“We live like this,” he said. “We pay attention. We don’t give him more power than he already stole.”
“That sounds ideal,” I said dryly. “Please tell my nervous system.”
Maude snorted softly. “Your nervous system’s been doing overtime since you were twelve, dear. It could use time off.”
“I used to think if I was careful enough,” I said, staring at my coffee, “he couldn’t reach me. That if I stacked the odds in my favor with locks and lists and backup plans, I could outsmart his ghost.”
“What he did isn’t your responsibility to outsmart,” Gideon said. “It’s mine now.”
I looked up at him. “I can’t hide behind you twenty-four seven.”
“The hell you can’t.” He didn’t raise his voice, but the words rolled through the room and settled in my bones like something elemental.
Maude made a satisfied sound. “I like him,” she said.
I huffed a laugh despite myself. Before I could comment, the crunch of tires on gravel cut through the kitchen—deeper and heavier than the cab that had brought Sam.
Maude’s brows shot up. “Now who in heaven’s name?—”
Gideon was already moving. His chair scraped back, his plate forgotten, his body slotting into that alert, predatory mode I was starting to recognize—the one that said he had cataloged every creak in this house and knew exactly which ones belonged and which didn’t.
“Stay here,” he told me. “Do not come outside until I tell you to.”
The command sat badly with the part of me that had been bossing herself around for years, but the part that had seen Sam’s eyes last night just nodded. “Okay.”
He brushed a kiss over the top of my head, quick and grounding, then stalked out, boots heavy and sure on the floorboards.
I went to the window, anyway. Pushing the curtain aside with two fingers, I peered out toward the drive.
The man who stepped out of the passenger side wasn’t what I expected.
Elias looked carved from something older and harder than muscle—all sharp jaw and cold, assessing blue eyes that scanned the inn like he was memorizing every angle for later use. His hair was cut with military precision, every line deliberate, every inch of him a quiet declaration that he’d survived things most people didn’t walk away from.
He didn’t move quickly. Men like him didn’t need to. Presence did the talking.
He shut the truck door with a firm, unhurried click and squared his shoulders, and even from the window I felt it—that shift in the air, the unspokendon’t test methat clung to him the same way it did to Gideon. He didn’t look reckless. He looked trained. Controlled. The kind of controlled that could break into violence the moment it became necessary.
And he looked exactly like someone Gideon would trust.
Behind him, two other men climbed out—one massive and broad as a barn door, and another all strong lines and stillness. The big guy said something low under his breath that made the other one smirk, but he didn’t crack. He kept his gaze roaming the house, the yard, the tree line.
Gideon stepped onto the porch then, and for a moment the cold, tactical mask Elias wore loosened. Not much—just a flicker softening the edges of his mouth. They shook hands.
Then Gideon turned slightly, positioning himself instinctively between them and the front window—between them and me—and motioned for me to stay put.
But Elias had already seen me.
His gaze flicked up, caught mine for half a second, and there was recognition there. Not of me—but of what I meant to Gideon. Of who I was to him.
And in that moment, something in his expression shifted again. It said something in the silence.
It gave me approval. And warning.
21
GIDEON
The two men who climbed out behind Elias stopped me cold.
