Page 83 of Dissonance

“Listen, let me speak to my dad. He might know someone who’s done this sort of thing. But why don’t you ask Thea? Didn’t she start her own business?”

My shoulders stiffen as I stop walking. “She’s got enough on her plate.” The doctor’s voice filters back through my head again, uninvited, the way it has been on a loop since we left the appointment. “I don’t want to add to her stress.”

“Fair enough,” he says. “Is this what you’ve been doing this whole time you’ve been in LA?”

“What did you expect me to be doing? Sitting in my apartment waiting for Thea to finish work?”

He laughs. “Honestly? A little bit, yeah.”

“I’ve been researching, putting together proposals. Gunner’s basically been a trial run for this whole thing without knowing it. If it works for him, it can work for others.”

“That’s actually smart,” he says, and I can hear the sincerity in his voice. “The former military turned security angle… You’d know exactly who you’re looking for.”

“Aye. That’s the idea.”

“This whole thing…” he hesitates. “It’s not because of the baby, right? I mean, you love what you do.”

“Nah.” I scrub a hand over my beard. “But I can’t be Cooper’s bodyguard forever. I’m nearly forty, man. I’ve been thinking about what comes next for a while, and branching out has been on my mind. The baby’s just moved up the timeline a little.” I pause. “But I don’t want her thinking that every decision I make now is because of the pregnancy. The business was always going to happen, regardless.”

“I never knew you and Thea even liked each other that way. I knew there was history, but I didn’t think—no offence, man—I just never had you pegged as the settling down type.”

I don’t answer right away, my jaw working as I think, the sound of the stream beyond the tree line filling the quiet. I wasn’t the settling down type. That’s what I always told myself. A family, roots, someone waiting, I never pictured any of it. My life didn’t have room for it, didn’t deserve the room anyway. It was easier to believe that than to admit the truth; it’s not because I didn’t want those things, I just never met anyone worth dismantling myself for. Until her.

“You know when someone just fits?” I say. “Not in an easy way, just…there. Like no matter what, you were always going to end up here.”

“Yeah. I know exactly what you mean.” A certain fondness laces into his tone whenever he thinks about his husband.

In the background, I hear Cooper’s voice—distant, indignant about something—followed by what sounds like a small crash, and then Ziggy shrieking with delight.

“That’s my cue,” Declan says, and I can hear the smile down the line. “Coop decided he could handle bath time alone. He cannot. I’ll speak to my dad and get back to you in a few days. And Lockie? You’ve got this. Gunner’s great. Don’t think you need to rush back, okay. We’ve got you covered.”

“Appreciate it.”

We hang up, and the quiet of the woods settles back in. Just birds, the soft lull of the stream, the kind of peace that doesn’t ask anything of you.

I stand there for longer than I need to, the doctor’s words rushing back in once more. I’d kept my expression schooled in that room, giving Thea nothing to react to, because one of us needed to stay level. But even out here alone, I’m still fighting to keep it under control. She doesn’t need my panic on top of her own.

But I’m terrified. I’ve spent my whole life keeping people alive, and I still couldn’t manage it when it mattered most. I’m not doing that again. Not with her. Not with this.

Turning, I head back toward the cabin and see her through the window before I reach the porch. Warm light from a lamp catches the loose fabric of her cardigan, sleeves tugged over her hands cupped around a mug. She’s moving slowly through the space, her gaze drifting over the old fireplace, the beams overhead, the windows. Her lower lip tucks between her teeth as she tilts her head, thinking, one hand resting absently on her bump.

This is the version of her I’ve been collecting in pieces for twelve years. Not the curated version for calls and meetings and rooms full of people who need something from her.

Certainty settles in me, quiet and absolute, as I watch her. She belongs here, with me. In some ways, always has. And I want that so badly it scares me because I know better than most how quickly the things you love can be taken. How little warning you get. How final it is. And the weight of knowing that, of wanting to keep it, lands hard, mixing with the dread that’s followed me around like a shadow.

I’m not doing that again.

Pushing open the door, she turns at the sound, a tartan blanket in one hand, a little caught out, like she wasn’t expecting me back yet.

“Sorry,” she says, nodding toward the fabric. “I just— It’s beautiful.”

“My mum,” I say, shrugging off my jacket and hanging it by the door. “It’s our family tartan. Not every Scottish family has one, but the old clans do, and that’s ours. She sends me things occasionally, so I don’t forget where I came from.”

“That’s sweet.” She smiles, looking at it differently now. “I didn’t know that. That each family has their own.”

“Just wait until she sends some hideous outfit for the wee one, then you won’t be thinking that,” I tease, already picturing the amount of tartan my mum’s probably already collecting since I told her about the baby.

Setting the blanket back over the couch, Thea smooths it out carefully and drifts toward the window overlooking the back of the property.