Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
“You think I don’t know that?”
Boone eases in before Cade can say anything else. “There may be a workable middle ground.”
Rhett doesn’t look at him. “There isn’t.”
“There is,” Boone says in a calm voice. “Wren conducts the survey, but never without security near enough to intervene.”
“I’m not dragging armed escort through every transect,” I say.
Rhett shakes his head. “Then you don’t go.”
With effort, I soften my voice, because yelling at Rhett when he looks like this would be like kicking a locked door with my bare foot.
“My job is to keep doing my job, and by doing my job, I can build the evidence package they need for warrants.”
“Warrants.” Rhett repeats the word like he wants to spit it out.
“Yes.”
“And while they build their package, Turner keeps moving product.”
“And you keep walking into the middle of it,” Cade says.
“During daylight hours only and on authorized routes. Doing work Turner already knows I’m doing.”
Rhett’s nostrils flare, and I step closer. “You were soldiers. I’m sure you all followed orders you didn’t like because there was a larger objective.”
Boone lowers his eyes for a second, and Cade’s stare looks wounded, making my stomach twist.
“Careful,” Rhett says.
“I am being careful. That’s the whole point. But you wouldn’t have questioned a command just because the safest option was to walk away from a mission.”
“The difference is, you’re not expendable.”
Cade’s words hit like a blow, because it sounds like he knows exactly what being expendable feels like.
“I didn’t say I was.” My voice is lower, but still determined. “I’m not trying to make this sound risk-free. I know what I’m asking you to accept.”
“You’re not asking,” Rhett says.
“No,” I admit. “I’m not.”
A few different things flicker in his eyes. Definitely frustration, probably respect, and maybe even a furious kind of pride he doesn’t want to admit.
“I’m not going to sit in the cabin while bureaucratic gears slowly turn. If my work can help take him down sooner, I’m going to do my part.”
Boone says my name quietly, and I look at him.
“We’re not trying to take that from you,” he says.
“Aren’t you?”
Boone absorbs the hit without flinching, then shakes his head. “No. We’re trying not to picture what happens if you’re out there and we get to you too late.”
His words are raw, and I go quiet for a couple of minutes, studying my map without really seeing it.
Eventually, the conversation continues, and near the end, the three men exchange looks, seemingly having another entire conversation with each other with no words required.
Instead of feeling shut out, I think I have a good understanding of what they’re saying. They’re either deciding how to let me win, or figuring out how to survive losing.
Rhett turns back to me. “You continue the survey under conditions. You don’t go into the backcountry alone.”
“I don’t remember agreeing to conditions.”
His eyes hold mine. “If you want to treat this like an operation, then you get operational protocols.”
“It’s a comms plan,” Cade says. He looks hard again, like a man who could disappear into a ridgeline and decide the fate of anyone below it.
“It’s not us giving you permission,” Boone says. “It’s accountability.”
Rhett’s attention never leaves me. “You will not enter the backcountry alone. One of us shadows you close enough to reach you in minutes.”
I open my mouth, but he cuts me off with a lifted finger. It should infuriate me, and it does, but it also makes my pulse pound for different reasons.
Rhett proceeds to give me his “operational protocols,” which are a lot like the preparation before I went out at night with Cade secretly shadowing me, only now there are even more rules and double the warnings.
When Boone talks about the extra safety gear they’ll want me to take, and I protest carrying a heavier pack, his charm gives way to seriousness.
“Losing you isn’t negotiable for us,” he says.
I glance down at the map again, which is one of theirs, and notice how my markings share space with theirs. Something about the way they’ve integrated my work with theirs reminds me that these three former Rangers aren’t arguing with me because they doubt my competence, but because they know competent people can get killed when they rely on luck.
They’re setting out the kind of protocols they would when someone matters to the mission and to the team. I’m no longer just their client or their responsibility.
I’m part of their unit.
CHAPTER 25
BOONE
A couple of days later, when I step out onto the front porch in the morning, something about the angle of Rhett’s Dodge looks wrong.
It’s parked nose out, like always, because some habits never die, but instead of looking ready, it looks tired.
The front tire is flat to the rim.
My hand tightens around my mug, and I don’t move for a few seconds as instincts that have nothing to do with charm shift into place.