Chapter Five
~ Decker ~
The morning light hit the kitchen table at a shallow angle, turning the edges of the coffee mugs white where they caught the sun.
I’d been up for forty minutes—coffee brewed, eggs scrambled, the house warming itself awake around me.
I’d left the screen door open to let in the early air, and now it carried the smell of cut grass and the metallic scent of the coming rain.
He’d slept in his clothes again. His hair was damp at the edges, like he’d splashed water on his face but hadn’t wanted to use the shower.
A night’s rest had done nothing for the bruise on his cheek—it had darkened overnight, spreading from his cheekbone toward his eye socket in a smear of purple that would take weeks to fade completely.
He poured his coffee with both hands on the pot, movements careful in a way they hadn’t been the night before. No sudden gestures, no reaching for anything without first checking its exact location, like he was trying to minimize his presence in the room.
I watched it all, reading the signs without letting my eyes linger. The man was physically present, but everything else about him had pulled back—voice pitched lower, responses coming a half-beat late, attention divided between whatever was in front of him and something playing behind his eyes.
He sat down at the table, keeping his distance without making it look deliberate, and reached for the plate of eggs I’d set out. “Thanks for making breakfast,” he said, the words coming out measured and careful, like he’d picked them from a list of phrases that were safe to use.
“Not a problem,” I said, keeping it simple. Whatever was going on behind those eyes would keep until he was ready to share it.
The screen door banged open, and Rawley stepped in, bringing with him a rush of cold air. He stopped in the doorway, boots on the mat, and looked at me.
“Fence line’s down on the west side,” he said, not wasting words on the preliminaries. “The posts by the creek. Burke’s already out there. I need you on it with him.”
I nodded, swallowing a last bite of eggs and pushing my plate away. “Be there in five.”
He nodded once and turned to go, then paused, looking at Jasper, who had gone perfectly still at the table.
“Kitchen needs inventory,” Rawley said, his voice carrying the careful neutrality I recognized from missions where civilians had been involved.
“Supplies are getting low. I could use someone to make a list.”
Jasper nodded once, quick and tense. “I can do that.”
Rawley nodded back and was gone, the screen door banging shut behind him.
I stood up, carried my plate to the sink, and set it down with a quiet clink. Jasper stayed where he was, his back straight, his attention fixed on a point just above the table’s edge.
I took my time rinsing the plate, giving him the space to say whatever he was working himself up to. When it didn’t come, I dried my hands on a dish towel and turned toward the door. “I’ll be back at lunch,” I said, keeping it factual and undemanding.
He looked up at that, something moving behind his eyes—relief, maybe, or surprise that I wasn’t pushing. “I’ll be here,” he said, the words simple but carrying more weight than they should have been able to.
I nodded once and headed out, pulling the door shut behind me with a careful click.
The west fence ran along the edge of the property, where the flat pasture gave way to the stand of pines at the mountain’s base.
The posts there were always the first to go—set in soil that softened every spring with the snowmelt, the ground giving way in slow motion until one good wind knocked the whole section over.
I found Burke forty yards in, his shirt already dark with sweat despite the morning chill. He’d strung new wire and was stretching it between the two most solid posts, his body braced against the tension of it.
“About fucking time,” he said when he saw me, not breaking his stance. “I’ve been out here since dawn trying to get this shit to hold.”
I picked up the post driver and walked to where the line had snapped—a clean break right where the wire had corroded. The ground underneath was soft, water still seeping up through the topsoil from the night’s rain.
“Posts need to go deeper,” I said, setting the driver over the first one. “At least another foot.”
Burke let out a theatrical groan, but he abandoned his position and picked up the second driver. “Of course they do,” he said. “Because why would anything be fucking simple?”
The work fell into a rhythm after that—driver, post, wire, repeat. Not complicated, but requiring enough attention that conversation came in fits and starts. It was the kind of job that gave your body something to do while your mind worked through whatever needed working through.
