"You're absolutely beautiful when you're mad," he said.
Emily stopped breathing.
Jake had been in situations where time changed speed. Firefights where seconds stretched into minutes. Extractions where minutes compressed into heartbeats. He'd learned to operate inside those distortions, to trust his training when his senses told him the world had gone liquid.
This was like that. And nothing like that.
She crossed the final distance. Her hand found the front of his shirt, not pulling, holding, and she kissed him.
The kiss was short. Almost tentative. A question more than a statement, and Jake answered it by staying exactly where he was, letting her set the terms, letting her choose how far this went and how fast. His hand came up to the side of her face, not guiding. Present. The way he'd been present since he'd met her.
When she pulled back, her eyes were wide. Not with fear. With the shock of someone who'd spent years guarding against exactly this and discovered, in the moment of surrender, that the thing she'd been afraid of was warmth.
Jake's forehead rested against hers. His eyes were closed. He needed a beat, and he took it, because Emily Callahan had kissed him in a parking lot in Westshore and the world was rearranging itself around the fact of that.
"I don't want you to give up." His voice was low. Answering the question she'd thrown at him. "I don't want to step back. I don't want to be professional. Not even a little."
Emily exhaled. The kind of exhale that carries everything that's been held.
"Okay," she said.
"Okay." He pulled back just far enough to look at her. The smile that came was different from any she'd seen. Softer. Unguarded. The version of Jake Walsh that existed underneath the charm and the confidence and the easy competence, the version that had walked into Ray's office three days ago and forgotten what he was going to say. "So. A hunting cabin near Umatilla."
"Lake County assessor's office."
"Then let's go."
He opened the passenger door for her. Not a performance. Just care.
Emily climbed in, and Jake circled to the driver's side. The Range Rover hummed to life, cool air flooding the cabin, and they pulled out of the parking lot into the afternoon sun.
Neither of them spoke for a few miles, the kiss still settling into the space between them, still needing room to land.
Somewhere around the I-275 interchange, Emily glanced over at him.
"Don't get used to charming your way out of trouble."
Jake kept his eyes on the road, but the smile was back. "Yes ma'am."
"I mean it. That's a one-time thing."
"Absolutely. Won’t happen again.”
"I hate you."
"No, you don't."
She didn't. That was the problem.
CHAPTER 7
The cabin sat at the edge of a small lake, just like Emily's contact had described. Wood-framed, green roof gone gray with age, surrounded by pines so thick the afternoon light barely reached the ground. The kind of place a man might go to disappear.
The kind of place Ryan Costa had gone. And left.
The Marshals had already cleared it. Twelve hours, the lead one said. Maybe less. Food in the trash, bed unmade, coffee pot cold. The small signs of a life interrupted and a man who'd known it was time to move.
Jake stood in the doorway and read the room. One space serving as everything, furniture old but maintained, a paperback on the bedside table cracked halfway through. Legal thriller. He almost smiled.
