Chapter 37
His mom’s chocolate fudge cake hit the table, and Ellie’s face lit up like someone handed her a grenade launcher—which, in his family, counted as a reasonable escalation.
“Wyatt." Ty pushed back from the table. “Come take a look at the new sled. Finally got her dialed in.”
Wyatt didn’t move. Not right away. “It’s dark, Dad.”
“Got floodlights.”
Caleb perked up. “New toy?”
“It’s not a toy,” Ty shrugged on his jacket. “It’s a vehicle.”
Ryder was already standing. “This I gotta see.”
Jen was mid-conversation with Caro, her fingers wrapped around a coffee mug, relaxed in a way he’d rarely seen her. Lamplight caught the curve of her jaw, the way her hair fell across her shoulder when she leaned in to listen. She glanced over, read him in half a second, and smiled.
I’m good.
He stood and followed his dad, but checked over his shoulder before he left the dining room.
Jen was laughing at something his mum had said, Ellie now settled in her lap with chocolate-smeared fingers, as if it was the most natural thing in the world for her to be there—in the middle of his family.
He turned away before he could think too hard about that.
The night had sharpened since they arrived at his parents’. The floodlights over the equipment shed threw everything into hard white contrast against the dark.
Ty’s new Arctic Cat sat inside, matte black and chrome. His dad ran a hand along the cowling with quiet reverence.
He grinned at Wyatt. “Rebuilt the suspension. New track. She’ll do ninety on hardpack without floating.”
Wyatt nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets, his breath fogging in the cold.
Behind him, Ryder and Caleb followed them out, already arguing over something that sounded like a grudge with a long memory.
Ty walked him through the specs. Wyatt listened and gave appropriate grunts. He ran a hand along the rail, the cold metal biting into his skin.
He was only half here.
The rest of him was still inside, at the dining table under warm light, with Jen.
The back door opened. His mum leaned out, arms crossed against the cold. “Honey? The dishwasher’s doing that thing again.”
Ty sighed—the long-suffering sound of a man who’d learned that thing meant now. “Be right back.”
The door closed behind him.
Wyatt didn’t look at his brothers. He’d known this was coming since Jen walked through the front door and Caleb’s eyebrows had almost left his face.
Silence settled over the yard, broken only by the distant rush of the river.
Caleb circled the snowmobile, pretending to be interested. He stopped. “So. Jen didn’t stay in a hotel.”
Wyatt kept his eyes on the sled. “No.”
“Interesting.”
“Not really.”
Ryder leaned back against the trailer, arms folded, a smirk firmly in place. “Sunday dinner, brother.”
“What about it?”
“You don’t bring women here. Ever.”
“I’ve brought people here—”
Caleb snorted. “You’ve never once brought someone to this table who wasn’t already family or paying you.”
Wyatt grunted and stared out through the open double doors toward the mountains. The mountains didn’t ask stupid questions.
“She seems great,” Ryder offered, as if he was being generous.
“She is great. Can we move on?”
“Absolutely not,” Caleb said cheerfully.
They circled him the way they’d been trained to—no rush or mercy. You didn’t let the target redirect or set the pace.
Ryder went first. “Ellie likes her.”
“Ellie likes everyone.” Wyatt shook his head.
“No. She bit a kid at day-care last week.” Ryder grinned. “He was hogging the play kitchen.”
Caleb chuckled. “Kids are savage.”
Wyatt didn’t answer. Silence felt safer.
Caleb shifted his weight. Quieter now. This was how they worked. Ryder drew fire, Caleb flanked. “You didn’t let go of her knee.”
“What?” Wyatt frowned.
“At dinner.” Caleb’s voice was even. “Under the table. Your hand was on her knee.”
Wyatt’s fingers curled reflexively, so he rammed them back into his pockets out of sight. He stared at Caleb. “You were watching my hands under the table?”
“I was watching you.” Caleb shrugged. “There’s a difference.”
