Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Nora
The cabin feels different after town.
Quieter.
Not because Rhett suddenly stopped being impossible. If anything, he’s worse now, moving around the kitchen like he owns the air inside it, broad shoulders filling the small space while snow falls harder outside the windows again.
No, what changed is me.
Because I can still see the look on his face when that man touched me in the store.
Cold.
Instant.
Violent.
Not reckless violence either. Controlled. Focused. The kind that sits under the skin waiting for permission.
And somehow that’s worse.
“You’re staring again,” Rhett says without turning around from the stove.
I lean against the counter, crossing my arms. “You keep saying that like it’s illegal.”
“It’s distracting.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t look so aggressively mountain-man all the time.”
That finally gets a reaction.
His mouth twitches slightly before he glances over his shoulder at me. “Aggressively mountain-man?”
“You literally threatened to break someone’s wrist over my waist.”
“He touched you.”
“He was drunk.”
“He was stupid.”
I exhale sharply, fighting the ridiculous heat crawling up my neck. “You can’t just assault people every time a man looks at me.”
His gaze slides over me slowly, deliberate enough that my stomach tightens instantly.
“Looking isn’t the problem.”
God.
The man should come with a warning label.
Outside, wind rattles against the cabin hard enough to shake the windows. Rhett checks them automatically before returning to the stove, his movements easy and practiced.
Everything about him feels practiced.
The awareness.
The control.
The constant readiness.
“You do that all the time,” I say quietly.
He glances back. “Do what?”
“Check exits. Windows. Doors.” I tilt my head slightly. “You track every sound outside too.”
“That bothers you?”
“No.” I hesitate. “It just seems exhausting.”
Something shifts briefly in his expression.
“It’s habit.”
“Military?”
“Before that.”
The answer catches my attention immediately.
Rhett doesn’t volunteer information. Every personal detail I’ve gotten out of him so far has been dragged out through arguments and irritation.
Now he’s giving it to me willingly.
I straighten slightly. “Before that?”
He kills the burner and turns toward me slowly, folding his arms across his chest. “My father drank too much.”
There’s no emotion in the words.
Which somehow makes them hit harder.
“He get violent?” I ask carefully.
Rhett’s jaw tightens once before he nods.
The kitchen suddenly feels smaller.
“When I was a kid, I used to hide under my bed when they fought.” His voice stays calm, steady, but there’s something rough underneath it now. “My sister would crawl under there with me. She was six the first time he hit our mother bad enough to split her lip.”
Jesus.
I swallow hard, watching him carefully.
“She’d curl up against me and cry herself to sleep while they screamed at each other down the hall.” His gaze drifts briefly toward the storm outside. “After a while, I stopped being scared of him.”
“What happened instead?”
His eyes come back to mine. “I got angry.”
The words settle heavily between us.
I believe that instantly.
Not because Rhett feels dangerous to me.
Because I think he’s dangerous for people who hurt others.
“There wasn’t much money growing up,” he continues. “Small house. Thin walls. No place to hide except under that damn bed.” A humorless smile touches his mouth briefly. “I used to keep a hunting knife under the mattress because I thought if he ever really hurt her, I’d stab him.”
A chill moves through me.
“How old were you?”
“Ten.”
The answer guts me quietly.
I look at this massive, intimidating man standing in front of me and suddenly I can see it underneath everything else. The boy he used to be. Angry. Helpless. Listening to his mother cry through paper-thin walls.
“She’s okay now?” I ask softly.
“Yeah.” His expression shifts slightly at that. “Married some Navy mechanic in Pensacola. Got three kids now. Loud house. Good husband.”
“You sound proud of her.”
“I am.”
Something tightens low in my chest.
Because he says it so simply.
So honestly.
“And your parents?”
“Dead.”
Again, no hesitation.
No self-pity.
Just fact.
“My father drank himself into a heart attack when I was twenty-six. Mom lasted another few years after that.” His jaw shifts slightly. “Think she was tired.”
The ache in those words almost undoes me.
Rhett pushes away from the counter and grabs two beers from the fridge before handing me one.
Our fingers brush.
Heat flashes up my arm instantly.
He notices.
“You left for the military after high school?” I ask quietly.
“No.” He twists the cap off his beer. “Waited.”
“For your sister.”
