“She is,” he says simply. “Point being, if you’d asked me three years ago if I’d be living in Texas, running private security with a woman I’m stupid in love with, I’d have laughed in your face and gone back to changing oil at that shitty garage. But here we are.”
“Private security?” I echo.
“Yeah,” he says, and I can hear the pride in it. “Firm started by a guy who runs teams out of Saint Pierce. Offices in a few cities now. We handle everything from high-end bodyguard work to corporate threat assessment. It’s…a lot. But it’s good. Feels like the kind of work we were built for. Protective. Controlled. Not… aimless.”
I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “And you called to brag.”
“I called,” he says, “because the main office is still based in Saint Pierce.”
The words hit like cold air.
“Saint Pierce,” I repeat.
“City with a small town attached,” he reminds me. “Good coffee. Weird number of hot ex-military dudes.” I can hear his grin. “And at least one PR girl you’re currently being an idiot about.”
My pulse jumps.
“What are you saying?” I ask.
“I’m saying they’re looking to expand the close protection roster,” he says. “Need someone good with logistics and people who don’t scare easily. Minimal travel if you want it. Mostly regional. I told my boss, Dean Maddox, I knew a guy who handled horses and tourists in blizzards without losing his shit. He said, ‘Get me his file.’”
“I don’t have a file,” I say automatically.
“You have a DD-214 and a brain,” Ruin counters. “And a brother who’s willing to put in a good word. You want in, I can make the call. You’d have to come down. Interview. See the place. Meet the team.”
Saint Pierce.
The name is a hook now, caught somewhere under my ribs.
It’s where Ivy lives. Where she works. Where she’s building this big, bright career I tried to step out of the way of like that made it easier.
Up until this moment, it felt like a different planet.
Now it feels…reachable.
“I’m not a city guy,” I say, weakly.
“Saint Pierce isn’t a city city,” he says. “You’ve been. It’s got buildings and traffic, sure. But there are trees. Trails twenty minutes away. People who smile at you on purpose. And nobody’s asking you to move into a glass tower. You could keep the cabin. Split your time. Drive down for shifts, drive back up when you need quiet.”
I picture it. Cabin in the winter, Saint Pierce a couple days a week. Work that uses muscles I haven’t flexed in years. Team. Purpose. A reason to get off the mountain that isn’t just groceries.
And maybe, if I don’t screw it up beyond repair, a chance to bump into a woman with a tote bag and candy cane socks and a promotion she deserves someone cheering for.
“I don’t know,” I say, but the protest sounds weak even to me.
“I do,” Ruin says. “You’ve been hiding up there since you got back. You call it healing. I call it laying low until the memories fade enough that you can think without flinching. And hey—it worked. You got steadier. You breathe better now. But this?” He pauses. “This isn’t living, Rhett. It’s…maintenance. And you deserve more than that.”
The stove ticks behind me.
I stare at my hand on my knee, at the faint white scars that cross my knuckles. “What if I can’t do it?”
“What, the job?” he scoffs. “You can. They’ll train you on the parts you don’t know. You already understand risk, people, pressure. Hell, half the recruits they’re pulling in have less experience than you.”
“I meant Ivy,” I say quietly.
There’s a beat of silence.
“Then you show up and find out,” he says, voice softer. “You apologize. You own your shit. You tell her you were scared and wrong and that you’re willing to do the work to be better. You don’t just show up with a horse and a sled and say ‘Oops, my bad.’”
