I'm going to kiss her. I know it in my bones a second before my brain catches up and starts filing objections. She's a witness. She's injured. She's under my protection. I am a man who classifies the world in threat matrices and there are sixteen reasons I shouldn't close this distance.
My mouth is two inches from hers.
Ghost bolts up off the rug and barks.
Once. Sharp.
I'm on my feet with the rifle in my hand before I've decided to move. Delilah sits up, every trace of sleep gone.
"Hawk."
"Quiet."
I'm at the window. Porch light off. I killed the lamp on the way to the window without thinking. Ghost is at the door now, hackles up, low growl in his chest.
I scan the tree line.
Headlights. Half a mile down the fire road. Coming up.
One vehicle. Moving slow. No badge lights, no emergency lights, no reason to be on this road after dark unless you were invited.
I wasn't inviting anyone.
I turn.
Delilah's already swinging her legs off the chair, reaching for her notebook, face gone pale.
"Back bedroom," I say. "Floor behind the bed. Don't make a sound."
"Hawk."
"Now, Delilah."
She goes.
I chamber a round and wait.
4
DELILAH
Ihop. Drag my ankle. Hit the bed frame with my hip and don't make a sound.
Floor behind the bed. Back against the wall. Notebook clutched to my chest like it's going to save me. It's not. The man with the rifle already tried to put me in the ground for it and here it is in my lap while another set of headlights crawls up the road toward a cabin that's supposed to be unfindable.
My pulse is in my teeth.
I hear Hawk's boots on the floorboards. Measured. The slide of a round being chambered already done. Ghost's breathing. The soft metallic click of the safety coming off.
The headlights get close enough that a bar of light sweeps the wall above my head.
A truck engine. Not the rumble of the one that brought me here. Different. Diesel. Old.
The engine cuts.
A door opens.
A voice.
