Chapter Five
She woke to the smell of eggs and the sound of someone who knew their way around a kitchen.
For a disorienting moment, Bethany thought she was back in her father's house, nine years old and hungry after a night of helping him prep the smoker.
Then reality crashed in—the unfamiliar ceiling, the too-soft mattress, the memory of crashing through warehouse doors with metal screaming around them.
The safehouse. Right.
She'd slept hard, which surprised her. Should've been too wired, too scared, too aware of everything she stood to lose. Instead, she'd hit the pillow and dropped like a stone.
Probably because a man with blood on his knuckles had said anyone comes through that door, they go through me first.
She found Grit in the kitchen, scrambling eggs with the competence of someone who'd cooked in far worse conditions than a safehouse with running water and a functioning stove. He looked like he'd slept in his clothes—probably had—but his eyes were alert, tracking her as she padded in barefoot.
"Coffee's fresh."
"Bless you."
She poured herself a cup and leaned against the counter, watching him work. His movements were efficient, economical. No wasted motion. The kind of cooking you learned when ingredients were scarce and time was short.
"You've done this before," she said. "Fed people in places like this."
"Field kitchens. Oil rig bunks. A few too many highway diners." He divided the eggs onto two plates, adding toast that was slightly burnt on one side. "Nothing fancy, but it's hot."
They ate at a small table by the window, morning light filtering through curtains that needed washing. The eggs were good—seasoned right, not overcooked. She found herself relaxing into the simple domesticity of it, even as her brain catalogued everything that was wrong.
Her truck was hidden somewhere she couldn't get to. Her customers were showing up at sites where she wasn't. Her business was bleeding money with every hour she sat here, safe and useless.
"Stop."
She blinked. "What?"
"You're doing math in your head. Calculating losses." Grit's pale eyes held hers across the table. "I can see it."
"Can you blame me?"
"No. But it won't help." He pushed back from the table, took their empty plates to the sink. "Club's working on it. Mapping Hoyt's operation—who works for him, which sites he controls, where his money comes from. Once we have the full picture, we move."
"And until then?"
"We wait."
Bethany had never been good at waiting.
By Saturday afternoon, she was climbing the walls.
The safehouse had books—paperbacks left by previous occupants, dog-eared and well-loved—but she couldn't focus on the words.
It had a television, but the news just reminded her that the world was continuing without her.
It had a kitchen, but cooking without her smoker felt like playing piano with her hands tied.
Grit watched her pace. Didn't comment. Just watched.
"Doesn't it drive you crazy?" she finally snapped. "Sitting here? Doing nothing?"
"I'm not doing nothing." He was cleaning a gun at the kitchen table, hands moving with familiar ease. "I'm keeping you alive."
"Great. I'm alive and useless."
"Better than the alternative."
She wanted to throw something at him. Wanted to scream. Instead, she dropped onto the couch and stared at the ceiling.
"Tell me something," she said after a long silence. "Anything. Just... talk to me, so I don't lose my mind."
The gun cleaning stopped. She heard him set it down, heard the creak of his chair as he shifted.
"What do you want to know?"
"The farm." She turned her head to look at him. "You mentioned it last night. Said you knew what it felt like to lose everything."
A long pause. She thought he wasn't going to answer—thought she'd pushed too hard, too fast. They barely knew each other. You didn't trade war stories with someone you'd met five days ago.
But then he started talking.
"Three generations. My grandfather broke that land when he was twenty-two, built the house my father was born in.
We ran cattle, grew wheat, survived droughts and depressions and everything else Oklahoma could throw at us.
" His voice was flat, like he was reciting facts instead of ripping open old wounds. "And then the bank came calling."
"What happened?"
"Markets crashed. Loans came due. My parents tried to refinance, but the numbers didn't work anymore.
By the time I came home from my second tour, the foreclosure was already final.
" He picked up the gun again, started reassembling it.
"I walked up to that house and found strangers living in it.
Everything we'd built, everything three generations had bled for—gone.
Signed away in paperwork while I was getting shot at on the other side of the world. "
Bethany sat up slowly. "Where are your parents now?"
"Trailer park outside Tulsa. Dad works maintenance at a car dealership. Mom does alterations at a dry cleaner." His jaw tightened. "They don't complain. Never have. But I see it in their eyes every time I visit. That piece of themselves they left behind on that land."
She understood that. God, she understood that.
"My father left me everything he had," she said quietly. "Which wasn't much—just enough to buy the truck, outfit it right, get started. But he gave it to me like it was a kingdom. Like he was passing on something precious."
Grit's hands stilled on the gun. He was listening. Really listening, in a way that made her want to keep talking.
"He was sick by then. Cancer. The kind that takes you slow, lets you watch yourself disappear.
" She swallowed hard. "He'd worked for other people his whole life.
Kitchens, catering, a barbecue place that went under in the recession.
Never got to build something of his own.
And in the end, when he knew he was going, he gave me that money and he said—"
Her voice cracked. Damn it.
