Chapter Five
The safehouse wasn't going to stay safe forever.
Anvil stood at the cabin's single window, watching the tree line while dawn crept through the pines. He'd been awake for hours—hadn't really slept at all, if he was being honest—listening to Josie's breathing from the bed and cataloging every sound the forest made.
Diesel had woken twice during the night, ears pricking at noises Anvil couldn't hear. Both times had been nothing—deer moving through the brush, wind shifting branches. But the dog's instincts were good, and Anvil had learned to trust good instincts.
His phone buzzed. Tundra.
Harlan's got crews on every back road in the county. Systematic search. They'll find that cabin eventually.
Anvil typed back: How long?
Day, maybe two. Brogan's operation knows these woods better than we do. They've been using them for years.
He pocketed the phone and turned to find Josie watching him from the bed.
She'd slept in her clothes—jeans, thermal shirt, the practical layers of a woman who'd learned to be ready to move at a moment's notice. Her dark hair was loose around her shoulders, and in the gray morning light, she looked younger than thirty. More vulnerable.
Except her eyes weren't vulnerable at all.
"Bad news?" she asked.
"They're searching. Systematically." No point in sugarcoating it. "We've got a day, maybe two, before they find this place."
Josie sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. Diesel lifted his head, then dropped it back to his paws when she didn't move to leave.
"Show me the map."
"What?"
"You've got a map somewhere. Topographical, probably. Show it to me."
Anvil hesitated, then crossed to the chest near the door and pulled out the rolled maps he'd stuffed there when they'd arrived. He spread them across the small table, and Josie joined him, her shoulder brushing his as she leaned in to study the terrain.
"These logging roads here—" She traced a line with her finger. "They're overgrown. Haven't been used in years. Nobody's going to search them because there's nothing to find."
"How do you know?"
"Because I tried to take them to get to a client three years ago and had to turn around when my truck got stuck.
" Her finger moved to another section. "These properties here, here, and here—they're Brogan's customers.
Meth users, dealers, people who owe him money.
He won't search there because he already owns them. "
Anvil stared at the map, then at her.
"You know this territory."
"I've been working it for twelve years. Every ranch, every farm, every back road that leads anywhere a horse might need shoeing.
" She looked up at him, something fierce in her expression.
"I know which families will help and which ones will sell me out for a fix.
I know where the roads go and where they dead-end.
I know this land better than anyone Brogan's got working for him. "
"That's... useful."
"Damn right it's useful." She tapped the map again. "If we need to move, we go north through the Hansen property—they hate Brogan, lost a nephew to an overdose last year—then cut west on the old mining access road. It'll spit us out behind the compound, and nobody will see us coming."
Anvil found himself staring at her.
He'd brought her here to protect her. To hide her away until the brotherhood could deal with Brogan and make her safe again. He'd expected her to be scared, grateful, maybe a little useless in the way civilians usually were when violence entered their lives.
He hadn't expected her to be an asset.
"You're not what I expected," he said.
"What did you expect?"
"Someone who needed saving."
Josie's laugh was sharp. "I've been saving myself since I was eighteen years old. Just because I accepted help doesn't mean I forgot how."
She turned back to the map, and Anvil watched her—the set of her shoulders, the confidence in her hands as she traced routes and marked positions, the way she'd transformed from protected witness to tactical resource in the space of five minutes.
The proximity was killing him.
The cabin was small—maybe four hundred square feet of cramped space with nowhere to hide from the woman who'd somehow become the center of his entire focus. Every time she moved, he was aware of it. Every time she spoke, something in his chest tightened.
And the way she looked at him—
Like she'd never had anyone stand between her and trouble before.
Like she didn't quite know what to do with a man who'd promised to die keeping her safe.
Like she was seeing something in him that he'd spent years trying to bury.
"Coffee?" he asked, needing to break the tension before he did something stupid.
"God, yes."
He moved to the small camp stove, focusing on the simple mechanics of boiling water and measuring grounds. Josie stayed at the table, studying the map, occasionally making notes on a scrap of paper she'd found somewhere.
"Can I ask you something?" she said.
"Sure."
"Why you?"
