For a long moment, neither of us speaks. The silence is different now. Warm. Complete.
"Hey." I trace a scar on his chest, a thin white line just below his collarbone. "Where'd this one come from?"
"Military duty. 2015." He covers my hand with his, pressing my palm flat over his heart. "Piece of shrapnel from an IED."
"Does it still hurt?"
"Sometimes. When the weather changes." His lips brush my forehead. "Not right now."
I snuggle closer, listening to his heartbeat. Strong and steady, the rhythm of a man who's survived things I can't imagine.
"Wolfe?"
"Yeah?"
"Happy Valentine's Day."
He laughs. Actually laughs, a low rumble that I feel more than hear. "Happy Valentine's Day, Sadie."
We lie there in the gray afternoon light, wrapped around each other, and I let myself believe that maybe this is the start of something real. Something that could last beyond the storm and the stalker and the circumstances that threw us together.
His radio crackles from the other room. We both tense.
"Hendrix." Mace's voice, sharp with urgency. "He's moving. Whitmore just left the inn. Heading your direction."
Reality comes crashing back. Wolfe is already moving, rolling out of bed, reaching for his clothes.
"Copy that." He pulls on his jeans, all business now. "ETA?"
"Thirty minutes, maybe less. He's got chains on his tires. Roads are bad but passable."
"Understood. I'll be ready."
He ends the transmission and turns to me. The man who was just inside me, tender and vulnerable, is gone. In his place is the soldier. The sniper. The guardian.
"Stay inside. Lock the door behind me. Don't open it for anyone except me or someone from Guardian Peak."
"Wolfe."
"I mean it, Sadie." He crosses to me, cups my face in his hands, and kisses me hard. "I just found you. I'm not losing you to that piece of shit."
Then he's gone, and I'm alone in his bed with the taste of him still on my lips, waiting for the confrontation that's been building since the moment I stumbled into his life.
Thirty minutes.
In thirty minutes, this will all be over.
One way or another.
CHAPTER SIX
WOLFE
Ican still smell her on my skin.
Not the time for that thought. I push it down, lock it away, and focus on the tree line two hundred yards from my cabin. Derek Whitmore is coming. Twenty minutes out now, maybe less. I need to be ready.
My rifle is a familiar weight in my hands. Sixteen years of muscle memory guide me as I check the magazine, verify the scope, settle into the natural blind I built three years ago when I first moved here. Snow-covered brush conceals me from anyone approaching on the main trail. I have clear sightlines in three directions. If Whitmore comes this way, I'll see him long before he sees me.
