Chapter 5
Two days of working side by side with Paige Kincaid, and Channel was losing his goddamn mind.
It wasn't the proximity, though that was bad enough—the way she'd brush past him in the narrow hallways, the accidental touches that lit him up like a match to gasoline.
It was the competence. The way she anticipated his moves before he made them, offered suggestions that improved his plans, questioned his assumptions in ways that made the plans better.
She was making him want things he had no business wanting.
"Camera angle's wrong," she said from behind him, and Channel nearly dropped the motion sensor he was installing above the back door. "You've got a blind spot on the southeast approach. Anyone coming through the garden would be invisible until they hit the porch."
He turned to find her watching him with those sharp eyes, arms crossed, hip cocked against the doorframe. She was wearing jeans and a tank top today, her usual innkeeper costume abandoned, and the casual clothes showed off a body that was making it very hard to concentrate.
"Where would you put it?" he asked.
"Corner of the toolshed. Catches the whole garden line plus the approach from the creek." She pointed, and he followed her gesture to see that she was right. Of course she was right. "You want overlapping fields of view, not maximum coverage per camera."
"How do you know that?"
"Same way you know which creeks are deep enough for a boat." She pushed off the doorframe and walked toward him, and Channel felt his whole body tighten in response. "Experience."
He watched her move past him to examine his work—close enough that her shoulder brushed his chest, close enough that he could smell the clean scent of her shampoo.
Every instinct he had screamed to reach out, pull her against him, stake the claim that had been building in his chest since the first moment he'd watched her stare down Trask's men.
Instead, he kept his hands on the motion sensor and his voice steady. "You weren't just MP, were you?"
She glanced back, one eyebrow raised. "What makes you say that?"
"The surveillance photos. The tactical briefing. Now this." He gestured at the camera placement she'd identified. "Regular MPs don't think like this. You hunted people."
Something flickered in her expression—surprise, maybe, that he'd figured it out. Then she smiled, sharp and almost pleased.
"Criminal investigations," she admitted.
"Last three years of my service. Drug rings, weapons trafficking, organized operations on bases and in theater.
" She turned to face him fully, and the morning sun caught the planes of her face, the steel beneath the surface.
"I've tracked men like Trask before. I know how they think, how they move, where they're vulnerable. "
Channel stared at her, something rearranging in his chest. This woman wasn't just capable—she was dangerous in ways he was only beginning to understand.
"You didn't mention that before."
"You didn't ask." Her chin lifted, challenging. "Figured you'd assume regular MP and underestimate me. Most people do."
"I'm not most people."
"No." Her voice softened, and for a moment the sharp edges fell away. "You're not."
The air between them thickened, charged with something that felt inevitable. Channel's fingers itched to touch her—her jaw, her throat, the curve of her shoulder. To feel her pulse jump under his hands the way it had jumped in her neck when he'd watched her face down those smugglers.
A car engine broke the moment.
Channel's head snapped toward the road, every sense going sharp. Black sedan, tinted windows, moving slow. Too slow for someone just passing through.
"Inside," he said, the word coming out rough and commanding.
"Like hell." Paige was already moving toward the porch, positioning herself where she could see without being an easy target. "That's Burch. The enforcer. He did a drive-by yesterday too."
Channel stepped up beside her—close, deliberately close, making sure anyone watching could see exactly where he stood. His hand found the small of her back, palm flat against her spine, a possessive touch that wasn't subtle in the slightest.
She stiffened for just a second, then relaxed into it. Accepting. Maybe even wanting.
The sedan rolled past, slow enough that Channel could make out the driver's profile through the tinted glass. Burch, just like she'd said. Broad shoulders, broken nose, the dead eyes of a man who hurt people for a living.
Their gazes met through the windshield. Channel didn't look away.
That's right, asshole. See me. Know I'm here. Try something.
The sedan accelerated, disappearing around the bend. Channel counted to thirty before he let his hand drop from Paige's back.
"He'll report in," she said, her voice steady despite the tension radiating off her. "Tell Trask you're here, that I've got backup now."
"That's the idea." Channel turned to face her, and the loss of contact felt like a wound. "Trask likes to know what he's dealing with. Now he knows the situation's changed."
"You wanted him to see you."
"I wanted him to see us." The word came out loaded with meaning he hadn't fully intended, and Paige's eyes widened slightly. "You're not alone anymore. They need to understand that."
She stared at him for a long moment, something working behind her expression. Then she shook her head and turned back toward the inn.
"Come on. We've got cameras to finish installing."
By sunset, the inn was as fortified as they could make it without bringing in more equipment. Motion sensors covered every approach. Cameras fed to a monitor in the kitchen. The grounds were rigged with tripwires that would make noise without causing harm—early warning, not lethal defense.
