Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Eden
By day two, I'm already learning his patterns. That's the first sign I'm in trouble.
Before dawn: perimeter check. The back door opens, boots heavy on the porch, then nothing for twenty minutes while he circles the property.
When he comes back in, he announces himself.
Yesterday and today, the same thing. "Just me" or "coming in" or sometimes just a low rumble that means I'm here, don't panic.
After that: coffee. He makes enough for two without asking if I want any. Slides a mug across the counter when I emerge from the bedroom.
Then breakfast. This morning it's steak and eggs and a huge green salad. Yesterday it was a whole roasted chicken. No wonder Maya was worried about leaving enough food—he could eat out a grocery store in a week.
Daylight hours, he stays inside—watches from the windows, paces, checks the locks.
The rest of the day stretches out, shapeless. He finds things to fix. I find spots to sit and stare at nothing. We move around each other carefully, always aware, never quite touching.
It's driving me insane. Not him, not the situation—the nothing. Sitting still while my brain eats itself alive.
I try the laptop first. Bring it out of my room for the first time since Diesel tried to take it, open a blank document, and wait.
Nothing.
The cursor blinks. My fingers hover over the keys.
I used to write through things like this—lock myself in my apartment for days, pour everything onto the page until the bad stuff had somewhere to go.
But every time I try now, I see the interview room.
The way that man smiled when he talked about killing. The way he looked at me.
I close the laptop and switch to the books he gave me yesterday.
East of Eden is still on top. I open it to where I left off, but the words swim. I read the same paragraph three times without absorbing a single sentence.
Across the room, Diesel is doing something to a piece of leather—repairing a strap, maybe. His hands dwarf the material, knuckles scarred, and the leather looks delicate in his grip.
I catch myself staring and look back at the book.
Two paragraphs later, my eyes drift again.
He's rolled his sleeves up. His forearms are ridiculous—corded muscle, dark hair, a tattoo I can't quite make out from here. He's frowning at whatever he's working on, focused, and I have to look away before he catches me cataloging him.
I look back at the book and read the same sentence again.
This is ridiculous. He's an asshole. Gruff and bossy and he literally told me to stay uncomfortable yesterday while he tore into a chicken with his bare hands. I don't fall for assholes.
At least, I didn't. Before I spent months surrounded by cops and federal agents who treated me like evidence instead of a person.
Daniels gave me his sweatpants when I had nothing else to wear, and that was kind.
But Diesel's rough edges are more comforting somehow.
If he's this gruff with me—someone he's protecting—imagine what he'd do to someone who's an actual threat.
I slam the book shut.
"Problem?"
"No." I stand up and cross to the window. "I just need—I don't know. Something."
The yard behind the cottage is overgrown—weeds pushing up through what might have once been a garden, a fence line that's more suggestion than structure. In daylight, it looks abandoned. At night, it might be manageable.
And it looks like work. Real, physical, wear-yourself-out work.
That's what I need. Something to do with my hands that isn't typing words that won't come. Something that might actually tire me out enough to stop my eyes from drifting to him every five minutes. Something that might earn me a few hours of sleep that isn't filled with gunfire and screaming.
Plus, he's feeding me, sheltering me, keeping me alive. The least I can do is pull some weeds.
"Let me help with something."
He looks up.
"The garden." I turn to face him. "Let me clear it out. I need to use my hands."
"No."
"Diesel—"
"You don't go outside."
"After dark. Behind the cottage. You said the sight lines were clear back there."
"No."
"I'm not an idiot." I keep my voice steady.
"I'm not going to wander off or make noise or do anything that puts me at risk.
You'll be right there. I'll do exactly what you say.
I just—" I stop myself before the desperation bleeds through.
"Diesel, I'm going to lose my mind. I can feel it fraying at the edges.
" I force myself to hold his gaze. "Maybe if I wear myself out, I'll actually sleep tonight. "
He goes still.
His jaw tightens.
He's quiet for a long moment. I can almost see him doing the math—my safety versus my sanity.
"You stay where I can see you," he says finally. His voice is rough. "You hear anything—anything at all—you get inside. No arguments."
"No arguments."
He looks at me, then sighs and sets down the leather.
"Sundown's in four hours. Find something to do until then."
I go back to the book. The words still swim.
But at least now I have something to wait for.
***
The sun drops behind the tree line around seven.
