“Find it.”
“Already on it.” Cipher rose, retrieving the tablet before he reached the door, then glanced back at me with one brow lifted. “You know it’s Tuesday, right? A typical work day.”
I stared at him.
“Just checking. You’ve looked at the time eleven times in twenty minutes.”
“Get out.”
His mouth twitched. “Going.”
The few hours I’d promised Jacqueline became the entire fucking day. A client protection issue in Los Angeles required a revised team, a diplomatic movement needed resources Helix had to pull from another operation, and Ledger cornered me over acquisition numbers while Hawkeye sent increasingly unhelpful messages asking whether Black Castle had taken me hostage.
By the time I approved the final personnel change and left the campus, the sun had already dropped low enough to turn the western sky orange. And I was pissed off at the day for stealing hours I could’ve spent at home.
I wanted to go straight there, but the clothes I had there would only last a few days, and I had no intention of repeatingthis stop every time I needed another suit. I pulled into the compound, went straight to my room, and filled two duffels with clothes, extra boots, toiletries, weapons, and everything else I intended to keep at the ranch.
Hawkeye appeared in the doorway while I cleared the final hangers from one side of the closet, his shoulder braced against the frame and pale eyes moving from the packed bags to the empty shelf. “Taking the whole closet?”
I zipped the second duffel, lifted one bag in each hand, and walked past him without comment. His quiet laugh followed me into the hall, but he had enough sense not to stand between me and the door.
Darkness had settled by the time I turned beneath the Rutledge sign and drove up the long lane. The security lights glowed around the barn, and two brothers on patrol lifted their chins from the west side. The farmhouse windows shone warm against the dark, pulling something tight in my chest loose before I even parked.
I found Jacqueline asleep on the living-room couch with one socked foot hanging over the edge and a folder of rehabilitation plans open across her stomach. A faint line of dried sage paint marked the side of one hand, dust clung to the knee of her jeans, and exhaustion had softened every feature in her face. Between the work she’d apparently done after ignoring my order to rest and the lack of sleep the night before, she looked completely fucking spent.
I’d clearly failed to account for how hard the previous night would hit once she started moving through the day. I took my things upstairs. It took less than ten minutes to fill the remaining space in the closet, claim another drawer, expand the collection of toiletries in the bathroom until no one walking into that room could mistake whose life had joined hers.
When I returned downstairs, Jacqueline still hadn’t moved. I slid one arm behind her back and the other beneath her knees, lifting her from the couch as carefully as a man my size could lift anything. She made a sleepy sound and cuddled against my chest, her fingers closing around my shirt while her face found the side of my neck.
“Brogan?” she murmured, barely awake.
“I’m home, baby.”
A soft smile touched her mouth without her opening her eyes. She relaxed completely in my arms, and I carried her upstairs toward our bed while the ranch stayed quiet around us, protected, occupied. Our home.
13
JACQUELINE
Iwoke to an empty bed, but the pillow next to mine held a clear indent where Brogan’s head had rested last night. And most of yesterday when we weren’t having mind-blowing sex. I stretched slowly, every pleasant ache in my body a reminder of exactly how thoroughly he’d explored my body. Sleeping in his arms after several orgasms was becoming a habit I was in no hurry to break.
When I finally slid out of bed and padded into the bathroom, more of his things had appeared overnight, same as they had yesterday. An extra bottle of his body wash was under the sink, along with a tube of his preferred toothpaste. I also found more of his clothes in the closet, as well as a couple of pairs of boots that hadn’t been there yesterday.
It was becoming impossible to pretend he hadn’t basically moved in.
I shook my head with a soft laugh and headed downstairs. The sound of metal clinking under the kitchen sink stopped me in the doorway. Brogan was on his back on the floor, his long legs and boots stretched out in front of him as he worked on a leakypipe. His black T-shirt had ridden up, revealing a strip of hard stomach and the dark trail of hair disappearing into his jeans.
I paused for a moment, unapologetically enjoying the view.
When I finally forced myself to move, I opened the upper cabinet where the coffee mugs should’ve been and found it empty. Frowning, I finally found them neatly stacked in a lower cabinet I could reach without a stool or climbing onto the counter.
I planted my hands on my hips. “Did you reorganize my kitchen?”
“Made more sense,” Brogan rumbled from under the sink.
I stared down at him. “You know you don’t actually live here, right?”
Brogan slid out just enough to glance at the pair of his boots by the back door. “Current evidence would suggest otherwise.”