Channel found Paige on the back porch, nursing a beer and watching the light fade over the creek. He grabbed two bottles from the kitchen and joined her, settling into the chair beside hers close enough that their shoulders almost touched.
"Hell of a setup," he said, handing her a fresh drink. "You've done this before."
"Secured positions? Yeah." She took the beer, her fingers brushing his in the exchange. "Though usually with more sandbags and fewer motion sensors."
"War zones?"
"Two in Iraq. One in Afghanistan. The first deployment was the worst—green as hell, thought I knew everything, learned real fast how little I actually understood.
" She took a long pull of her beer, gaze fixed on the water.
"The second one I was better prepared. Third one I was good at it. Maybe too good."
"Too good how?"
She was quiet for a moment, and Channel waited, sensing this was the kind of thing she didn't share easily.
"I started anticipating threats before they materialized," she said finally.
"Reading situations, predicting violence, knowing where the danger was going to come from before it came.
It made me effective. Kept people alive.
" A pause, something dark crossing her face.
"But it also meant I couldn't turn it off. Even after I came home. Even now."
Channel felt his chest tighten with recognition. "The hypervigilance."
"The everything." She turned to look at him, and the vulnerability in her expression hit him like a fist. "I bought this place because I wanted to be someone who didn't see threats in every shadow.
Someone who could walk into a room without cataloging the exits, meet strangers without assessing whether they were dangerous.
" A bitter laugh. "That lasted about six hours. "
"How so?"
"First guest who checked in—middle-aged accountant from Maryland, couldn't have been more harmless—I found myself running background checks before he'd finished unpacking.
Told myself it was just habit. Just being careful.
" She shook her head. "But the truth is, I can't stop.
The training rewired my brain, and there's no putting it back the way it was. "
Channel reached over and took her hand. Not romantic this time—or not just romantic. Understanding. Solidarity.
"Three years running my own operation," he said quietly. "Smuggling through these waterways. I knew every hidden channel, every route that didn't show up on charts. I was good at it—reading currents, reading people, staying three steps ahead of anyone who might want to stop me."
Paige's fingers tightened around his. Listening.
"My partner was a guy named Dale. Trusted me with his life—literally, every time we ran a job. I was the planner. I thought of everything, every variable, every contingency." Channel stared at the darkening water, the old weight settling on his shoulders. "Until I didn't."
"What happened?"
"Deal went wrong. Variable I hadn't accounted for—buyer who was looking to tie off loose ends instead of pay what he owed.
Dale was in the wrong place at the wrong time because my plan put him there.
" He felt the words scrape his throat, raw and unwanted.
"He died trusting that I'd thought of everything. "
Paige was silent for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was soft. "That's why you calculate. Why you're always three moves ahead."
"Can't afford not to be. If I miss something, people get hurt.
People I care about." He turned to look at her, and the understanding in her eyes made something crack open in his chest. "I thought I could outrun it by joining the club.
Using my skills for protection instead of exploitation.
But the weight doesn't go anywhere. It just... settles different."
"No." She shifted closer, her shoulder pressing against his, warm and solid. "It doesn't go anywhere. You just learn to carry it."
They sat in silence as the last of the light bled out of the sky, the creek going dark and quiet. Channel felt something shift between them—a bridge built from shared damage, from the recognition of kindred wounds.
"The flowered bedspreads," he said after a while. "The welcome baskets. The innkeeper smile."
"Cover," she admitted. "Same as your charm. Same as the easy smile that makes people trust you before they realize they shouldn't."
"Takes one to know one."
"Yeah." She turned her head, and suddenly their faces were inches apart, breath mingling in the humid night air. "It does."
Channel reached up to brush a strand of hair from her face, his fingers trailing along her jaw before he could stop himself. She didn't pull away. If anything, she leaned into the touch, her eyes going dark with something that made his pulse hammer.
"We're both covering up the same thing," he murmured. "The violence. The training. The parts of ourselves that learned to survive things nobody should have to survive."
"You make it sound like we're damaged."
"Not damaged." His thumb traced the line of her cheekbone, gentle despite the hunger burning in his chest. "Just... shaped. By things most people never have to face."
Paige's hand came up to cover his, pressing his palm flat against her cheek. The intimacy of it—the trust—hit him harder than any physical contact they'd shared.
"Two people who've seen too much," she whispered. "To ever be truly civilian again."
Channel held her gaze, feeling the truth of it settle into his bones. She saw him—really saw him—past the charm and the easy lies and the calculated exterior. Saw the damage underneath and didn't flinch.
He was in so much trouble.