"He said, Do something for yourself, Bethie. Stop working for other people who don't deserve you."
The silence stretched. Then Grit set the gun down, rose from his chair, and crossed the room to sit on the couch beside her. Not touching, but close enough that she could feel the warmth of him.
"You built it," he said. "What he wanted for you. You built it on your own."
"I built a food truck that's sitting in a lot somewhere while thugs try to take it from me." The bitterness leaked through despite her best efforts. "Some legacy."
"A food truck that's still standing. A business that's still yours." His voice was low, rough. "You didn't fold when they came for you. Didn't pay up, didn't run, didn't give them what they wanted. That's not nothing, Bethany. That's everything."
She looked at him—this man who'd lost as much as she had, who understood the weight of inherited dreams. He was watching her with those pale eyes, steady and certain, like he saw something in her worth protecting.
"You keep doing that," she said.
"Doing what?"
"Making me sound braver than I feel."
His mouth quirked. "Maybe you're braver than you think."
Sunday morning, she raided the safehouse kitchen.
The ingredients were basic—ketchup, brown sugar, vinegar, hot sauce, spices that had probably been sitting in the cabinet since the last administration. But she'd worked with less, and her hands needed something to do before she started crawling out of her skin.
Grit found her an hour later, surrounded by bowls and bottles, stirring a pot that was starting to smell like home.
"What are you making?"
"Sauce." She didn't look up. "My mother's recipe. Well, my version of my mother's recipe. I've been tweaking it since I was fifteen."
He moved closer, drawn by the smell. She felt him at her shoulder, looking into the pot with genuine interest.
"That's your signature sauce. The stuff you put on the brisket."
"You noticed."
"Hard not to notice." Something in his voice made her finally look up. He was closer than she'd realized, close enough to see the flecks of gray in his blue eyes. "It's what makes your brisket different. What keeps people coming back."
"It's a family recipe. Only three people have ever known it—my mother, my father, and me."
"Then why are you making it in a safehouse kitchen with ingredients from a dusty cabinet?"
She stirred the sauce, watching it thicken. "Because I need to do something. Because I'm going crazy sitting here. Because—"
She stopped. Took a breath.
"Because you earned it," she said finally.
He went still. "Earned what?"
"The recipe." She turned to face him fully, wooden spoon still in her hand. "You showed up every day for a week without being asked. You put yourself between me and those men. You crashed through a warehouse and watched the door all night so I could sleep."
"That's my job."
"Bullshit." The word came out sharper than she intended. "Prospects don't shadow food trucks. They don't volunteer for bodyguard duty. They don't look at someone the way you look at me."
His jaw tightened. "And how's that?"
"Like I matter. Like protecting me isn't just an assignment."
The silence between them was thick enough to cut. The sauce bubbled on the stove, filling the air with sweetness and heat.
"It's not," he said finally. "An assignment. Not anymore."
Her heart stuttered.
He reached past her to turn down the burner, his arm brushing hers. The contact sent sparks shooting through her nerve endings.
"Teach me," he said.
"What?"
"The sauce." His eyes held hers, and she saw something there that looked almost like hunger. "Teach me how to make it."
She should say no. It was a family secret—her mother's recipe, her father's memory, the thing that made Beth's BBQ hers.
But he'd been honest with her. Had told her about the farm and his parents and the look in their eyes when they remembered what they'd lost. He'd trusted her with his wounds.
Maybe she could trust him with this.
"Fine." She handed him the wooden spoon. "Stir. Slowly. You let it burn and I'll never forgive you."
He took the spoon, and when his fingers brushed hers, neither of them pulled away immediately.
"How long have you been perfecting this?" he asked, starting to stir.
"Since I was old enough to reach the stove. My mom used to let me help, adjust the spices while she watched. She said cooking was like loving someone—you had to pay attention to what they needed, not just what you wanted to give them."
"Smart woman."
"She was." Bethany leaned against the counter, watching him stir with the same careful focus he brought to everything. "She died when I was nineteen. Car accident. Drunk driver."
"I'm sorry."
"So was the driver. Not that it mattered much." She shrugged, a gesture that felt too casual for the weight of what she was saying. "After that, it was just me and Dad. We got closer. He taught me everything he knew about smoking meat. And when he got sick..."
"You took the recipe and built something with it."
"I tried. I'm trying." She reached over and adjusted his grip on the spoon. "You're stirring too fast. Let it breathe."
He slowed down, and she found herself smiling despite everything.
"You're a good student."
"I'm a patient man." His eyes found hers again, and the heat in them had nothing to do with the stove. "When something's worth learning."
She thought about what he'd said—protecting you isn't just an assignment anymore—and felt the weight of it settle into her bones.
"Add a pinch more cayenne," she said softly. "My mom always said the best sauce has a bite that sneaks up on you."
He reached for the cayenne, his shoulder brushing hers.
"I know the feeling," he murmured.
And Bethany thought maybe she did too.