I move downhill, keeping the tree line between me and the breach point, using elevation and cover the way it’s meant to be used. The thermal image replays in my mind, mapping distance and direction. I stop behind a stand of pines and drop to one knee, rain plastering my hair back, water running down the back of my neck. I scan through the scope, sweeping the area where the perimeter dips toward the creek.
The shape resolves. It’s smaller than I thought, hunched and carrying something. I don’t lower the rifle or let myself relax because I’ve learned the hard way that the moment you thinkthis isn’t a threatis the moment you die.
I signal the dogs to hold and move forward alone, silent as the storm allows, every sense sharpened to a knife’s edge.
Whatever crossed my line tonight did it with intent, and I’m about to find out why.
The rain does most of the work for me. It eats sound, blurs edges, and turns everything into motion and shadow. I move with it, not against it, letting the storm cover the soft give of mud under my boots, the brush of wet leaves against my legs. The dogs stay back where I left them, disciplined enough not to crowd me, close enough that I know exactly where they are without looking.
The heat signature is closer now, and I don’t need the scope to see it anymore.
The figure is at the edge of the tree line near the creek, half-sheltered by a cluster of rocks I put there years ago to redirect runoff. Smart place to stop, but a bad place to hide. The rain sheets off the stones, turning the ground slick and treacherous.
The person sways—not side to side like someone trying to stay loose or ready, but forward, like gravity is winning inch by inch.
I slow, every step deliberate, rifle steady against my shoulder. My finger rests straight along the guard, not on the trigger.Not yet.The wind shifts, carrying sound in fragments—ragged breathing, maybe. Or just the storm lying to me.
I angle left, putting a tree between us, then another, as the distance closes. Thirty yards. Twenty-five. Twenty.
“Don’t move!” My voice booms, cutting through the rain without rising.
The figure freezes, and for a heartbeat, I think that this is where it turns ugly. Where the shape straightens, a weapon comes up, and I have to make a decision that will echo for the rest of the night.
Instead, the figure staggers. Actually stumbles, catching itself on the rock with one hand. The other arm stays tight against the chest, curled protectively around something wrapped in fabric.
“Who are you?” I demand, advancing another step, rifle unwavering. “You’re on private land.”
No answer.
The wind gusts hard, rain driving sideways now, and the hood slips back from the person’s head. Hair spills free—dark and plastered to a face I don’t recognize at first, not because it’s unfamiliar, but because my mind refuses the shape it’s trying to give it.
Then lightning splits the sky, turning night into day for a fraction of a second, and that’s when I see her.
Kate.
The name hits me like a physical blow, driving the air from my lungs even as my body stays locked in position, training overriding shock. Her face is pale, drawn tight with exhaustion,eyes unfocused. She looks smaller than I remember, fragile in a way she never was before.
She takes one step toward me, relief cracking through her expression, as her knees buckle.
“Kate?” I call, the word torn out of me before I can stop it.
The rifle drops as I close the distance in two strides, catching her as she collapses, her weight slamming into my chest hard enough to make me grunt. She’s cold, soaked through, shivering violently, her body finally giving up now that she’s here.
The bundle in her arms shifts, a small sound escapes it, and my entire world narrows to that single, impossible detail.A baby?
Kate’s fingers curl into my jacket with the last of her strength, her forehead pressing briefly into my chest.
“I found you,” she whispers, voice barely audible over the storm.
Then she goes limp in my arms, rain and thunder and everything else falling away as I stand there in the mud, holding her and the tiny, warm weight between us, while the mountain rages on around us.
I move on instinct since shock is a luxury I don’t allow myself, especially right now. Kate’s weight is light in my arms—too light, her body trembling even unconscious. The baby squirms once, a soft whimper cutting through the storm, and that sound snaps something brutal and ancient into place inside my chest.
I need to get them out of this storm and warmed up. Now!
I shrug out of my jacket with one hand and wrap it around them both, pulling the soaked fabric tighter around her shoulders and the baby. She’s freezing and scared. I can feel it through the layers—her skin cold, muscles locked tight from exhaustion and fear.
“Easy,” I murmur, though she can’t hear me. The word is for me as much as her.
