“God help anyone who actually threatens this family,” Zac muttered. “Between Scarlett and Ray, they’d be dead before they hit the ground. We boys could just sit back and–”
“Bake brownies?” Finn snickered. “At least that we could do better.”
Bear finished gearing up and crossed to Finn. His face was calm, controlled, but Finn could see the tension underneath. The weight of what he was about to do.
“I need you to do something.”
“Name it.”
Bear dropped his voice even lower, barely above a breath. “Joy. Get her somewhere interior. Away from windows.”
Finn didn’t ask why. The look on his son’s face said everything—said more than Bear probably realized. Finn had seen that look before. On Zac’s face when Annie was pregnant with Becky. On his own face, in mirrors he’d avoided, when Charlie had carried each of their own kids. On Ethan’s when Jess had been pregnant with Marie.
“Done,” Finn said.
Bear held his eyes for a moment. Gratitude. Trust. The understanding that some things didn’t need to be spoken to be known.
Then he turned back to the team.
Finn caught Zac and Gabe’s eyes. They’d heard. They’d understood. Their faces gave nothing away, but Finn saw the slight shift in their expressions—the recognition of what Bear hadn’t said, what none of them would say until Bear and Joy were ready.
A baby. There was going to be a baby. And Bear was about to walk into potential danger to protect the family his child would be born into.
Finn’s chest tightened. Pride and terror, braided together so tight he couldn’t separate them.
Dorian slipped out of the ready room. A moment later, through the doorway, Finn caught a glimpse of Ray moving down a different hallway. She didn’t have a visible weapon, but Finn had known her long enough to recognize the particular way she walked when she was armed. Her crossbow was eitheralready on her back or hidden somewhere she could reach it in seconds.
Anyone who thought a small, silver-haired woman wasn’t a threat had clearly never met Ray Lindstrom.
Callum Webb passed the doorway a moment later, moving in the opposite direction. He caught Finn’s eye and gave a slight nod. As Oak Creek’s sheriff, he would be official backup. Law enforcement standing by if it became necessary—but hanging back, because he understood that if these intruders were connected to Dorian and Ray’s past, official channels would only make things worse.
Some things had to be handled quietly. Some threats couldn’t be solved by badges and warrants.
Dorian had lived that reality for over thirty years. Callum understood it, even if he’d never lived it himself.
Through the doorway, Finn could see into the main room. The party continued—muffled sounds of conversation, the clink of glasses, someone laughing at something. But the women had noticed the shift. He could see it in the way they moved, the way they positioned themselves.
Annie’s face was calm, but she was drifting toward the children, gathering them with that particular warmth that made kids follow her without question. Story time, probably. Something to keep them contained and distracted.
Someone—Jordan, it looked like—was steering Sloane into a chair near the center of the room. Sloane was very pregnant, Graham sleeping against her shoulder, and she let herself be guided without protest. As the wife of the sheriff, she knew. She understood. The chair put her in a position where she could be surrounded, protected, away from windows and doors.
Charlie stood near the hallway entrance with River beside her. River had Marie on her hip, the little girl’s face pressedagainst her aunt’s shoulder, half-asleep and oblivious to the tension.
Marie. His granddaughter. Ethan’s little girl.
Ethan was halfway across the country with Jess, didn’t even know anything was wrong. And here was Finn, watching two of his sons gear up for a potential threat while his granddaughter dozed in his daughter’s arms.
Charlie’s eyes found his across the distance. He gave her a small nod.I’m okay. The boys are handling it. Stay with the others.
She nodded back.I know. I’ve got this end. Do what you need to do.She wrapped her other arm around Becky, holding baby Denise.
The women would hold the interior. They always had. While the men walked into danger, the women held the line behind them—protecting the children, keeping the civilians calm, ready to fight if fighting came to them.
It was a partnership forged in decades of shared crisis. Different roles, equal weight.
Dorian returned to the ready room, his face set in that particular expression Finn recognized—the one that said he was calculating angles, distances, threat assessments. The one that said he was ready to kill if killing became necessary.
“Ray’s in position,” he said quietly. “Northeast corner. She’s got sight lines to both approaches.”
