Logan sat up behind me. The sheet pooled at his waist. Bare chest catching the light. Hard abs clenching in his sitting position. The muscles defined by years of fence posts and hay bales. I let myself look. Catalogued the sight the way I catalogued everything: thoroughly, precisely, storing it where the important things lived.
"Church?" He was already moving, reaching for his jeans on the floor.
"What we call meeting. Nolan's been working the financial angle since we got back." I reached for my own clothes. "Whatever he found, it's enough for Hawk to call everyone in."
"Should I?—"
"Come." I pulled on jeans. Found the folding tactical on the nightstand where I'd left it and clipped it to my belt. The weight settled against my hip. "You're part of this now. Your ranch, your workers. Hawk will want your intel on the terrain."
Logan nodded. Something moved across his face—the weight of what we'd started settling into place alongside everything else he was carrying.
"I'll need coffee first."
"Irish will have made enough for the entire state." I pulled my shirt over my head. Checked the mirror on the back of the door. The lean man looking back looked like he'd actually slept. The shadows that usually lived under my eyes had lightened. My mother's face was in mine if you knew where to look—the jaw, the cheekbones, the coloring that came from Oaxaca by way of El Paso. "Fair warning. Irish is going to notice."
"Notice what?"
"That you're coming out of my room wearing last night's clothes."
Logan's mouth curved. The slow smile again. "I think Irish noticed we were going to end up here before we did."
"Irish notices everything. He processes it through noise instead of silence, but the observation's the same."
"And the others?"
"The Phoenixes don't care who you love." I turned from the mirror. Faced him. "They care whether you'll fight for the people beside you. You've already proven that."
His hand found mine. Brief contact. Fingers pressing against my palm.
"Thirty minutes," I told him.
"I'll be ready in ten. I need a shower."
I moved toward the door. Stopped with my hand on the frame. Turned back.
Logan stood in the center of the room. Shirtless. Jeans unbuttoned. Morning light catching the muscle and the tan. The flannel shirt hung on the chair behind him.
"Last night—" I started.
"Yeah." He understood. I saw it in his face. "Me too."
"After this is over?—"
"I know." His voice dropped. Firm. Certain. "I'm not going anywhere, Diego."
I left before the conversation could become something that required the rest of the morning to finish.
The corridor smelled like concrete and coffee and too many bodies in too little space.
I moved through the flow. Boots on the familiar floor. Hand checking the folding tactical on my belt without conscious thought—there, secure, the weight a constant. Workers passed in small groups, Spanish mixing with English, voices thatsounded like the kitchens of my childhood. Something in my chest tightened.
Thirty people we'd brought back from Montana. Some of them were sleeping in rooms meant for storage, eating in a kitchen stretched past capacity, learning to exist in a space that was fortress and sanctuary and nothing like the locked buildings they'd escaped.
I nodded to Ghost as I made my way toward the motor pool. Sidestepped Tank carrying something mechanical. The compound in motion around me.
The motor pool was loud with work when I reached it. Nevada morning heat already pressing through the open bay doors, the air thick with the smell of oil and exhaust and hot metal baking in the early sun. Ghost stood beside a black van with the hood raised, his hands deep in the engine compartment, his face carrying the focused intensity that replaced his usual restless energy when he had something concrete to do.
Beside him, working with a confidence that hadn't been there two days ago, was Mateo.
