Jet let out another loud, insistent whinny.
Breakneck laughed softly, a deep, rumbling sound of pure contentment. “And, he has the last word.” He sighed. “My neighbors are going to think I went full rawhide.”
She bit her lip. “Um…correction. Ex-Mountie horses.”
His heart seized at that. The laughter died in his throat. He groaned. “You quit.” It wasn’t a question. “You fucking turned down that Ottawa job and quit the Mounties?”
“Yes, I did,” she said, her voice suddenly serious, her eyes locking onto his. “And I did it for me, not for you, not for my family. For me. I want that future I mentioned, and there was only one way to get it.” She folded her arms on his chest, met his gaze with her serious, beautiful blue eyes. “I want to teach ballet to little girls, and I want to open a horse rehabilitation and rescue, provide therapy for people and animals. What do you think about that?”
He reached up, cupping her face, his thumb stroking her cheek. “I think I’m the luckiest man on the planet,” he said, his voice thick with awe. “So are those little girls and your potential clients.”
Suddenly, there was a loud banging on his door. Boomer’s voice boomed through the wood. “Kid! What the hell are you doing with two trailered horses?”
“Yeah…wait…those are Canadian plates,” Skull said. “Do you have the sarge in there?”
Hazard groused, “Yeah. We want to see her, too. Stop hogging the Mountie.”
Breakneck dropped his head to the rug with a soft thud as Blair burst into uncontrollable laughter, her body shaking against his. He looked up at the ceiling, a pained, helpless smile on his face. “See what I have to put up with?”
He gently caught her jaw, made her look at him, his eyes full of mock misery. “It’s not funny. We’re never going to be alone.”
Boomer’s fist came again. “Geezus, Boomer,” GQ said, his voice muffled. “Give them a break and time to dress.”
“Oh…” Boomer said, sounding chastised. “Right. Hurry up, kid. Get decent. The wives are here too. This was an impromptu barbecue attempt to get your mind off…uh…Blair.”
“Now, it’s just a party,” Taylor’s wry comment reached them.
“Honestly,” Leigh said. “You guys are unbelievable.”
“Us?” Kodiak said. “He’s the one who’s hogging her.”
“For fuck’s sake! Will you give us five minutes?” Breakneck yelled, his voice hoarse but full of affection. “I can’t take any more of the peanut gallery. Use the back fence and get set up. We’ll be right there.”
He looked at Blair. Her eyes were dancing, full of love and amusement. “Do you think any of them know a good temporary stable?”
“I’d say, considering the state of your grass, you should just put them in the backyard and let them graze,” Skull’s helpful advice came through the door.
He groaned, and Blair just threw back her head and laughed, the sound echoing through the house, filling every corner. What more could he want? Pushy, nosy, loyal, supportive brothers and the love of his life all here to harass him forever. Yeah, he could handle that.
He looked into her eyes, into an encompassing blue that surrounded him in a love that would only move forward with them into a future he hadn’t ever expected to find, but was so, so thankful was his.
Epilogue
Back in Virginia Beach, on the morning Ayla was to report to her new team, her alarm decided she was on her own. She woke up late, stressed, dressed quickly, just a protein bar for breakfast.
When she got to HQ, she looked at her watch. She barely had enough time to make it. Damned if she'd make a bad entrance, she broke into a sprint, came around the corner, and collided spectacularly with an immovable object. She would have taken a terrible tumble if it wasn’t for the fact that this object was fast on his feet with the kind of balance that made her swallow in awe. For a spinning moment, her world was full of a jumbled-up mess of strong arms, muscle, hard planes, and angles. When everything came to a stop, she looked up into the kind of face that stopped time.
It was a face carved from granite and tempered by salt air, all sharp angles and rugged planes softened only by the faintest shadow of stubble along his jaw. His steel-blue eyes, cold and piercing, like the heart of a glacier, held hers with an unnerving, unblinking intensity that made her breath catch. They weren't just watching her. They were assessing, cataloging, a gaze that missed nothing. His dark, slightly tousled hair framed a smooth forehead, and his lips, set in a firm, almost imperceptible line, hinted at a humor that was dry as dust and just as sharp.
He was tall, impossibly so, and the sheer, solid presence of him, the way his broad shoulders seemed to block out the rest of the hallway, made her feel suddenly small and very, very late. He didn't flinch, didn't even seem to register the collision as anything more than a minor inconvenience. He just held her steady, his grip firm but not crushing, a silent anchor in the chaos of her own frantic morning. There was a quiet power in his stillness, a coiled energy that radiated from him even as he stood perfectly still. He was the immovable object she’d crashed into, and for a spinning moment, Ayla Locklear, intelligence analyst and tactical operator, was utterly, completely, and terrifyingly awestruck.
Then he spoke. "Where's the fire, love? Let me get in on whatever crisis you need to handle."
The voice that emerged was a velvet caress over a razor's edge. It was a smooth, baritone rumble, the kind of voice that could order a scotch in a London club or whisper a threat in a dark alley and sound equally at home. The accent was unmistakably British, but not the crisp, clipped Queen's English. This was richer, warmer, with the subtle, rolling cadence of a man who’d spent time in every corner of the UK, a hint of London grit softened by a worldly polish. The endearment "love" was a dry, amused observation, delivered with a lazy, almost playful intonation that made the hairs on her arms stand up. It was the voice of a man who was utterly, confidently in control of the situation, even when she had just collided with him.
For a moment, her immovable object just stared at her, and she felt that imperceptible spark ignite inside her with an almost flint-like sound. It was a tiny, sharp strike deep in her gut, a friction that sent a jolt of awareness through her entire system. A sudden, unnerving sense that this man, this stranger who held her so steady, saw past the frantic, late analyst and straight to the capable operator underneath. The air between them crackled with an unspoken challenge, a silent question asked and answered in the span of a single heartbeat. Her breath hitched, and the world, which had been a frantic blur of hallway and urgency, narrowed to the intense blue of his eyes and the solid, undeniable warmth of his hands on her arms. In that instant, she knew with certainty that scared the hell out of her that this collision wasn't an accident. It was a colossal problem.
“I’m late,” she managed, her voice a little breathless from the impact and the sheer force of his presence.