His gaze lifts to mine. “Yeah.”
That single word carries so much weight it almost steals my breath.
“I couldn’t leave her alone with him.” He leans back against the counter beside me, close enough that I feel the heat coming off his body. “I stayed until she graduated and went to college. Then I enlisted three weeks later.”
The image forms too easily in my head. Young Rhett carrying the weight of an entire household on his back before he was even old enough to legally drink.
“You were protecting her.”
“I tried.”
The answer comes rougher this time.
And there it is.
The guilt.
I study him carefully. “Something happened overseas.”
Not a question.
Rhett’s gaze goes distant for the first time since I met him.
“IED.”
The air in the room changes instantly.
“I was leading a recon team through a village outside Kandahar.” His fingers tighten slightly around the beer bottle. “We hit pressure plates buried under the road.”
My stomach twists.
“What happened?”
His eyes meet mine again.
“Everybody died except me.”
Silence crashes down between us.
Outside, a mix of snow and rain pounds against the cabin roof while the fire crackles softly nearby, but inside the kitchen everything suddenly feels painfully still.
“You were injured,” I say quietly.
“Shrapnel.” He flexes one scarred hand absently. “Leg got torn up pretty good too.”
That explains the limp.
The scars.
The constant tension in his body like he’s waiting for disaster before anyone else notices it coming.
“I spent three months in a military hospital learning how to walk right again.” His mouth twists slightly. “After rehab they made me a recruiter because apparently traumatized twenty-two-year-olds make great motivational speakers.”
Despite myself, I huff out a soft laugh.
Rhett’s gaze flicks toward me.
“There she is.”
“What?”
“That sound.”
“What sound?”
“You laughing.”
Heat creeps up my neck instantly.
“I wasn’t laughing at your trauma.”
“I know.”
The way he says it makes my pulse stumble.
Careful.
Too careful.
“How long were you a recruiter?” I ask, trying to regain control of this conversation.
“Eight years.”
“And then?”
“I got tired.”
The simplicity of that answer somehow feels bigger than anything else he’s said tonight.
“Tired of what?”
“People telling me institutions protect you.” His voice hardens slightly. “They don’t. People do.”
The words land directly in my chest.
“I learned pretty quick nobody’s coming to save you unless somebody decides you matter enough.” His gaze locks onto mine fully now. “So I came home.”
Something shifts heavily between us.
Not lust.
Not tension.
Something deeper.
“And now you protect people here,” I say softly.
“Women. Kids.” He shrugs one shoulder. “Anyone who needs it.”
“That’s why you noticed me so fast.”
His expression turns unreadable. “Yeah.”
“Because you recognized the signs.”
“I recognized fear hidden under attitude.”
I glare at him automatically. “I do not hide behind attitude.”
“You absolutely do.”
“I’m a journalist. We’re naturally confrontational.”
“You’re scared to need people.”
The words hit so hard I actually stop breathing for a second.
Rhett watches my reaction carefully.
Too carefully.
“That’s not fair,” I say quietly.
“Didn’t say it was wrong.”
God.
I look away first.
Because suddenly this conversation feels too intimate in a way that has nothing to do with attraction.
“You know what your problem is?” I mutter.
“Several things probably.”
“You see too much.”
A slow smile finally pulls at his mouth.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “So do you.”
Silence stretches between us again, but it’s different now.
Warmer.
Closer.
I glance down at the scars covering his hands. Thick white lines crossing his knuckles and palms.
Without thinking, I reach for one.
Rhett stills instantly.
My fingers brush his skin lightly, tracing one raised scar near his thumb.
His breathing changes.
So does mine.
“You’ve been through a lot,” I say softly.
His eyes lock onto mine.
“So have you.”
The heat in his gaze nearly unravels me.
Because for the first time since I got here, I don’t feel like he’s looking at me as someone fragile.
He’s looking at me like he understands me.
Which might actually be more dangerous.
“You’re staring again,” he says quietly.
I swallow hard, still touching his hand. “Maybe you’re distracting.”
His gaze drops briefly to my mouth.
Then back up.
“And maybe,” he says slowly, “you’re getting a little too comfortable touching me like that.”
My pulse jumps instantly.
But I don’t pull away.
Neither does he.
And somehow that feels like the biggest shift of all.