He glanced over his shoulder. "What do you mean?"
"Why are you the one guarding me? You're the Sergeant at Arms—that's a big deal, right? Wouldn't it make more sense for a prospect or someone lower on the ladder to be stuck in a cabin playing babysitter?"
Anvil turned back to the coffee, buying himself a moment.
"I volunteered."
"Why?"
Because he'd watched her work with horses and seen someone who understood how to be gentle and strong at the same time.
Because he'd stood between her and armed men and felt something click into place that had been broken for years.
Because the thought of anyone else protecting her made his hands curl into fists.
"Because I wanted to," he said finally.
The silence stretched. He could feel her watching him, measuring his answer, deciding what it meant.
"Okay," she said quietly.
He poured two cups of coffee and brought them to the table, settling into the chair across from her. Their knees brushed under the narrow surface, and neither of them moved away.
"Tell me about the farrier work," Anvil said.
"What about it?"
"How'd you get started? It's not exactly a common career path."
Something softened in her expression. "When I aged out of foster care, I had nothing. No family, no money, no prospects. But there was this vocational program—one of the good ones, not the bullshit ones that teach you to flip burgers—and they had a farrier track."
"So you learned to shoe horses."
"I learned a trade that nobody could take away from me." Her hands wrapped around her coffee cup. "Everything I own fits in a truck. Everything I need to make a living fits in a truck. If something goes wrong, I can pack up and start over somewhere else. That was the whole point."
"Independence."
"Survival." She met his eyes. "I built a life where I didn't need anyone. Where I could take care of myself no matter what happened. And then Brogan burned it all down in one night."
"We're going to get it back."
"Are we?"
"Yes." The word came out harder than he intended. "When this is over, when Brogan's in the ground, we're going to rebuild everything you lost. New truck. New forge. New tools. Whatever you need."
"Why?"
"Because you didn't deserve what happened to you. And because—" He stopped, caught off guard by how much he wanted to finish that sentence.
"Because what?"
The radio on his belt crackled before he could answer.
"Anvil." Tundra's voice, tight with urgency. "Harlan's crew is close. Mile and a half east of your position, moving your direction. They've got a tweaker with them who grew up in those woods."
Anvil was on his feet before Tundra finished talking.
"How long?"
"Hour, maybe less. We're mobilizing, but we won't get there before they do."
"Understood. We'll be ready."
He killed the radio and turned to find Josie already moving—pulling on her boots, tying back her hair, her face set in the calm determination of someone who'd been expecting this.
"They're coming," she said. Not a question.
"Yes."
"How many?"
"I don't know yet." He crossed to the gun rack, pulling down a shotgun and checking the load. "Enough that we need to be ready."
"What do you need me to do?"
Anvil paused, looking at her. Most people would be panicking right now. Running for the door, demanding escape routes, falling apart in the various ways civilians fell apart when violence came knocking.
Josie Kinnear was asking for her assignment.
"Stay near the back of the cabin. If things go bad, there's a root cellar under the floorboards—hatch is beneath the bed. Get in there with Diesel and don't come out until I come get you."
"And if you don't come get me?"
"Then you wait until everything goes quiet, and you use that escape route you mapped out. North through Hansen's, west on the mining road."
She nodded once, accepting the plan. Then her eyes swept the cabin, landing on a toolbox near the wood stove.
"Is there a hammer in there?"
Anvil blinked. "What?"
"A hammer." Her voice was steady. Almost casual. "I know how to swing one. If someone gets past you, I'd rather have something in my hands besides prayers."
Something fierce and hot flared in Anvil's chest—pride, maybe, or something closer to desire. This woman who'd lost everything, who was being hunted by men who wanted her dead, was asking for a weapon so she could fight beside him.
He crossed to the toolbox, pulled out a claw hammer with a solid wooden handle, and pressed it into her palm.
"Don't let anyone get close enough to use it."
"That's the plan." She tested the weight, finding the balance point. "But if they do, they're going to regret it."
Anvil looked at her—this farrier who'd built a life from nothing, who'd survived more than most people could imagine, who was standing in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with a hammer in her hand and not a trace of fear in her eyes.
God help him.
He was in so much trouble.