Chapter 24
Terms and Conditions
Austin
Iwoke to the sound of men crying out and shouting, radio static crackling, and gunfire.
It took me a minute to realize it was just the sounds of my past echoing in my mind.
A sound that used to be a part of every night, but had softened over the last several months, though it had never really gone away.
They were a reminder of where I’d come from.
Sweat beaded on my forehead, and my hands were tacky.
I lay there for a second in the half-light, listening.
The small, ordinary sounds of a home hummed in the background: pipes clinking, wood creaking, the faint thump of cat paws jumping down from a windowsill. It was all a part of what I’d started to call home.
On the nightstand beside the bed sat an envelope Browne had left for me. It was my termination letter, a notice saying I’d completed my mission and was no longer obligated to the security of the asset.
I sat up, a wry laugh escaping. It felt odd and unnatural to call Milly “the asset.” Milly wasn’t an asset. She’d stopped being an asset less than a month into the mission. Her quiet chaos, her attempts at organization, everything she did pulled me into her cute, chaotic orbit.
Her world had wrapped around her yesterday, a world she’d built from what Penny had left. She’d called Everwood and the ranch “home.”
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and scrubbed a hand over my face. My arm twinged under the bandage when I stretched, a reminder that I’d walked through fire for her, quite literally.
In the kitchen, I could hear Milly moving around.
For a moment, I just sat there and listened: coffee brewing, her humming, the rooster outside.
It was all familiar. It felt a lot like home.
But I had to remember my mission. I was the backup plan, activated when Plan A failed, and it did. Harold and Arnie saw to that.
Then Browne’s voice threaded through my memory: “As Penny’s terms have been fulfilled, Mr. Adams, your contract has also been fulfilled.”
There it was. The line I’d known was coming the day I accepted the mission. But now it was the end of the mission. It was time to pack up and rotate out.
So why did the thought of leaving feel like anything but rotating out?
I pulled on jeans, a flannel, thick socks, and padded out into the kitchen. Each step looked the same, but felt different.
The kitchen smelled like coffee and cinnamon. Milly stood by the sink in one of her oversized sweaters, hair twisted up in a messy knot, steam curling around her face. The sight punched a soft hole straight through my chest.
“Morning,” I said.
She turned, eyes bright but still soft with sleep. “Morning.”
It had been a week since the barn raising and the ceremonial ribbon-cutting. It was less a ribbon-cutting and more like Milly and me drinking sparkling cider on a blanket on the floor, but the feeling was the same.
Milly had talked about her plans for the future and the clinic. She’d mentioned me like I was part of the plan, but not the plan. She never mentioned us. I wasn’t sure if I was an afterthought or intentional.
“How’s it feel?” I asked, brushing off the thought and leaning against the doorframe. “Official Queen of Thomas Ranch.”
She made a face, but the corners of her mouth twitched. “Don’t call me that.”
“I beg your pardon,” I said. “Your Majesty.” I mock-bowed.
Milly threw a rag at me, then snorted and handed me a mug. My fingers brushed hers, and that small, simple touch did all kinds of unprofessional things to my heartbeat. I already knew my heart belonged to Milly, but when she pulled back without a thought, my heart cracked a little.
“It feels…” She stared into her coffee. “…right. I think that’s the word.”
“Good,” I said, proud, because I was proud of her.
Outside the window, snow fell in big flakes. This place was beautiful. It reminded me I’d always belonged to dirt and sky more than to concrete and fluorescent lights. That’s what I liked most about the military: more outside, less inside.
I took a sip of coffee. It burned, but I drank it anyway.
Browne’s voice wouldn’t let up. “Your contract has also been fulfilled. You can either return to work, or…” That pause at the end. That grin.
On paper, this was the point where I left. I was a temporary measure. A human shield against Milly’s trouble.
I glanced at Milly. She was studying the ranch with a look I recognized. When I walked into a hangar full of men, helicopters, and orders to keep them alive for the first time, I’d seen that look in my own reflection. Ownership. Responsibility.
“You’re showing your thoughts again,” I said as the crease between her brows deepened.
“I am not,” she lied, badly.
“Your face disagrees with you. Pretty sure the horses heard that one.”
She huffed out a laugh, but it didn’t chase the tension from her shoulders. “I was thinking about last week. About… what Browne said.”
“About you owning the ranch?” I asked. “Kind of a big one.”
