The word cottage pulled up a faint picture in her mind, something half-remembered from a magazine or a dream.Cozy and small and tucked away from the world.Safe.
She shoved the image away.
"That's not necessary," she said.
"Necessary is you not sleeping alone at a location Diaz just marked as an active crime scene," "This is just practical," Colby said.
Bree folded her arms, nodding along."He's right."
Sabrina looked between the two of them."You're both very bossy."
Bree didn't apologize."We care about you."
Colby added, "And we'd like you not to get murdered."
Sabrina let out a surprised sound that might have been a laugh.It came with a sting of tears she refused to let fall, her eyes burning with the effort.
"I don't want to be your problem," she said to him.
"You're not a problem."His brown eyes held hers, warm and steady in the fading light."You're a person who had her home burned down and her safety ripped away in one night.There's a difference."
She rubbed a thumb over the seam of her pocket, feeling the rough edge of the sweatpants."What if I say no?"
"Then I'll park my truck outside your crime scene and sit there all night," he said."And I'll tell Diaz it was your idea when she asks why I look like I haven't slept."
Bree's mouth curved despite everything."He would, too.He's done stupider things for less."
Sabrina looked back at the ruins.The pile of blackened beams and collapsed rooms didn't offer an opinion.It just lay there, steaming and silent and permanent, the last wisps of smoke rising toward clouds that were beginning to appear overhead.
Everything inside her felt scraped raw.She had held herself rigid at the hospital, answering questions and signing forms and pretending her hands weren't shaking.She had stood at the fire line and watched the last post fall without making a sound.She hadn't allowed herself to crack.
Something in the way Colby stood there, calm and certain and utterly unbothered by her resistance, made that stance feel less like strength and more like punishment.
"What does your cottage look like?"she asked, stalling.
He didn't describe it.Didn't paint a picture of comfort or charm or rustic appeal.He kept it simple."Four walls.A roof.A bed that isn't in a hospital.Coffee in the morning.Locks on the doors."He paused."Me between you and whatever's out there."
The last line slid under her ribs with quiet ease, settling somewhere near her heart.
Bree touched her hand gently."If it helps, I'd trust him with my life.Hank does.Brian does.Half this town does."
Sabrina searched Colby's face for any sign that this was an obligation that he was offering because he wore a uniform, and it came with built-in responsibility.She didn't see that.
She saw a man who had seen her at her worst—smoke-stained and terrified and barely holding together—and still looked at her like she was worth protecting.
"I don't want to be in the way," she said.
"You being there isn't in the way," he replied."You being alone is what I can't live with."
The certainty in his voice tipped something inside her, some last defense she'd been clinging to without knowing why.
"Okay," she said softly."For tonight."
Relief moved through Bree's shoulders, visible even in the dim light."Good.I'll bring you clothes in an hour.Pajamas and other things I think you'll need—toothbrush, hairbrush, the basics.And coffee.And probably muffins, because that's who I am as a person."
"Bree," Sabrina warned.
"Okay, fine, I'll ask what you want first."Bree hugged her again, quick and fierce, her arms tightening for just a moment before letting go."Text me when you get there.I mean it."
