Chapter 2
Asha Monroe stood just inside the main doors of the ranch’s large mess hall and took everything in.
Her gaze made a slow circuit of the room, leaving nothing to chance.
Entries, exits, likely threats, likely friends, probable lunatics.
The tally was the same as yesterday: three definite PTSDs, two anger management cases, and the rest were somewhere in between.
She took her time in the food line, letting others cut in if they seemed in a rush, studying the way the hands and faces moved.
There was no sense of threat in the air, but her reflexes weren’t interested in the logic of it.
She still counted the steps between herself and the nearest door, noted which ranch hands took their meals armed, which ones kept their backs to the wall, which ones couldn’t sit still for a whole conversation.
The habit was so ingrained she barely noticed she was doing it.
Asha balanced her tray of food as she scanned for a seat.
No empty tables, just clusters of ranchers and ex-military, a jumble of conversations she had zero interest in joining.
Her first instinct was the back corner, which gave her the best view of the room, but the spot was claimed by two older ranchers arguing about South Dakota gun laws.
She could wedge herself at their end, but it would mean too many questions she didn’t want to answer.
She spotted him two tables over, eating alone, head bowed over a plate of roast beef like it was the last meal on death row.
Gavin McAllister. The politician’s son, the famous consulting firm guy, the war hero.
She recognized him from the news. The scar above his right eyebrow looked deeper in person, like someone had tried to erase part of him and failed.
She considered walking past, pretending not to see him, but curiosity outmuscled her self-preservation. She pivoted around a pair of chattering ranch hands and slid into the seat across from him, the legs of her chair screeching their objection against the floor.
He didn’t look up right away. Just kept chewing, eyes on the same fixed point somewhere over her shoulder. She waited, letting the silence do the heavy lifting.
When he finally glanced up, his eyes didn’t linger. “You’re the new one. With the horses.”
She set her tray down. “Yup. That’s me.”
He nodded once, not quite approval, not quite dismissal. “You’re good with them.”
“Better than most people.” She stabbed at her vegetables. “Horses have straightforward expectations.”
That brought the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth. “People, not so much.”
He went back to eating, but she could tell he was listening. She let the silence stretch again, an old contest she’d never lost. She broke first. “I heard you and Andy talking about you helping on the cabin project.”
“That’s the plan.” Still not quite a smile, but the tension in his jaw eased, just enough to be noticed.
“You swing a hammer or just supervise?” She kept her tone light.
He looked at her this time. The green in his eyes was sharp, almost cold, like a winter field under hard frost. “Both, depending on the job.”
She nodded, took a bite, and chewed slowly. She was here to work, not to make friends, but her mind itched with the need to solve the puzzle of this man. Most ex-military were open books to her. Gavin was more like a locked safe and she wanted to see what was inside.
He shifted in his seat, eyes flickering past her to the commotion at the salad bar.
Some of the younger hands were getting loud, tossing croutons into each other’s drinks, harmless bullshit but the kind of thing that would have made her nervous six months ago.
Gavin didn’t flinch at the noise, but she caught his fingers drumming a low pattern on the side of his tray—three short taps, a pause, two more. A nervous tic, maybe. Or a code.
She dropped her voice. “You always eat alone?”
“Usually.”
“Ever get tired of it?”
He shrugged, finally dropping the fork onto his tray. “Not really.”
A challenge then. She leaned in, elbows on the tabletop. “You know what they say about isolation.”
He didn’t answer, just fixed her with that eyes-forward look she knew too well. It was the same face she’d worn through her last deployment, the one you used when the only thing holding you together was your refusal to let anyone see you crack.
Asha studied him, not bothering to hide it. She saw the burn scars peeking from under his sleeve, the set of his jaw, the way he sat like he was always bracing for impact. It was all there, if you knew how to read it.
She finished her food in silence, sensing the conversation had run its course. She stood, picked up her tray, and paused. “Well, I guess I’ll see you around.”
He looked up, an eyebrow raised. “Looking forward to it.”
She left before he could say anything else, but she felt the weight of his gaze on her the whole way to the exit. She pretended not to notice.
***
Asha hovered at the threshold of Andy’s office, rapping twice against the doorframe. She didn’t enter until Andy’s voice called out, “That you, Asha? Come on in.”
He was behind his desk, sleeves rolled and reading glasses perched at the end of his nose, buried in a stack of what looked like payroll ledgers and horse vaccination schedules. He looked up and offered a smile that managed to be both genuine and exhausted.
She stood straight, feet shoulder-width, arms at her sides. “I heard you need extra hands on the cabin project.”
He removed his glasses and set them down with a click. “That’s right. You volunteering?”
“If you’ve got room.” She kept her eyes level, not quite at parade rest but close.
“Hell, you’re the only one other than Gavin to ask,” he said, the smile stretching into something fatherly. “You ever build before?”
“Some,” she said. “We did a lot of forward operating base work in Afghanistan. Temporary structures, mostly, but I know my way around a framing gun and a tape measure.”
