound wise around a campfire. Sitting here watching Nora carry some private weight she isn't ready to hand me yet, I understand it's just plain true.
She comes to me without hesitation, fitting against me the way she always does now, like her body learned the shape of mine faster than either of us caught up to what that meant. I guide us to the bed, the quilts still rumpled from that morning, and settle back against the headboard with her pulled into my lap. Her head finds my shoulder. I stroke a hand slow up and down her back, feeling the line of her spine through the flannel she's wearing. My shirt. It does something to me every time, seeing her wrapped in something that's mine, but tonight I keep it gentle instead of letting that feeling turn into anything sharper. Whatever's sitting on her tonight, I want to love it quiet out of her instead of chasing it away with anything rushed.
My fingers slip under the hem of the shirt, tracing slow circles against the warm skin of her lower back. She shivers and presses closer, breath warm against my neck. I tilt her chin up with two fingers so I can actually see her eyes. “Talk to me, Nora. What's going on in that head of yours.”
She bites her lip, and for a second I think she's going to say something real, something with weight behind it, and then whatever it was passes and she just shakes her head slightly and leans up to kiss me instead. I let her. Some things a person has to come to in their own time, and pushing rarely gets you there any faster.
I kiss her slow and unhurried, tasting the faint sweetness of the berries from dinner still on her mouth, and she melts into it the way she always does, her hands coming to rest against my chest. I feel her heartbeat pick up under my palm. What followsis patient and thorough and entirely without hurry, the two of us taking our time with each other the way people do when neither one particularly wants tonight to end.
“I've fallen in love with you, Nora,” I tell her at some point, my voice rough with the plain truth of it, my forehead resting against hers. “Crazy fast. Doesn't matter to me how fast, though. You're everything. I don't want to let you go, not to WITSEC, not to anybody.”
Her eyes shine up at me, bright and full of something that steals a little of my breath just looking at it. She cups my face, thumbs brushing my beard. “I love you too, Colt. So much it scares me a little, if I'm honest.”
Those words settle into my chest like a warm coal that doesn't burn, just sits there radiating something steady. I hold her through the rest of it, unhurried, both of us saying with our bodies everything the words already covered, until we're both spent and tangled together in the quiet aftermath, the fire burned down low across the room.
I roll us to the side afterward so I can hold her properly without any weight pressing her down, and she snuggles into my chest, fingers tracing light, absent patterns against my skin. I notice she's quiet again, that same faraway look creeping back in now that the moment's passed, and I file it away instead of pushing on it a second time tonight.
“Can I ask you something,” she says eventually, voice soft against my collarbone.
“Always.”
“If something happened. If I did something you thought was reckless, but I did it because I loved you and couldn't just sitthere waiting, would you forgive me for it? Even if it turned out badly?”
The question catches me sideways, and I go still for a second, turning it over. “That's an oddly specific hypothetical for eleven o'clock at night.”
