That was the problem.
“What about you?” David asked Emma. “Family in the evacuation zone?”
“Parents are in Connecticut,” she replied. “My sister’s in Colorado, far from hurricane country. They’re all safe.”
“Were they worried when you moved to Florida?”
Emma grinned. “Mom regularly sends me articles about sinkholes and alligators. Dad’s concerned I’m not taking enough self-defense classes. He wanted me to get a concealed carry permit before I left Connecticut.”
“Did you?” Zach asked.
She met his eyes. “I grew up with an attorney for a father. I know my way around a contract, a courtroom, and a Glock 19.”
Something in Zach’s chest went tight and hot. He didn’t let himself examine it.
“Range certified?”
“Annually. You?”
“Weapons expert,” David supplied helpfully. “Close combat. He could kill you with a spoon.”
“How comforting.” Emma's tone was dry, but her eyes stayed on Zach’s, still curious. Not a speck of fear. “Good to know dinner utensils are multifunctional.”
The corner of Zach’s mouth twitched.
Nick watched them both with obvious amusement. David grinned like a maniac.
Zach reached for his water glass and said nothing.
The conversation drifted to logistics, resort timelines, and staffing challenges. Emma held her own against Nick’s strategic planning and David’s technical tangents like she’d been doing this with them for years. She asked perceptive questions. Offered practical solutions. Pushed back when she disagreed, but did it without making it personal.
She fit. Too easily. Into their rhythm, their shorthand, their way of operating—like a puzzle piece he hadn’t known was missing.
Zach’s jaw tightened.
This was dangerous.
Not the obvious kind—not knives or bullets or enemies at the gate. The insidious kind. The kind that crept up, made you comfortable. Made you forget that comfort was another word for complacent.
He’d sliced bread earlier without a conscious decision. Seen a task unfinished and completed it automatically, moving around Emma in the kitchen with the same instinctive awareness he’d had with his team. She’d startled—he’d caught the hitch in her breath, the way her hands had stilled on the carrots.
She wasn’t used to men helping without being asked. He wasn’t used to noticing that he wanted to.
He wasn’t used to wanting to help.
Both were problems.
“Earth to Zach,” David said.
Zach blinked. Focused. Found all three of them watching him.
“You were glaring at your potatoes,” Emma said. “Did they offend you?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
You.This.All of it.
