Page 19 of Her Mountain Man Protector

But it gets his full attention. He sets the mug down with a click that is absolutely a warning. "You're not going to the store."

"Watch me."

"I'm watching you. That's the job. Banks and Alden said no daylight run through town. Helix rented eyes at the hardware counter yesterday. You in a grocery aisle is a gift they don't get to open."

I stand taller, mug in both hands, proud of the way my voice stays even when my pulse doesn't. "Then you go. I'll stay here and photograph the hearth like a hostage with excellent composition skills."

He hates that option too. I see it land. The muscle in his jaw ticks. He looks at the door. He looks at me. He looks at the door again, and I can practically hear his mind thinking. Leave me. Take me. Neither one sits right in that stubborn chest of his.

"I'll go," he says finally. "You stay. Gate stays shut. If anybody but me comes up that driveway you get in the bathroom and you call Alden."

"If anybody but you comes up that driveway I'm taking their picture first."

"Oakley."

"Colt." I match his tone, bright on purpose, because if I go soft he'll think he won. "You can't leave me in a glass box and expect me to knit. I cook. I need cranberries. I need an orange. I need butter that didn't come from a backpack."

"Cranberries."

"Muffins. Don't make that face. Civilization requires baked goods."

He's opening his mouth to decree something tragic when his burner buzzes against the table. He snatches it, listens, and the scowl eases by a fraction I would miss if I hadn't spent the night studying his fractions.

"You're sure?" A pause. "Yeah. She's got a list. Keep Rowe in the truck until I clear the gate. Copy."

He hangs up.

"Well?" I ask.

"Alden's going to the store. He's bringing Rowe. They'll drop supplies and leave. You're not going down the mountain. I'm not leaving you. That's the version that doesn't get somebody buried.”

Relief hits so fast my knees go loose. I cover it by setting the mug down too hard. "I can work with that. Tell him cranberry orange muffins. If the store in Woodbridge Falls has ever heard of zest, I want it. Flour if the canisters are sad. Butter and eggs. One bag of cranberries that isn't older than your truck."

"That's a short list?"

"That's a focused list. There's a difference."

"Here." He shoves the phone at me. “Text it.”

I tap out the text with leftover sleep and a giddy, luminous spark I refuse to apologize for. Muffins. In a safe house. After a shootout. The ridiculousness of it is the point. I love muffins to my core. With my whole self. More than I’ve ever loved anything at all. I also want the kitchen busy with something I chose. I want Rowe to walk in and see a woman who bakes instead of a woman who’s scared.

Colt reads the text and grunts, which I'm choosing to translate as yes.

“This looks like a grocery list for a twelve-year-old. We need protein too.” He adds the phrase: ‘Chicken, and lots of it.’

“Chicken?” I make a face. “Yuck.”

He raises a brow. “Everyone likes chicken.”

I park a hand on my hip. “Not everyone. But I’ll survive.”

An hour later the gate buzzes. Colt is already at the door with that restless, blistering attention he wears instead of a smile. I stay back from the glass because he asked, and because I like being asked almost as much as I like pretending I’m ignoring him.

Alden North comes up the drive in a dark truck that looks like a Transformer. Iron Hide? Or maybe something else. The passenger door flies open before the engine dies and a girl with a messy bun and an oversized flannel jumps down holding two paper bags like trophies.

Rowe.

She's all long limbs and bright, hungry energy, sixteen in the specific way that makes the room feel younger the second she crosses the threshold. She clocks the bed against the far wall. She clocks my borrowed clothes. A fresh t-shirt and lounge pants. She clocks Colt, and her grin goes wicked.