Page 64 of Faultline

"She called you directly."

"She called me directly." Tosh leans against the gatepost, arms crossed, chin lifted. My flannel hangs past her wrists, the collar turned up against the cold. The fit of her body inside it turns stolen clothing into a territorial claim.

"She called me because Aurora Covenant already has the corporate evidence organized, and if the GPS data connects to the relocation network, I can get the whole package in front of the federal contacts we've been working."

I take a drink of the coffee and let the logic settle. She's right. She's been right about the legal infrastructure since she spread her case across my kitchen table.

Harlow recognized it, went straight to her instead of routing everything through Rhys. The former FBI agent stopped underestimating the advocate.

"You're building the federal case," I say.

"I've been building the federal case since I traced the first shell company. What's changed is that now I've got a former FBI agent helping me build it, and the evidence has escalated from financial fraud to professionally coordinated surveillance of civilian property." She takes the thermos cap back when I've finished. "Which is a sentence I never expected to say while standing next to a man welding a gate out of scrap pipe."

"Improvisation."

"Infrastructure. You're turning this place into a forward operating base with hand tools and a welding rig."

"That's Harlow's vocabulary."

"Harlow uses the phrase 'forward operating base.' You use the phrase 'fixing the gate.' Same thing. Strictly a vocabulary issue."

The corner of my mouth pulls. I don't fight it.

She's standing close enough that I can feel warmth radiating off her body through the cotton. The part of me that isn't calculating gate reinforcement angles is measuring the distance between her hip and my hand.

"Come here," I say.

She raises one eyebrow. "I'm right here."

"Closer."

She uncrosses her arms and takes a half step. I set down the welding torch, pull off the gloves, and close the remaining distance with one hand on her hip, drawing her against me.

My palm spreads across the small of her back where the flannel meets her jeans. The hitch in her breathing when I press her flush against my body is the only sound on the mountain that matters.

"If you're about to tell me to stay inside while you fortify the perimeter, you should know that I've already prepared a list of reasons why that request is both strategically counterproductive and personally insulting."

"I'm not telling you to stay inside."

"Good."

"I'm telling you that Cascade came through my gate this morning to photograph my cabin, and the next time they come, they won't be photographing." My hand tightens on her hip. The fabric bunches under my fingers. "Which means that every minute you spend on this property, you're inside the target zone they just built."

Her jaw sets. The defiance I saw at the Ridgeline the first time she held my gaze through the café glass is still there. Harder now. Weathered by everything she's survived since she moved into my cabin and my bed and the part of my skull that won't stop working out how to keep her there.

"Then we'd better make sure the target zone has teeth," she says.

I kiss her because the alternative is explaining what her defiance does to the structure of my self-control, and that explanation would involve vocabulary I don't possess and admissions I'm not prepared to make standing next to a half-finished gate with welding gloves in my back pocket.

The kiss lands hard. It carries everything I can't say out loud: the cut padlock, the tire tracks, the coffee she brought across the clearing because she noticed I hadn't stopped working. Her mouth opens under mine, and the sound she makes against my teeth undoes every calculation I've been running since dawn.

My free hand finds the back of her neck, fingers threading into her hair, tilting her head where I want it. Her fists close on my shirt, pulling me closer. The pressure of her hips against mine sends a signal to every part of my body that has no interest in gate construction.

When I pull back, her eyes are steady. No performance. No retreat. She looks at me with the focused assessment she gave the evidence spread across the kitchen table. Like she's already decided what she's willing to risk.

I let go of her neck. It takes longer than it should.

She picks up the thermos from the gatepost where she set it, turns back toward the switchbacks, and walks up the hill without looking back. The flannel rides up at her hip with each step. I watch her until she rounds the first curve because I can't not.