"Sounds like her vision for you."
"Yeah. She had this whole picture of who I'd be. Delicate. Beautiful. The kind of daughter who'd make her proud. Who'd marry well and have babies and host dinner parties and—" I stop, feelingthe familiar tightness in my chest. "Be everything she was before cancer took it all away."
Frost doesn't interrupt. Just listens with that same steady focus he brings to everything.
"She died when I was twenty. Tyler was seventeen." I'm pacing now, unable to stand still. "And suddenly I wasn't Magnolia anymore. I was the adult. The one who paid the bills and made sure Tyler finished high school and kept us from falling apart."
"So you became Maggie."
"I became whoever I needed to be. Joined the Army because we needed the money and the benefits and because someone who was delicate and beautiful couldn't do what needed doing." My voice cracks. "I spent ten years not being Magnolia. Being strong instead of beautiful. Being hard instead of graceful. Taking care of Tyler because that's what our mother would have wanted."
"And Tyler betrayed you."
The words land like a physical blow. "Yeah. He betrayed me."
"So being Magnolia didn't work, and being Maggie didn't work." Frost sets down the magazine, moves closer. "Maybe the problem isn't which name you use. Maybe the problem is trying to be what other people need instead of who you are."
"I don't even know who that is anymore."
"Yeah, you do." He's close enough now that I can see the shadows under his eyes, the stubble on his jaw, the way he's looking at me like I'm something other than a rescue or an asset or a problem to solve. "You're the woman who made a joke about my scowl while she was zip-tied to a chair. Who kept pace during extraction without slowing me down. Took out two vehicles without blinking. Who's standing here reloading magazines after a firefight like it's just another Tuesday."
"That's just training. Survival."
"That's you." His hand comes up, cups my face with surprising gentleness. His thumb traces the edge of the bandage on my temple. "Magnolia or Maggie or whoever you decide to be tomorrow. That's you surviving."
I should step back. Should maintain distance. Shouldremember that this is a combat situation, and we’re not safe, and six cartel enforcers just tried to kill us. One got away. And there's probably more coming.
But I don't want to step back.
I want to step forward.
"Frost—"
"Colt." His voice is rough. "My name is Colt. Coulten Harrison."
"Colt." Testing it. It fits him better than Frost, somehow. Warmer. More human. "I need?—"
"What do you need?"
Everything. Nothing. Something that isn't fear or anger or the hollow ache of Tyler's betrayal.
"Something real," I manage. "Everything else—Tyler, family, who I thought I was—it's all lies. But this—" I gesture between us, this strange connection forged in violence and truth. "This feels real."
"It is real."
"How do you know?"
His hand comes up, cups my face, and his eyes are so dark, they’re almost black. "Because I haven't felt anything like this real in five years. Not since Caracas. Not since I stopped letting myself feel anything that mattered."
I should step back. Maintain distance. Remember we’re not safe, that violence closed in once and will close in again.
But I don’t want to step back.
I want to step forward. Want to grab something good before the world catches fire again.
"And I matter?"
"Yeah, Magnolia. You matter."
