She looked at me and lifted her chin. “I’m not changing my mind.”
“I’m not asking you to,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed, suspicious. “Okay.”
“You go. I go with you. We do what we need to do. Then we come home.”
“I can walk into a building by myself,” she said.
“You can,” I agreed. “And you will. I’m not sitting in the waiting room holding your hand.”
That earned me a flash of a smile, quick and reluctant. Then it faded. “Lucas…”
“He’s with Mae,” I said. “Owen’s staying close. He’ll be fine.”
She exhaled slowly, like she’d been holding that worry in her lungs all morning. “Okay.”
She started down the steps, and I caught her wrist gently, just enough to stop her. “Listen to me for a second.”
Her gaze lifted to mine.
“No wandering,” I said. “No detours. If I tell you to move, you move. If I tell you to get down, you get down. You don’t argue with me in the middle of a street.”
Her jaw tightened. “I’m not a child.”
“I know.” I let my thumb press once against the inside of her wrist, where her pulse fluttered fast and steady. “You’re also not bulletproof.”
Something shifted in her expression, softening into that look she got when reality slid past pride.
“All right,” she said quietly. “I hear you.”
Reluctantly, I released her wrist and led the way to the truck.
Outside the gate, Brody was already in his truck, posted on the road with the dog in the back seat. He’d drive a separate tail, staying far enough back not to spook anyone, close enough to hit the gas if we needed him. Kane was in town, staged near the school with eyes on the street. Mae knew the plan down to the minute.
I didn’t like taking Marisol off the ranch. Even though we’d already been into town once and didn’t have any trouble, I didn’t like taking her into a public place where I couldn’t control every variable. But I liked the idea of her building a life even less if it meant she had to do it alone.
We drove in silence for a while, the cab filled with the low hum of the tires and the wind against the window. Marisol stared out at the fields and fence lines like she was trying to imagine a version of her life where this wasn’t happening. A version of her life that didn’t include radios and patrols and men with scars.
She glanced at me. “You’ve done this before.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Assignments,” she said, her voice careful. “Clients.”
“Assets,” I corrected automatically, then regretted it when I saw her flinch.
Her mouth pressed into a line. “Right.”
I gripped the wheel tighter. “I didn’t mean…”
“It’s fine,” she said quickly. Too quick. “I get it. It’s your job.”
It was. And it wasn’t. I wanted to tell her I’d never taken a job that lived in my chest the way she did. I wanted to tell her she wasn’t a file on a laptop. She wasn’t a case to be closed. She was a woman who made my blood run hot and my instincts go feral, and I’d been trying not to scare her with the truth of that since the day she opened her front door and offered me iced tea.
Instead, I said, “We’ll get this done.”
Her fingers tightened around her folder. “Good.”