Burke kept up a steady stream of talk—stories from the ranch, observations about the weather, a new tech system he was installing in the barn that would let us monitor the property from our phones—and I responded where response was required, letting my hands take over the thinking my brain was trying to avoid.
We were nearly done with the first section when Burke switched topics, the transition so smooth I almost missed it.
“So, your friend,” he said, driving his post driver down with enough force to drive the wood another inch into the soft soil. “He a nurse for real?”
The question landed with more weight than Burke probably intended. I kept my hands steady on my driver, face neutral. “Eight years in neonatal,” I said, keeping it factual. “At Omaha General.”
Burke nodded once, accepting the information at face value.
“That’s something,” he said. “My mom was in the hospital for three weeks after my sister was born. The nurses kept her alive when the doctors were ready to give up.” He paused, then added, “He any good with kids? The couple down at the Hansen place just had a baby with some kind of stomach issue. Carter was trying to figure it out, but he’s mostly guessing. ”
“Better than good,” I said, turning to face him directly. “He’s under my protection.”
The statement landed between us, its weight changing the air. Burke held my gaze for a beat, then nodded once, understanding exactly what I’d just said.
“Fair enough,” he said, moving on without missing a beat. “So, how much longer on this section, you think?”
“Half an hour,” I said, accepting the subject change with the same ease he’d offered it. “Maybe less if the ground holds.”
He nodded again, and we went back to the work in silence that wasn’t tense but wasn’t companionable either—just the absence of sound that happened when two men had said exactly what they needed to and nothing more.
The rain started just as we finished the final post, a light drizzle that promised to get heavier by afternoon. We gathered the tools in quick, efficient movements—both of us used to moving in coordination without speaking—and started back toward the barn.
“Tell your friend the Hansen baby’s name is Lily,” Burke said as we walked, the question about Jasper still sitting between us but now redirected, reframed as a piece of information rather than an interrogation.
“Mom’s Allison, dad’s Mike. Nice people.
Carter’s been trying to help, but he’s out of his depth. ”
“I’ll tell him,” I said, accepting the peace offering for what it was. “He’s helping Carter with another case today, if the rain holds off.”
Burke nodded, and we walked the rest of the way without talking, the rain getting heavier around us, our footprints leaving dark impressions in the wet grass.
The mudroom smelled of wet wool and pine sap when I pushed through the door.
Rain drummed against the tin roof, a steady patter that had started as a drizzle and built into something serious while we were working the fence line.
My boots left dark prints on the wooden floor, mud coming away in clumps where the floorboards had worn thin.
I’d come in to swap out the post driver for a hammer—the one I had was splitting at the base of the handle. The ranch ran on a simple principle: the right tool for the right job, and half-assed wasn’t an option for either.
The hammer was supposed to be on the shelf above the workbench, next to the measuring tape and the extra screws. I reached for it without looking, fingers hitting empty space where solid wood should have been. I turned, confused, and stopped dead.
The first-aid kit had been moved. Not just moved—transformed.
The kit was supposed to be a plastic bin, the kind you’d pick up at a discount store, with a cracked lid and a random assortment of medical supplies dumped inside.
Half the bandages had fallen out of their packages.
The antiseptic wipes had dried up years ago.
The medical tape was missing its end, which meant you had to peel back layers until you found where it would tear.
The whole thing had last been organized in 1983, and the person who did it had been drunk.
This version looked like it had been assembled by a different species of human. The bin was still plastic, but it now sat open on the workbench, contents arranged in neat rows by function and urgency.
Each item was labeled in a handwriting so precise it might have been printed—bandages in the front left corner, antiseptic to their right, antibiotics in the back, emergency supplies in a separate container to the side.
Someone had made small white cards for each section: “Cuts” “Burns” “Sprains” “Allergic Reactions.” The tape had been trimmed at the end, the corner folded over to create a clean tear line.
A small bag of gauze pads that hadn’t been in the kit before sat next to the bandages, along with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide still in its shrink wrap.
It was the kind of system you’d find on a hospital floor or a military base—nothing wasted, nothing duplicated, everything exactly where a person in a hurry would look for it.