Diesel checks the windows one more time, then heads for the closet and comes back with gloves and a flannel shirt, big enough to fit two of me.
"It's cold out there." He holds it out without looking at me. "Maya didn't exactly pack for night work."
I take it. The fabric is warm from being stored, and it smells like him—cedar and bourbon. I shrug it on over Maya's thin t-shirt, and the sleeves fall past my fingertips.
He looks at me for half a second, then looks away.
"Gloves are too big," he says. "Deal with it."
The gloves swallow my hands whole. I don't care.
The air bites cold on my face when we step outside, sharp with pine and dirt. Two days trapped in that cottage, and I'd almost forgotten what fresh air felt like.
The moon is high, bright enough to see by. Diesel moves through the dark easily—orc eyes, I remember. He can see fine. I'm the one stumbling over roots.
"We're pulling weeds," he says, handing me a bucket. "Nothing fancy. Just clear out the beds along the fence."
The overgrown mess he's pointing to is more jungle than garden—waist-high grass, thorny vines, something with pale flowers ghostly in the moonlight.
"I can do that."
"You ever pulled weeds before?"
"How hard can it be?"
Very. The answer is very.
The first weed I grab comes up too easily. I stumble backward, a handful of leaves in my fist and the root still in the ground.
Diesel makes a sound.
The second weed fights back. I pull. It pulls. I brace my feet and yank with everything I have, and the thing snaps in half, sending me onto my ass in the dirt.
This time the sound is definitely a laugh—low and rough, rusty from disuse.
"Shut up."
"Didn't say anything."
"You were thinking it." I push myself up, brushing dirt off the borrowed jeans. "Show me the right way, then."
He hesitates. Even in the dark, I can see him weighing it—distance, touch, all the ways this could go wrong.
Then he moves toward me.
"You're grabbing too high." He doesn't look at me. "Get down at the base. Where it meets the dirt."
He crouches next to one of the remaining weeds. Even crouching, he's enormous—a shadow against shadows, hands dwarfing the plant.
"See? Base." He wraps his fingers around the stem right where it emerges from the soil. "Then you don't pull. You twist and lift. Loosens the roots."
He demonstrates. The weed comes up clean.
"Twist and lift," I repeat.
I crouch next to the nearest weed, grab the base, and twist.
Nothing.
"Harder."
I twist harder. The stem bends but doesn't give.
"Your grip's wrong." He's behind me now—I didn't hear him move, but I don't flinch. "Here."
His hands cover mine.
I stop breathing.
They engulf my fingers completely, repositioning them with a gentleness that doesn't match his size. I feel him shift behind me—slow, careful—keeping his chest away from my bad shoulder.
He noticed. He remembered.
"Like this," he says, and his voice has dropped. Rougher now. "Thumb here. Fingers here. Then twist."
The heat of him at my back. Not touching—he's too careful for that—but close enough that warmth bleeds through the henley he's been wearing all day. His breath stirs my hair.
His hands tighten over mine. We twist together. The weed comes up, roots and all.
Neither of us moves.
I should say something. Make a joke. Break whatever this is.
He pulls away first, steps back fast, shaking out his hands.
"Like that." His voice is strained. "You'll get the hang of it."
He crosses to the other end of the garden and puts twenty feet between us.
I stare at my hands. My fingers are still tingling.
We work in silence for an hour.
The cold creeps in despite the flannel. I shed the too-big gloves to get a better grip on the roots, and the chill numbs my fingers within minutes.
I'm reaching for a stubborn vine, twisting to get the angle right, when the pull catches my shoulder wrong.
I hiss through my teeth.
Diesel goes still.
Not quiet. Still.
"What."
"Nothing. I just—" I reach again, and this time I can't hide the wince. The wound is screaming, and I want to scream with it—not from pain but from frustration. I was so caught up in doing something normal that I forgot. For one whole hour, I forgot someone tried to kill me.
I can't even pull weeds without my body reminding me.
He's across the garden before I can tell him I'm fine.
"Let me see."
"It's nothing, I just pulled it—"
"Eden."
I stop arguing.
His fingers find the collar of the flannel and ease it aside. Barely a touch. The t-shirt beneath has shifted, exposing the edge of the bandage.
"I need to check it." His voice scrapes low. "Make sure you didn't tear it open."
I should say no, should step back and handle it myself like I did before I ended up on the bathroom floor.
I nod.