“Don’t worry, Nate. I won’t blow your cover.” She walks over to the fireplace and holds her hands out toward the flames. Her sweater lifts just a little when she stretches, flashing a sliver of skin over her hip.
Focus,I growl to myself.
“I need your phone,” I say, setting her bag by the couch.
She turns, blinking. “My phone?”
“Yeah.” I pull out a Faraday pouch from the drawer. “It can be tracked. Even powered down. And I’m not letting anyone get a signal on this place.”
She hesitates, then digs it out of her pocket. “You’re really taking this secret bodyguard thing seriously.”
I give her a look. “You found a threat in your diner. Someone’s watching you. That makes this war.”
She chews her lip. “Right.”
I slip the phone into the pouch, seal it, and stash it in the metal lockbox beneath the woodpile. She watches every move I make like she’s trying to decide if she’s terrified or turned on.
Honestly? Same.
“Now,” I say, stepping closer, “you’re safe here. But that only works if you listen to me.”
She folds her arms. “Listen how?”
“If I say duck, you duck. If I say run, you don’t ask why—yourun. You don’t look back. You don’t stop. You keep going until you’re somewhere public, and you don’t stop moving until someone official has you.”
She swallows. Hard. “Got it.”
I reach into my back pocket and pull out a small, curved blade in a leather sheath. “This is yours now.”
She takes it, flipping it over in her palm. “This is serious.”
“Dead serious.”
For a beat, the room’s quiet again. Just the fire crackling in the hearth.
Then she looks up, eyes darker now. Steadier. “So what’s your plan, exactly?”
“First, I protect you. At all costs.”
“And then?”
“Then I hunt.”
Greta doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t laugh. She just nods like she expected that answer all along.
And hell, I like her more for it.
She crosses the room, fingers trailing along the edge of the table, then toward the bed.
She stops. Looks over her shoulder. “So, um… not to complicate things, but I’m guessing that’s theonlybed.”
“It is,” I say.
She raises both eyebrows. “Oh. Are we doing the ‘one-bed’ trope thing or…”
“No,” I say quickly.Tooquickly. “You take the bed. I’ll take the floor.”
Her mouth tugs to the side. “How noble.”