“And you smiled.” Ryder sat on the snowmobile and polished a dial with his cuff. “A lot.”
“I smile.”
“You really don’t.” Ryder swung his head in a no.
“You don’t,” Caleb agreed.
Wyatt exhaled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s complicated.”
“It’s not, though.” Ryder’s voice was gentle. “That’s what’s scaring you.”
“We’re figuring it out.”
Caleb’s brow creased. “Figuring what out?”
Muscles in his jaw bunched. “Drop it.”
I don’t know how to be anything other than what I am.
Except his brothers never dropped anything. They’d been forged in the same fire—different wars, same understanding. You didn’t leave a man in the dark when you could see he was lost.
“She stayed at your place,” Caleb said. “In your bed. And you’re standing out here in the cold pretending this is just some situation you’re managing.”
“I’m not—”
“You’re about as subtle as a brick through a window, Wyatt,” Ryder added.
Wyatt rounded on his brother. “Says the guy who opened his heart to a woman in a hospital gown with his ass hanging out.”
“That was romantic.” Ryder flashed his teeth.
“That was insane. You had a morphine drip in your arm.”
“And she still said yes,” Ryder doubled his smile. “Which tells you something about conviction.” His grin faded into something real. “I’m not screwing with you. I mean—I am. Obviously. But I’m also not.”
Wind moved through the pines beyond the floodlights.
“The way you look at her?” Caleb’s voice dropped, stripped of everything but truth. “That’s not figuring it out. That’s already decided.”
Wyatt went still.
His breath formed thick plumes in the icy air.
From inside the house came the sound of Ellie’s giggles.
He stared at the dark treeline and let the silence take him.
It didn’t come in pieces he could sort or control.
It hit all at once.
Like a breach when you stopped holding the door shut—not because you chose to, but because you finally couldn’t.
Ellie climbing into Jen’s lap at dinner, as if she’d found exactly where she belonged.
Waking that morning with Jen’s back against his chest, not wanting to move.
Not for a mission. Not for anything. Her steadiness on the rig while the world came apart, working beside him like she’d always been there.
And tonight. Walking into his family and taking her place like she was meant to stay.
His throat closed.
That was the thing underneath everything else. The real thing.
He’d spent years building a life where no one stayed and no one needed to.
He was a weapon.
Weapons didn’t wake up slow on Sunday mornings with someone warm beside them.
He wanted Jen. Exactly as she was—smart, funny, stubborn.
And that terrified him more than any breach he’d ever walked into.
A breach had odds. This didn’t. This was just him, standing in the cold, completely exposed.
“I don’t know how to keep her safe.” His voice roughened. “And I don’t know who I am if I’m not doing that.”
No one spoke.
“You’re our brother. That’s who you are.” Caleb stepped in and palmed the back of his neck—the way their dad used to when they were kids and scared. “Don’t let her go.”
Ryder moved to his other side, shoulder to shoulder. “You’ve got this, brother.”
“And if you don’t,” Caleb jabbed gently between his shoulder blades, “you’ve still got us.”
Wyatt let out a breath that was half a laugh. He rolled his shoulders, dropped them a fraction. “Fuck me. That’s reassuring.”
Snow crunched as his dad reappeared, clapping his hands together against the cold. “Dishwasher’s fixed. Your mother’s convinced it’s possessed.” He glanced between his three sons—shoulder to shoulder in the floodlight.
Ty dangled a key in between his fingers. “Come on, let me show you what she sounds like.” He jerked his head toward the house. “Then after, there’s cake left if Ellie hasn’t destroyed it.”
Wyatt exhaled.
The cold didn’t bite as hard anymore.
He didn’t have a plan or a strategy. And for the first time in his adult life, there was no operational framework for what came next.
He just knew.
He wanted her. All of it—the way she looked at him like he was a man worth staying for.
He wasn’t ready. He might never be ready.
But he was done pretending he hadn’t already chosen.