Rawley was already on his feet, gathering maps and tablets with the efficiency that meant he’d decided the tactical part of the morning was over. “I’ll tell the team to stand down,” he said. “Full perimeter, but no visible weapons. Your call on whether you want me to stick around or head back to the main house.”
“I’ll handle it,” I said, the words coming out more clipped than I’d intended. “You’ve got enough on your plate with Peterson’s men.”
Rawley nodded once, his eyes on my face. “Your call,” he said. “But the offer stands. Family situations can get complicated.”
That understatement sat between us for a moment—the kind of complication that came with parents who’d lied about my designation for thirty years and were about to find out the truth whether they were ready for it or not.
I moved fast through the farmhouse after Rawley left, my brain running tactical scenarios the way it had been trained to do—entrance routes, sightlines, the blind spot where the living room window didn’t quite align with the porch.
The sedan was still two minutes out based on the sound of the engine, which gave me exactly one hundred and twenty seconds to figure out how to hide four months of pregnancy from the two people who’d known me the longest.
Into the bedroom first—past the dresser with the careful division of drawers, past the nightstand with its two phone chargers instead of one, to the hook by the closet where Cruz’s shirts lived now.
I grabbed the largest one—black flannel with the sleeves already rolled to the elbows, the smell that was just Cruz still clinging to the collar. It hung differently across my chest than my own shirts did—wider in the shoulders, looser through the middle, the kind of fit that would hide the curve that had formed below my navel.
I changed quickly, dropping my own shirt on the bedroom floor and pulling Cruz’s over my head with careful attention. The fabric was softer than I’d expected—broken in through wear rather than washing, the kind of comfortable that came from actually living in your clothes.
The shirt fell past my hips in a straight line that disguised rather than revealed—exactly what I’d been counting on when I’d grabbed it. I adjusted the collar with careful attention, making sure nothing in the fit suggested the truth I was trying to hide.
Then back through the house—down the hallway, past the kitchen where Cruz was still standing at the window, into the living room where the blanket that lived on the back of the couch would serve as a second layer of camouflage.
I snatched it up with one hand, already calculating angles and sightlines and whether my father would notice the way I was standing now—one hand always drifting to rest against my stomach without having decided to put it there.
The blanket was wool—thick enough to provide actual warmth, heavy enough to serve as cover. I dropped into the armchair by the window with careful attention, positioning myself exactly where the morning light wouldn’t hit me directly, then arranged the blanket across my lap.
Not well enough to call it a plan, but enough to give me options if my father looked too closely or asked the wrong questions or did any of the hundred things that would force me to explain what was happening.
The blanket settled across my lap in a straight line that hid the curve completely—just a man sitting in an armchair on a cold Montana morning, nothing to see here, nothing to question, nothing to force into the open before I was ready.
Then I looked up and found Cruz standing in the doorway, his arms crossed and his expression caught somewhere between amusement and concern. He’d changed too—had traded the tactical jacket for a plain black henley that somehow made him look more dangerous, not less.
“Why are you trying to hide it?” he asked, the question coming out flat and even. “They’re going to figure it out regardless.”
I went still with both hands on the blanket, the question suddenly too present to ignore. “It’s reflex, maybe,” I said, my voice coming out more clipped than I’d intended. “Thirty years of being told one thing, finding out it’s another. Hard habit to break.”
Cruz crossed the room without speaking—moved from the doorway to the armchair in three ground-eating strides that barely disturbed the air—then sat down beside me with careful attention, leaving exactly enough space between us that our shoulders weren’t quite touching.
He reached for my hand without ceremony—just covered it with his own, warm and callused and exactly the right size to make mine look smaller by comparison. “I’ll back whatever play you want to make,” he said, his voice level. “Your call, full stop.”
The moment stretched between us—Montana quiet around the farmhouse, the valley spread out below, the weight of what came next suddenly too present to ignore.
I looked down at the blanket for a long beat—at the careful way I’d positioned it, at the truth I was trying to hide, at the thirty years of being told I was one thing when I was actually another.
Then I picked it up and dropped it on the floor with a single decisive motion. “I’m not ashamed of this baby,” I said, the words coming out before I could stop them. “And I’m not going to sit here and act like I am.”
Something flashed across Cruz’s face—too quick to catch, gone before I could name it. His thumb moved once across the back of my hand—not quite a caress, not quite a claim, just the soft pressure that meant he’d heard exactly what I was saying.
“I’ll take point if you want,” he said, his voice carefully neutral. “Or I can hang back. Your call.”
I shook my head once, slow. “I’ve got it,” I said. “But stay where I can see you.”
Cruz nodded, his eyes on my face. “Always,” he said, the word coming out with a promise that wasn’t one—just a statement of fact, the same way “the sky is blue” or “Montana is cold in October” were statements of fact.
The moment stretched between us—the two of us sitting side by side in the armchair, the morning light coming through the window, the valley spread out below—neither of us speaking, neither of us moving to break whatever was happening between us.
Then came the crunch of gravel from the front drive—the sound of tires on loose stone that meant the blue sedan had reached the final curve before the house.
I straightened in my chair with careful attention. “Showtime,” I said, and stood up with Cruz exactly half a step behind me.
