Chapter 9 Kaila #2
Daniel ignores the rising murmurs. He steers my hips toward a high-top table near the back corner. He claims the seat with his back against the solid wall, locking his gaze on the main entrance. Paranoia is a survival trait that never truly fades.
"Sit," he orders, dragging out the tall wooden stool.
"You're bossy," I challenge, sliding onto the scuffed vinyl.
"Protective," he corrects. He leans forward, bracing his thick forearms on the table to trap me securely in his personal space. "Get used to it, Mrs. Gunnar."
The title sends a massive jolt of electricity straight down my spine. Mrs. Gunnar. The concept violates a dozen federal laws while fitting my new reality perfectly.
Old Jack wanders over to slap two damp coasters onto the table. "Well, I'll be damned. The Tracker of Grizzly Peak actually comes down from the mountain, and he brought company."
"Jack," Daniel greets with a short nod. "Two bourbons. Pour the good bottle."
"Celebrating?" Jack presses, flicking his shrewd gaze to my face.
"Something like that," Daniel agrees. He locks onto my eyes, burning with a territorial intensity that forces the noisy bar to completely fade away. "Found exactly what I was looking for."
Jack chuckles low in his throat and shuffles back to the bar.
"You know," I murmur, leaning forward to rest my chin in my palm. "You keep looking at me like that, these people are going to assume we're entirely obsessed with each other instead of just co-conspirators in massive identity fraud."
His harsh expression remains carved from stone. He reaches across the small table, dragging his rough thumb along the sharp line of my jaw. "Who says it's fraud?"
My lungs seize. "Daniel..."
"I don't do things halfway, Kaila," he grates out. "I didn't burn my entire life down for a convenient cover story. I did it for you. The digital paperwork just made it legal. The rest..." His dark gaze drops to my mouth, lingering there before snapping back up. "The rest is real."
I swallow past the sudden lump in my throat. My coding skills, my defensive sarcasm, my carefully constructed walls all completely fail against this man. He shattered my firewall the absolute second he kicked down my cabin door.
"Okay," I breathe out. "Real."
I didn’t realize Christie was already at our table until her phone suddenly vibrated at the edge of it.
"Hi! Sorry to interrupt. I’m Christie. I make the coffee down the street.
You have to be the mystery woman. Did you fix the Wi-Fi at the public library?
Frank swears someone rewired it remotely and now it runs faster than NASA. "
I blink at the barrage of words. "Uh, maybe? I might have tweaked a few nodes while I was bored on lockdown last week."
Christie flashes a brilliant, blinding smile. "I knew it! You’re the tech genius! This is seriously amazing. Welcome to Pine Valley! You have to come down to the Cozy Cup tomorrow. First latte is completely on the house. I'll even throw in a cinnamon roll if Katie hasn’t sold out yet."
Daniel grunts deep in his chest. "She drinks black coffee, Christie. Two espresso shots."
I snap my head toward him. "How do you even know that?"
He shrugs a massive shoulder, claiming the stool directly beside mine. His solid, denim-clad thigh presses heavily against my leg. "I staked out your perimeter for three days before I moved in. You drink coffee while you write code. Energy drinks make your hands shake."
"Stalker," I challenge playfully, entirely lacking any real accusation.
"Tracker," he corrects smoothly. "Huge difference."
Christie watches the exchange with a grin threatening to physically split her face in half. "Oh, this is absolute gold. I have to go tell Marie right now. She owes me five bucks." She spins around, thumbs flying aggressively across her glowing phone screen as she retreats.
"Great," I sigh into the noisy room. "Now the whole damn town knows my business."
"Good," Daniel states bluntly. Jack returns to slide two heavy glass tumblers of amber liquid onto the table. Daniel lifts his drink in the air. "Let them know. Let the Costas know. Let the entire damn world know."
He taps his rim firmly against my glass.
"To the Tracker," I murmur.
"To the future," he replies. "And the woman who hacked it."
The potent bourbon burns a liquid fire down my throat. The heat settles deep in my chest, sealing the unbreakable promise between us.
I drag my eyes across the crowded bar. The noise borders on deafening, the air reeks of cheap beer, and the wood-paneled walls remain trapped in the nineteen-eighties.
Yet, for the very first time in my entire existence, I stop mentally mapping the fastest exit strategy.
I stop cataloging the room for hidden threats.
I look back at Daniel. He handles the perimeter sweep for me. His dark eyes track constantly, monitoring the front door, locking onto the dark corners. His massive hand rests securely on my knee, the thumb dragging in slow, claiming circles over my denim-clad thigh.
He traded the limitless freedom of the open road for this exact table. He grounded himself for a bar stool in a freezing mountain town and a woman carrying a deleted criminal record.
I place my palm flat over his knuckles. His restless tracking instantly ceases. He flips his hand beneath mine, lacing our fingers together in a bone-crushing grip.
"You realize," I point out, "if we're putting down permanent roots, we have to deal with actual domestic reality. Laundry, grocery shopping, your biker brothers demanding to know why I reconfigured their club satellite dish to track deep-space anomalies."
"I'll handle the brothers," Daniel vows, dragging our joined hands up to his mouth. He presses a hot, open-mouthed kiss against my knuckles without breaking eye contact. "You handle the space anomalies. We'll figure out the damn laundry."
The declaration borders on completely mundane. Coming from the lethal enforcer sitting beside me, it easily ranks as the most intensely romantic vow I've ever received.
The tavern door groans open again, sucking a harsh gust of freezing snow into the room. Two massive, heavily bearded men stomp inside wearing identical Peaks Wilderness Outfitters jackets. My brain instantly flags them from the digital family tree I built. Nick and Rafe.
They spot our table in the back. Nick offers a slow, highly respectful dip of his chin. Rafe just flashes a knowing grin across the bar.
Daniel returns the firm nod. The Gunnar family circle officially closes ranks around us.
"They're never going to stop showing up, are they?" I ask, tracking the massive cousins as they grab stools at the bar.
"No," Daniel confirms heavily. "That's the entire point. You're not barricaded alone in that cabin anymore, Kaila. You have a private army now."
I squeeze his thick fingers. "I don't need an army. I only need you."
"You've got me," he growls, his tone dropping into that rough, highly territorial register that physically curls my toes in my boots. "Every single part of me. Until the code runs out."
I lean my head against the solid wall of his bicep. The country music twangs over the speakers, blending with the low hum of conversation and the steady heat radiating from his body.
"The code never runs out, Tracker," I correct softly. "It just recompiles."
He laughs, a deep, rusty vibration against my ear.
"Then let's recompile," he agrees.
He drags me closer, caging me entirely against his side in the middle of the crowded mountain dive bar. The frantic hacker inside me completely surrenders, letting the Nomad securely anchor me to the ground.