* * *
They reached the ranch as the morning haze was burning off. Karl and Colby were outside, examining a rough sketch Karl had spread across the hood of one of the trucks. Karl nodded in greeting, his gaze taking in the crates as Tom and Bryce unloaded them.
“Morning,” he said. “We ready to do this?”
Colby’s greeting was quieter, but his posture was alert, more sure of himself than he’d been the previous day.
“Split the work?” Tom suggested. “Karl, if you want to handle the base station and relays, Colby and I can help Bryce set up the perimeter sensors.”
Karl nodded. “Sounds good. I’m putting the base in the barn. Less traffic than the house, and no one’s going to accidentally unplug it to charge their phone.”
From there, alerts would route straight to everyone’s phones, with permissions set by role and need. Clean, calm, and efficient—just how Tom liked it.
After splitting the gear, Tom and Bryce set off on foot, while Colby took the ATV, stacked with crates and a collapsible ladder. For an instant, Tom was sorry they weren’t riding again, but he swiftly realized what a pain it would be, having to hobble the horses each time they stopped.
Bryce moved ahead with a sure-footed ease that Tom found himself watching. Bryce’s low-slung jeans, the way his shirt fitted his broad shoulders… It was less like observation and more like longing.
Bryce caught him looking once. He turned his head, raised an eyebrow—pleased, and maybe curious. Tom looked away, fast. He wasn’t going to fall into that again. No matter how much he wanted to.
Colby was waiting for them at the perimeter. After a brief assessment, Tom selected a sturdy pine for Colby to set the ladder against and climb up, Bryce steadying the base of the ladder. Typical of all he’d seen of Bryce, Tom thought. He was the one holding things steady, letting others climb.
The camera safely mounted, Tom tested the range of the sensor.
“Good?” Bryce asked, shielding his eyes against the sun.
“Solid,” Tom said. “Trigger radius is a bit tighter than optimal, but it’s good enough.” He tapped his screen. Still nohandshake icon. “Once Karl’s got the boosters up, I can sync the lot from here.”
He glanced at Bryce, whose brow was slightly furrowed as he concentrated on Tom’s words and on keeping his pack safe. He was focused, steady, and deeply distracting.
Tom looked back at his screen, pretending that helped.
* * *
They worked their way slowly along the ridge, spacing motion sensors every couple hundred feet, each disguised as a fence post. A single strand of wire ran between the posts, enough to make the setup look like a regular, if half-assed, perimeter fence. Bryce marked GPS coordinates while Colby made detailed notes for the system map.
As the morning warmed, they all stripped down to t-shirts, and there was something infinitely distracting about the way Bryce’s pulled across his back whenever he bent down to the sensor case. The hair on the nape of his neck was clinging in the heat of the sun.
At one point, Tom tore his gaze away from the muscles of Bryce’s back and saw Colby watching him. Their eyes met, and Colby blinked before turning away.
“Going to check coverage back toward the bend,” he muttered, and melted into the trees before Tom could say anything.
He dug out a bottle of water and held it out to Bryce, who straightened and took it gratefully. And Tom emphatically didnotwatch the way Bryce tilted his head back, the way his throat bobbed as he drank, or the way he dragged a hand across his lips afterward. Lips that…
Tom turned around abruptly and snagged his own water bottle. He was here to do a job. Not to want something he couldn’t have.
BRYCE
They were almost halfway through when they stopped for lunch, the three of them sitting on a fallen tree and eating the sandwiches Colby had put together while Bryce had been in town, meeting Tom. Bryce hadn’t needed to do that, as it happened, but he’d thought Tom might need a hand loading the gear. And maybe he hadn’t wanted to wait an instant longer to find out if the distance he’d detected at the diner was still there.
Problem was, he couldn’t tell for sure, not with Tom in professional mode today, getting the kit set up.
Bryce crumpled up the tinfoil his sandwiches had been wrapped in, and Tom passed him another foil-wrapped package. He took it without thinking, and then paused.
Tom had done it without a word, just like earlier with the water. He’d noticed what Bryce needed and made sure he had it.
Bryce didn’t know what to do with that. He’d spent years taking care of other people. It’d been that way since he and Matt left Cheyenne. For months afterward, he’d spent his time dragging Matt out of fights, mopping up the vomit from his drinking bouts, and just trying to make sure he survived until the next day. There was a time he’d thought it would never get better, but slowly, Matt got himself together again.
While he might not be wiping up blood and vomit any longer, he was still there when the pack’s emotional messes spilled over, trying to make everything better in any way he could. It was how he was wired.
