Page 34 of Her Mountain Man Protector

"Back into the river pipe. There's a grate at the old outfall below the mill. A van was waiting. Dark. No plates I could read. They had a head start when the lights died."

Oakley has her camera bag hugged to her chest. Her knuckles are white on the strap. Putting my mouth on her hair would be easy. Getting her into a room with no tunnels under it would be better. Dad can wait one hour if she's breathing at the end of it.

Marin appears at the hall mouth with a battery lantern. "Hardline's up. Banks is back. Yard 4 just drew a vehicle on a county cam. A van. They're taking her files to the pin she found."

"Then that's where I'm going," I say.

"We," Oakley says.

"No."

"They already have the drive, Colt. The next thing they want is the woman who can testify to what was on it. You leave me in a mill they already walked through and you're giving them a second chance at the easier target."

Alden looks at me. He doesn't help.

The fear of losing her sits in my throat, metallic and huge. Taking her into Yard 4 is a different flavor of the same fear. At least in the second version I can reach her.

"You stay in the truck until I clear a wall," I tell her. "You drop if I say drop. You run if I say run. You don't chase a file."

"I chase you," she says. "That's the deal now."

Eli flinches when I glance at him. I point at Alden. "He doesn't leave this floor. I want Crewe on the outfall and Sin on the van if it moves."

"You'll have it," Alden says. "Don't make me collect you from a Northline box."

I take Oakley's hand because the alternative is shaking and I'm not offering anyone that picture. Her fingers lace through mine, fierce and certain, the same grip she gave me in the dark when the only threat was how much I wanted her.

The mill stays locked behind us. Red light holds the stairs. Somewhere under the brick the river keeps feeding a tunnel Helix already used. We go out the one door Alden names, into a morning that has no power and too many coordinates, and I keep her on my left the whole way to the truck because I can still feel how close they came to taking the rest of her with the drive.

12

Oakley

The sky over the river road goes from steel to white in the time it takes Colt to clear the mill gate. First flakes hit the windshield fat and wet. Then the wind turns and the world beyond the hood starts disappearing in sheets.

"Yard 4 is twenty minutes in good weather," he says. His hands are tight on the wheel. "This isn't good weather."

A storm? “So we outrun it."

"We can’t outrun this. Weather turns nasty at the drop of a hat out here. We need to find shelter and wait it out.”

“Where?” Snow hits the windshield faster, dropping the visibility to non-existent.

“There's an Equinox cabin off this spur. Stocked. Wired. Nobody's used it since spring."

I watch the trees vanish. "Helix is taking my files to that pin while we hide from snow."

"Helix can sit in an unheated yard and freeze. I'm not putting you in a whiteout so I can feel useful." His jaw flexes. "You stay breathing. That's still the job."

The spur appears as a gap in the pines. He takes it too fast and then not fast enough. Snow is already collecting in the ruts. The cabin shows up small and dark, timber crouched under a roof going white. He codes the lock, hauls me out of the truck, and the wind slams the door against his shoulder before he can shoulder it shut.

Inside is one bedroom off a short hall. Real door. Fireplace. Cold air that bites my wrists. He checks the cabin, clearing everything and locking the door. He makes a quick fire as I take in my surroundings. There’s barely anything here. As soon as the fire is roaring, he turns toward me.

That’s all the warning I get.

Colt kisses me with the permission he refused to take in a mill full of cameras. The storm is only weather. He's the reason. His mouth is hot and certain. My back hits the door we just locked. Snow melts in his hair and drops onto my cheek. I make a sound I've been swallowing since the table in the other house and he drinks it down.

"Tell me to stop," he says against my mouth.