“This is good.”
“Basic fuel. I don’t do fancy.”
“I can make pretty decent biscuits,” she says, then smiles like it surprises even her. “I’ll bake some for you.”
I almost forget how to breathe. Her smile hits me hard. Her blue eyes shine, and her plump lips tuck in at the corners, creating dimples.
I didn’t know I still remembered how to want something that simple.
Once she’s finished her breakfast, Sadie carefully folds the duvet and blanket from the couch. Then, she checks on Maisie’s bandage—still clean, no seep-through. Maisie’s tail gives a slow thump as she blinks up at her. Sadie lets out a breath that sounds more like a laugh, scratching her ears with her sleeve-covered fingers.
I didn’t know a room could warm from the inside out just because a woman smiled at a dog.
“She likes you,” I say. “Animals know who’s safe.”
She freezes a fraction at “safe.” Then slowly absorbs it.
Her shoulders drop half an inch. A win.
When I stand to check the fire, Sadie drifts to the bookshelf and runs a finger along the spines like she’s greeting old friends: field guides, a battered paperback ofThe Things They Carried, a dog-eared copy ofA Guide to Rocky Mountain Lichens.
She lifts it and looks at me. “You really keep a book about lichens?”
“It’s riveting,” I say. “Page-turner.”
Her genuine laugh goes straight to the part of my chest I haven’t let anyone near in years.
“Okay, Mr. Lichen,” she says, propping her hip against the shelf, “why did you bid on me?”
I don’t expect the direct question.
She never circles a subject; she aims for center mass. I need to move carefully and stay patient. She’s still half-wild with self-protection, ready to bolt at the first hint of a trap.
I sit on the couch, elbows on my knees. “Like I said. Favor to Shay. Tank and Tex came for moral support.”
“Tank and Tex? The men who were with you last night?”
I nod. “Sawyer, Jackson, and I served together. After everything went to hell… we came here to the ranch, though Sawyer’s cabin is up the mountain a little way. He likes his solitude.”
She processes that quietly, her thumb brushing the edge of the book in her hand. “So the women, they…” She hesitates. “The women they went home with—they’re safe?”
The question is quiet. She’s not just asking for them. She’s asking for herself. For every part of her that’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I stand, slow and steady, moving to lean against the opposite side of the bookshelf so I’m not crowding her. “Yeah. They’re good men. Sawyer talks tough, but he’s got a soft spot a mile wide. And Jackson… he’s been carrying his own ghosts for a long time. They wouldn’t have bid if they weren’t ready to show up for someone the right way.”
Sadie’s eyes search mine as if she’s looking for cracks. She’s not one to take words at face value—she reads beneath them, weighs tone and posture like someone who’s learned to survive on instincts.
“They’re safe,” I repeat. “And they’ll keep those women safe.”
Her throat works around a swallow. “I believe you.”
Those two words hit me harder than the bullets that almost killed me. Because she’s not just saying it about Tank and Tex anymore. She’s saying it about me.
She’s letting me into the same category.
And coming from a woman like Sadie—a woman who watches every door, tracks every movement, studies the edges of a man before she lets herself breathe near him—that trust is sacred.
Her eyes stay on mine a breath longer, and in that silence, something else shifts between us.