Andy’s gaze sharpened, and he let a moment tick by, searching for the hitch, lie, and line. He found none. “Cabin up on the ridge is a two-three man job, at least. Or two-three people, I should say.” He tapped a finger against the desk. “You got issues working with McAllister?”
“No, sir.” It wasn’t a lie, not exactly. She had no idea how it would be to work with Gavin. But she was curious about him. Maybe a little wary, but nothing that qualified as an issue. She wondered if Andy’s question was standard, or if he already sensed the friction.
“Good. He’s got the plans, I’ve got the materials coming in this week. You two can start prepping tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, sir.” She allowed herself to relax a fraction, the tension in her shoulders sliding down to a manageable level.
Andy waved off the “sir.” “We’re not the Corps, Monroe. First name’s fine.” He reached for his glasses again, then reconsidered. “You settling in okay?”
“It’s quiet here,” she said. “Takes getting used to.”
He grinned. “I’ve had guys tell me it’s the silence that almost kills them. Out there, you get used to the constant noise. The minute it stops, your brain starts thinking something’s wrong.”
She nodded but didn’t elaborate. It wasn’t silence that bothered her, but the way it left room for other things to rise up: old images, stray thoughts, the kinds of memories that turned quiet into an ambush.
Andy made a note on his legal pad. “Any dietary restrictions?”
She shook her head. “I’ll eat anything.”
“Good. I’ll warn Miss Bee to double up on the breakfast casserole. That woman worries more about empty plates than most folks do about… hell, just about anything else.” He glanced at the door as if sensing movement in the hall.
A shadow crossed the frosted window before the handle turned. Gavin McAllister walked in with a heavy tread, stopping short when he registered Asha already in the room. He flicked his eyes from Andy to Asha, then back again, locking down any reaction behind a flat, unreadable mask.
“McAllister, Monroe here’s your new partner on the ridge project. She’s got the hands-on experience. You’re team lead, but don’t get fancy with the chain of command.”
Gavin’s arms crossed. His jaw flexed once, twice. “Thought this was solo work.”
Andy’s smile didn’t fade. “You thought wrong. Last time you did solo work, I spent three hours at Urgent Care getting your hand stitched up.”
Asha didn’t rise to the bait. She measured Gavin’s reaction, the tight coil of his frame, the way his gaze flicked over her then away. He was pissed but not surprised. She imagined he was used to getting his way, or at least used to working alone.
“Copy that,” Gavin said, voice flat.
Andy stood, signaling the meeting was over. “You two talk logistics. Figure out what you need. Material should be here this week.”
Asha took her cue and turned toward the door. Gavin moved at the same time, and for a split second, they blocked each other. She sidestepped, but he didn’t, so their shoulders brushed. More collision than contact. Static leapt from his skin to hers, a tiny shock that made her pulse jump.
She didn’t turn back, just kept walking, but in the mirror above the old sideboard, she caught him watching her leave. Not evaluating, not threatening, just… watching.
She made it down the hall before letting out the breath she’d been holding.
***
Evening hit the ranch like a switch. One minute heat rose off the pastures like steam, the next a bruised sky of purple, gray, and pink, along with the distinct scent of cooling grass.
Asha walked the long way back to her cabin, skipping the main road and cutting through the overgrown path along the fence line.
Her cabin was the last in the row. Small, square, perfectly anonymous.
The windows were dusty, and the porch had seen better days, but inside, everything was squared away and clean.
She dropped her day-bag onto the chair in the corner and took a slow lap, checking the perimeter.
Door locked. Windows latched. No blind spots.
The ritual calmed her more than she liked to admit.
She flicked on the overhead light and set her work for the next day: boots lined up, jeans and shirt laid out, tool bag inventoried and zipped.
Everything in place, everything accounted for.
The only indulgence was her battered paperback copy of Ender’s Game.
She’d read the book so often, most pages were dog-eared and nearly falling out.
She placed it on the pillow, a promise to herself for later.
In the tiny bathroom, she caught her reflection in the mirror. The face looking back was older than she remembered, eyes a shade too sharp, the scar above her eyebrow brighter in the fluorescent light. She splashed water on her face and leaned in, searching for cracks.
She thought about Gavin and the way he seemed to resent her presence on instinct. She couldn’t blame him, really. She’d spent her life in the orbit of men who thought they were the only ones tough enough to survive the hell they’d been in.
She dried her face and stood up tall, giving her reflection a hard look. “This is just another mission. Get in, do the job, get out. No need to dissect it too much.”
She set her phone alarm for 0600, then changed it to 0530, just to be sure. She wasn’t about to give Gavin the satisfaction of showing up first.
There was nothing left to do but wait for morning. She took her boots out to the porch and started cleaning them, the familiar rhythm a comfort. Across the ranch, lights flicked off in the other cabins, one by one. The world got quiet except for the cicadas and a distant cow mooing in the distance.
She finished with the boots and lined them up by the door. Then she just sat, arms crossed, gaze pinned on the horizon until the last window in the main house went dark. She didn’t sleep easily, but she didn’t expect to. There’d be time for that when the work was done.