She’d been studying graphic design back then, but even I should have seen the photographer in her. The way she noticed light. The way she framed the world.
She was absolutely breathtaking. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Because she was in her element. Confident. Commanding. Alive.
Standing there in jeans and a worn flannel shirt, her blonde hair escaping from its ponytail, gesturing at an alpaca who couldn’t care less about her artistic vision. The scars on her legs were hidden, but I knew they were there—battle wounds from a war she’d survived. Then survived again in a totally separate battle in that tiny tunnel.
She was here. She was mine.
The debriefs were finally over. Oliver was in federal custody, denied bail, facing enough charges to keep him locked up until he died. Bishop had flipped within forty-eight hours—names, locations, everything—and the buyer network was being dismantled piece by piece. Diesel and Tommy, both arrested.
And then the buyers: Mia’s composite sketches had helped identify eleven people.
Eleven faces she’d memorized while playing the role of a terrified captive. Hell, she hadn’t been playing anything. She’d been truly terrified. Yet she’d still refused to cower.
She’d sat with Travis’s software for hours, adjusting cheekbones and brow lines until the images matched the monsters in her head. Turned her photographer’s eye into a weapon against the men who’d hunted her.
She did that. Not the FBI. Not me.Her.
“Your turn.” Her voice carried across the paddock. She’d spotted me at the fence and was waving me over. “Get over here.”
“Absolutely not.”
“I need a human in the shot for scale.” She gestured at Al Pacacino, who had finally deigned to stand in an acceptable position. “He looks better with contrast.”
I pushed off the fence but didn’t move toward her. “Did you just call me a contrast element?”
Her grin could have lit the whole valley. “Move it, Coop.”
I grumbled the whole way across the paddock. Made sure she heard every word about the dignity of former Marines and how I hadn’t survived Oliver’s militia to become a prop for alpaca photography.
She just kept grinning.
Al Pacacino regarded me with his usual derision as I took my position beside him. Those dark eyes swept over me like I was something unpleasant he’d found on the bottom of his hoof.
“He hates me.”
“He hates everyone.” Mia crouched to get a better angle, camera clicking. “That’s his charm. Now look natural.”
“I’m standing next to an alpaca.” I tried to arrange my face into something other than mild bewilderment. “Nothing about this is natural.”
She laughed.
That sound. God, that sound.
Spilling out of her like she couldn’t contain it, like joy was something her body couldn’t hold anymore. Six months ago, I wasn’t sure I’d ever hear her laugh again. Six months ago, she’d been running through mountain darkness with Oliver’s hunters on her heels.
Now she was laughing at me and an alpaca, and I’d listen to that sound every day for the rest of my life if she’d let me.
“Stay there.” She straightened, adjusting something on the camera settings. Her attention dropped to the display screen, checking the shots she’d already taken. “I want to try one more angle.”
The ring was in my pocket.
I’d been carrying it for a week, waiting for the right moment. Not some planned romantic gesture—I’d learned my lesson about grand plans. Life threw militia compounds and mine tunnels at you, and the only thing you could do was hold on to the people who mattered.
I reached into my jacket and pulled it out.
Not antique. Not someone else’s history. Something new. White gold, simple setting, a stone that caught the afternoon light and scattered it into fragments.
I’d bought it at Quinn’s Jewelry last week. Mrs. Quinn’s face had done something complicated when she’d realized what I was looking for—eyes wide, then soft, then she’d pulled out threetrays and talked for twenty minutes about settings and cuts and what kind of woman Mia seemed to be.
