Chapter 5
Channel waited until Proof's taillights disappeared around the corner before turning back to Reagan.
"Get your truck. We're leaving."
Her head snapped up from the vintage lamp she was pretending to price. "Excuse me?"
"You live in the back room." It wasn't a question. He'd seen the narrow cot through the doorway, the hot plate, the life compressed into a space smaller than his cabin at the compound. "That makes you a permanent target. Culver knows where you sleep."
"I'm not running."
"Not running. Relocating." He moved toward the back of the store, already calculating what they could fit in her truck. "Temporarily. Until we figure out how to handle Farris."
"I have a store to run."
"You have a life to protect." Channel stopped at the back room doorway, taking in the sparse furnishings, the inventory boxes stacked against every wall. She'd built everything she had in a space most people wouldn't use for storage. "The store can wait a few days. You can't."
Reagan set down the pricing gun with more force than necessary. "You don't get to make that decision for me."
"You're right. I don't." He turned to face her, letting her see the concern underneath the command. "But Culver left here pissed and embarrassed. He's going to tell Farris that the Ridgerunners are protecting you, and Farris is going to want to prove we can't. Tonight. Maybe tomorrow. But soon."
"So you want me to hide."
"I want you alive."
The words hung between them. Reagan's jaw worked, that stubborn set he was learning to recognize, the one that meant she was fighting herself as much as him.
"I can't leave the inventory," she said finally. "Some of these pieces took me months to source. If Farris burns the place—"
"Then we take it with us." Channel grabbed an empty box from the stack. "Whatever won't survive a fire. Whatever you can't replace. Load it up."
She stared at him. "You're serious."
"I'm always serious about protecting what's mine."
He watched the flush creep up her neck, watched her fight the reaction. She wanted to argue—he could see it in every line of her body—but she was too smart to let pride get her killed.
"Fine." She grabbed a box. "But I'm picking what goes."
"Wouldn't have it any other way."
They worked in silence, filling boxes with the pieces she couldn't afford to lose.
Vintage electronics, estate sale jewelry, a collection of mid-century lamps that Channel learned were worth more than his bike.
She moved through her inventory with the precision of someone who knew every piece by heart, selecting with a ruthlessness that told him exactly how often she'd calculated what she could save if everything went wrong.
This wasn't the first time she'd prepared to lose everything.
Channel carried boxes to her truck—an old Ford with rust on the wheel wells and an engine that sounded better than it looked. She'd maintained it herself, he realized. Fixed what she could, lived with what she couldn't. Self-sufficient to the bone.
It made him want to give her things. Not because she needed them, but because she deserved someone who tried.
"That's the last of the irreplaceables." Reagan locked the back door and pocketed the key, her face set in that controlled mask he was learning to read. Scared underneath. Refusing to show it.
"You know these roads?" He gestured toward his bike.
"Some of them."
"Follow me. Stay close." He swung onto the Harley, feeling the familiar settle of power beneath him. "I grew up on this lake. Know places Farris has never seen."
She climbed into her truck and started the engine. Through the windshield, he could see her hands tight on the wheel, her jaw clenched.
Following someone else didn't come naturally to her. Trusting someone else came even harder.
But she was doing it anyway.
Channel pulled out, checking his mirrors to make sure she was behind him.
The Ford's headlights cut through the evening gloom, steady on his tail.
He took the back roads—the ones that wound through hills and hollows, past lake coves that tourists never found, along bluffs where the water spread out like dark glass a hundred feet below.
These were the roads he'd learned to drive on.
The roads he'd dreamed about during two tours in places where everything was sand and heat and death.
Coming home to find the lake house sold had gutted him, but the roads were still here.
The water was still here. The Ozarks didn't care who owned what—they just kept existing, patient and ancient and wild.
He pushed the bike harder through the curves, feeling Reagan's headlights tracking him. She drove well—kept the right distance, took the turns smooth, didn't panic when the road narrowed to a single lane along the bluff's edge.
A woman who drove like that had been running a long time. Knew how to follow without losing herself. Knew how to keep moving when stopping meant dying.
God, he wanted her.
Not just the heat that spiked every time she looked at him with those defiant eyes.
Not just the physical pull that had grabbed him the moment he walked into her store.
He wanted the steel underneath, the stubborn survival instinct, the way she'd built a life from nothing and refused to let anyone take it.
He wanted to be the one she trusted. The one she leaned on. The one she chose.
The cabin appeared around the last curve—a Ridgerunner safe house on a Table Rock bluff, hidden from the main roads by a half-mile of gravel and overhanging trees. Small, weathered, invisible to anyone who didn't know exactly where to look.
