Page 6 of Fated, Allegedly

"You're not taking them?" he says.

"I'm taking all three. Then I'm putting the mounts back exactly where they were, empty, and if somebody comes to service them I want to know what he drives." I peel the third one loose and drop it in the bag. "And Wyatt, she doesn't hear about any of this, not a hint. She's already sleeping badly."

"How do you know how she's sleeping?"

Caleb coughs into his fist. I hand Wyatt the bag and tell him to run the ridge line and check the two eastern sites, and he goes, because he's a good kid underneath all that noise.

When he's out of earshot Caleb says, "Nash."

"Don't."

"You put wolves on rotation around a state contractor. You've slept maybe nine hours since she arrived. Isla asked me straight out last night and I told her I didn't know, and I've never once lied to my mate, so I'd appreciate it if you'd make me an honest man."

The pines are dripping. Somewhere out on the water a loon is calling and getting no answer, which is its own small horror.

"It happened when I saw her," I say. "Before she'd finished saying her own name."

Caleb lets out a breath. He doesn't whoop or grin, which is how I know he understands what it costs. "Does she know?"

"She knows a game warden keeps turning up. That's all she gets."

"Nash—"

"What do you want me to hand her? She came here with her career in pieces according to the records I found about her and she's holding it together with tape and stubbornness. If I tell her the truth I take her science, her job, her whole understanding of the world." I sling the bag over my shoulder. "She's a scientist. She's earned the right to be given evidence, not asked for this world. When I can put something in her hands, I will."

"And if she finds it herself first?"

I don't answer that, because I've been chewing on it since the collar on the stump.

She catches me at the woodshed at seven a.m., barefoot, coffee in both hands, hair loose for once and doing something to my chest I intend to ignore.

"You didn't go home," she says.

"I checked the road."

"For six hours."

"It's a long road."

She comes down the steps and hands me one of the mugs. She's put milk in it without asking, which means she noticed how I drank it at the station. That lands harder than anything the mercenaries did last night.

"I've been replaying last night in my head," she says. "The part where your hand came over my mouth should be the worst thing that's ever happened to me. And instead I lay awake thinking about how I'd have been standing in the line of sight of that light when it came around." She looks away instead of at me. "He photographed my boot prints, Nash. He documented me."

"I know."

"Thank you." It comes out rough, like she had to drag it up. "I'm not good at that. Ask anyone I've ever worked with. But you keep showing up just before I need you and I've decided to stop being insulted about it."

"You could be a little insulted."

"Oh, I'm still deeply insulted. I've just triaged." A tired half-laugh gets away from her. "How do you keep showing up?"

There's the question, wide open, no trap in it, and she'd probably believe me if I told her.

"Small county," I say. "Bad radio. I drive a lot."

She studies me over the rim of her mug. She knows it's bullshit. She doesn't push me, and I feel that mercy like a hand supporting my back.

"Six loaner cameras," she says. "You promised."