She shook her head. “No. About your contract,” she said, her voice small and fragile.
There it was. For a week, we’d danced around the topic. I wasn’t sure she’d heard Browne at first, but as the days passed, the weight between us grew.
I set my mug down. “Ah. That.”
“Yeah, that?” she repeated.
I stared at a swirl in my coffee. “When I came here,” I started, not entirely sure what I was going to say, but pretty sure I didn’t want her filling in the blanks on her own, “it was simple. A job. Protect the asset, meaning you. Make sure you didn’t get blindsided.
Get you through the year in one piece. That was the brief. ”
She watched me over the rim of her mug, eyes weary.
“There was always a ticking clock,” I went on. “End of the term, hand off the keys, head back to my old life.” I tried to smile. “I’ve been rotating in and out of other people’s messes for so long, it’s kind of my default.”
“And now?” she asked softly.
I rubbed my thumb along the handle of the mug.
“Now the contract’s fulfilled. Browne was right.
I don’t have to stay. I still have obligations and responsibilities back in Denver.
I took a sabbatical, a leave of absence.
My boss and old CO are relying on me to pick back up where I left off.
You have what you came here for. Your shiny new ranch and clinic, without me hovering in the doorway. ”
My stomach dropped when I thought I saw tears prick the corners of her eyes.
She set her mug down. “Is that… what you want?” She almost looked offended.
For a minute, I considered lying. Old habits. Even weeks later, I still remembered the smoke in my lungs, a barn roof coming down, and the way her voice sounded in that moment. The fear in her voice when she called my name.
“I’m not sure,” I said, and watched heartbreak, pain, and rejection fill her eyes.
She shifted, just a little, bracing for the hit. “Then what are you afraid of?”
“I’m afraid I’d be trapping you,” I admitted.
“Making you feel like you got stuck with some guy your aunt hired. Obligated to keep me around because Penny wrote my name in a file. And I’m afraid you’d always wonder if I was here because I was convenient and familiar, or because you really wanted me here. ”
“Austin,” she said quietly, but never finished. Her eyebrows knitted together as if she was weighing it all. There was hurt, confusion, and thoughtfulness in her expression. But I think, on some level, I was only saying out loud the thoughts no one dares to say.
A knock at the door pulled Milly from her thoughts, but for three days after that, the question was never answered. The topic remained untouched, and as much as it hurt, I heard my answer in the silence.
Browne’s voice had been on repeat since he left.
“As Penny’s terms have been fulfilled, Mr. Adams, your contract has also been fulfilled. You can either return to work, or…”
Or.
He hadn’t finished the sentence out loud, but my brain had filled in the rest. Or you can stay. Because you want to, because Milly wants you to, and not because a contract told you to.
Which is exactly why I was standing on the porch this morning with my military duffel and my boots.
Milly hugged herself in her coat, breath visible in the cold air.
“You don’t have to go,” she said for the third time, her posture trembling, her voice a murmur.
“I’m sorry,” I said gently, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
I wanted to say I’d stay. To walk back inside, put my bag back in the closet, pretend things were back to how they were before the fire. To stay where I knew the creaks of the house, the rhythm of her laugh, and the way she hummed while baking.
But wanting something and being sure of it weren’t always the same thing. I’d learned that the hard way in a valley with three helicopters and nineteen men, half a world away.
“I left loose ends in Denver. Cases Reaper and I were working. People who think I’m coming back. An apartment with at least one lonely little plant I promised I wouldn’t kill.”
Her mouth twitched despite everything. “Poor plant.” She blinked slowly. “So you’ll leave, and then… what?”
I wanted to say, I’ll have to figure out what my life actually looks like without you.
In the past, I’d run from mission to mission. From the desert. From dog tags and funerals caused by decisions I’d made. And although Milly wasn’t running, she’d always wonder, and I didn’t want to be the mistake she wished she could run from.
I looked past her at the new barn, the clinic, the house, at the plume of breath from the horses in the pasture. At the faint glowing line where the river cut through the snow.
Everything in me wanted to stay.
Before I changed my mind, I pulled her close and kissed her. My chest tightened, and I knew Milly would be the one that got away. The one I’d always love, the one who owned my heart. The kiss was long and sweet. Her tears dampened my cheeks, and her quiet sobs shook in my arms.
When we finally pulled away, the hurt was still there.