Channel killed his engine and waited for Reagan to park beside him.
"This is it?" She climbed out of the truck, eyeing the cabin with wary assessment. "Whose place?"
"Club property. Off the books." He moved toward the door, scanning the perimeter from habit. "Nobody knows it exists except brothers, and none of Farris's crew are brothers."
"How do you know Farris doesn't have someone watching the roads?"
"Because I know these roads better than anyone he's got.
" Channel found the key under the third porch board—standard location for all Ridgerunner safe houses—and unlocked the door.
"Grew up on this lake. Swam to that channel marker when I was eight.
" He pointed toward the water, where a red light blinked in the darkness.
"My father taught me to fish in this cove. "
She was quiet for a moment, studying him. "Doesn't your family still live here?"
"No." He pushed the door open, not wanting to see her reaction to the flat word. "They don't."
The cabin was simple—single room with a woodstove, small kitchen, bed in the corner, bathroom through a narrow door. Dusty but intact. Channel moved through the space, checking windows, testing the back door, making sure they hadn't been found.
When he turned back, Reagan was watching him with those sharp eyes.
"You move like you've done that before."
"Done a lot of things before." He didn't elaborate. The Marine stuff was background noise now—useful skills, nothing more. What mattered was here. Her. This. "Place is clean. Nobody's been here in months."
She nodded slowly, then turned back toward the truck. "Help me unload."
They carried the boxes inside, stacking them against the wall where Reagan could see them.
Channel noticed the way she touched each piece as they unpacked—a brush of fingers over vintage fabric, a careful adjustment of position.
This inventory wasn't just product. It was proof.
Proof she'd survived. Proof she'd built something worth having.
She started unpacking before he'd finished stacking the last box.
"What are you doing?"
"Sorting." She spread items across the kitchen table, organizing with the same precision she'd used at the store. "I can't just sit here. I need to do something."
"It's almost midnight."
"So?"
Channel leaned against the counter and watched her work. She'd rolled up her sleeves, exposing those healing bruises on her forearms. Her hair was coming loose from its ponytail. She looked exhausted and determined and so goddamn beautiful it hurt.
"You're something else," he said.
Her hands stilled on a vintage jewelry box. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Means most people would be falling apart right now. Threatened, robbed, driven out of their home. You're pricing inventory."
"I fall apart later." She didn't look up. "When it's safe."
"When's the last time it was safe?"
The question hung between them. Reagan's jaw tightened, and for a moment he thought she'd shut him out, throw up those walls she'd spent nine years building.
Instead, she said: "I don't remember."
Three words. A lifetime of survival packed into them.
Channel crossed the small kitchen and stopped beside her. Close enough to touch. Close enough to feel the heat coming off her skin.
"It's safe now," he said. "With me."
She looked up at him. Those wary, defiant eyes searched his face, looking for the lie, the angle, the reason she shouldn't trust what he was offering.
"You don't know me."
"I know enough."
"You called me yours. To Culver. In front of everyone." Her voice was steady, but he could see the pulse jumping in her throat. "We've known each other two days."
"Feels longer."
"That's not—" She stopped, frustrated. "You can't just decide someone belongs to you."
"I'm not deciding anything." Channel reached out, slow and deliberate, and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Felt her breath catch. "I'm telling you what I feel. What I want. You get to decide if you want it too."
"And if I don't?"
"Then I'll still protect you. Still make sure Farris can't touch you." He let his hand fall, giving her space. "But I'm hoping you do."
Reagan stared at him for a long moment. Then she turned back to her inventory, hands not quite steady on the jewelry box.
"I need to finish sorting this."
"Okay."
"And you should get some sleep. One of us needs to be functional tomorrow."
"I'll take the floor."
"There's a bed right there."
"And you need it more than I do."
She opened her mouth to argue—of course she did, because Reagan Sadler didn't accept help, didn't take what she hadn't earned—but something in his expression stopped her.
"We'll figure out sleeping arrangements tomorrow," she said finally. "Tonight, just... let me work."
Channel nodded. He grabbed a blanket from the closet, settled himself against the wall where he could see both doors, and watched her sort inventory by the light of a single lamp.
She worked until her eyes started drooping, until her hands slowed on the pieces she was organizing. When she finally gave up and collapsed onto the bed fully clothed, she was asleep within seconds.
Channel stayed awake, watching the doors.
Watching her.
Mine, he thought. Whether she knows it yet or not.
And he settled in to wait for dawn, ready to fight anyone who tried to take her from him.