Chapter 4
The next morning Gavin ran until his lungs burned and his thighs begged him to stop.
The pre-dawn air hit sharp in his chest. He hit the perimeter of the new cabin site at a dead sprint, skidded to a stop, and let the wind off the ridge dry the sweat off his skin.
For a moment, the world was nothing but the pounding in his ears, the thud of his shoes on dirt, the taste of iron in the back of his throat.
He bent over, hands on knees, dragging in air like he was drowning. He didn’t hear the steps behind him. Which pissed him off, because he was usually better than that.
Asha rounded the corner of the structure, walking straight toward him.
She wore track pants and a worn USMC hoodie, her hair pulled back, eyes unblinking.
She stopped dead when she saw him. He was sweat-soaked, shirtless, with his skin blotched red and white in the cold.
He clocked the exact moment her gaze locked onto the right side of his body, the burn scars that ran from shoulder to just above his hip, warped and ugly in the half-light.
He reached for the balled-up tee on the ground, the old instinct to cover himself rising fast. Then he saw that she wasn’t flinching. No pity. Not calculated. But a simple, gentle look. The same neutral assessment she used for skittish horses and building cabins.
The adrenaline dumped from his system, replaced by something meaner and more brittle. “You need something?” he asked, voice raw from the run.
Asha cocked her head. “You always do PT this early?”
“Only when I want to get something done before the ranch gets busy.”
She nodded once, then scanned the build site. “Andy says concrete truck is showing up at eight. You want to double-check the foundation lines before?”
He shrugged. “Already checked them. Twice.” He peeled the shirt off the ground, shook it out, but didn’t put it on. Not out of pride, but because she hadn’t looked away.
Asha’s gaze returned to his face. She had a stare that could pin a snake to the ground. “You good with the pour?”
He felt the need to push back. “You think I can’t handle it?”
“No. I think you’re the only person who cares if the thing is off by a quarter inch.”
That almost made him laugh. Instead, he wiped the sweat from his neck and rolled his shoulders, letting the chill numb what the run hadn’t. “You here for something, or just running recon?”
Her mouth pulled to the side. “I wanted to see how much ground you’d cover before you realized I was here.”
He bristled, but only on the inside. “Congrats. You win.”
They stood there, the frame of the future bunkhouse between them, steam rising from his shoulders in the chill. If she was going to ask about the scars, she’d have done it already. He waited for the awkward silence, the careful shift to safer topics.
She didn’t move. If anything, she seemed even more solid, feet planted just wider than her hips, hands shoved in the front pouch of her hoodie.
Gavin exhaled. “You got something to say, Asha? Just say it.”
She looked down, then back up, and rolled her left sleeve above the elbow. A jagged white scar, narrow but deep, ran the length of her forearm. It looked like it was made by glass, or maybe shrapnel.
She tapped it once, as if casually scratching an itch. “It happens,” she said. Then softer, “That’s why we’re all here, right?”
He wanted to say something clever, something that would reclaim the upper hand. Instead, he felt his posture change. Less guarded and defensive, more open. He thought about the note he’d seen in her tool bag yesterday. He tried it. The air felt less sharp. His hands, steadier.
After a few moments, their eyes met again. “I’m gonna head on back. See you at eight,” he said.
“Don’t be late,” she replied, turning and walking off in the other direction. He watched her disappear into the morning haze. For a long minute, he just stood there, breathing. One count at a time.
***
Gavin showed up at the build site before the sun had finished burning off the fog. Asha was already there, perched on the first rung of the scaffolding, baseball cap low over her brow, a stack of two-by-sixes at her feet. She glanced down at him, eyes shadowed but unmistakably alert.
“Morning,” she said, voice carrying with it the crispness of the air.
“Thought you’d have finished without me,” Gavin replied, but there was no bite to it.
“Where’s the fun in that?” she said. He could almost swear she smiled, but he had to be imagining it.
He set down his tool belt, checked the foundation lines one more time, and started hauling boards up onto the deck.
They worked in unspoken rhythm, as if they’d been doing this for years.
He’d call out a measurement, and she’d already have the chalk snapped, line tight.
When he reached for the framing square, her hand was already on it, holding it out like she’d read his mind.
Concrete truck arrived right on the minute.
The operator was a stringy old timer with an attitude, but he kept his opinions to himself when he saw Gavin and Asha working the site like they were born to it.
The pour went fast and clean. They spread, smoothed, and leveled without wasted motion.
At one point, Asha moved to smooth an edge and Gavin caught her elbow, steadying her as she leaned over the unset pad.
His hand stayed on her arm a beat too long, but she didn’t pull away.
By the time the slab was curing, the sun was up and hot enough that he had to wipe sweat off his brow every other minute. Asha shirt sleeves were rolled so tight he could almost see the lines of muscle under her skin. She wore the cap backward now, hair escaping in little curls at her temples.
They moved to prepping wall studs. There was a narrow strip of shade along the north side of the build, barely enough for one person to stand in. She lined up in the space, and he squeezed in next to her, brushing her shoulders. He smelled the salt of her sweat and the tang of sunblock.
“You got the layout?” he asked.
She handed him the print, her finger tracing the line. “Sixteen on center, except around the windows.”
He nodded, unrolling the tape. When he bent to mark the stud locations, she leaned in to double-check, her hip bumping his. It was a small contact, but it electrified him.
“You’re left-handed,” she noted, eyebrow raised.
He grunted. “Ambidextrous. What tipped you?”
“You keep flipping the tape when you write.”
He hadn’t realized. It threw him off for a second, how closely she’d been watching.
They kept working, the conversation rolling out in short, clean bursts.
“Where’d you learn to set lines so fast?” he asked.
“My dad. Carpenter, Portland. Taught me before I could reach the table.”
He grunted in approval. “You ever want to do this for real? Build?”
“I did it for real.” She hammered the point home, literally, driving a nail with three perfect strokes. “After the Corps, I got a job with a disaster relief crew. Built more houses than I can count. Tornadoes, floods, wildfires. This,” she gestured to the half-framed walls, “is the easy version.”
Gavin kept his focus on the work. “Don’t tell anyone, but I like it better than spreadsheets and board meetings.”
She didn’t answer, but the angle of her body toward him said she agreed.
They hit a lull around noon, the slab off-limits while the concrete set.
Asha sat on the makeshift bench, her legs stretched out in front, sipping at her water bottle.
Gavin joined her, dropping onto the wood with a grunt.
Their knees almost touched. He watched her watch the clouds, her face relaxed.
Asha set her bottle down. “So, I told you about my brothers. You got family?”
He hesitated. “Yeah. One brother and a dad who thinks he’s the king of Texas.”
She nodded, like she already knew.
“Ever think about going into politics?” she asked, a tease in the question.
He made a face. “Fuck no.”
She laughed. A real one, quick and sharp. He didn’t realize how much he’d wanted to make her laugh until he heard it.
The concrete man honked his horn, signaling he was ready for the next phase. Asha and Gavin stood up together, both moving at the exact same second. She handed him the chalk, their fingers touching. Warm, dry, calloused.
For the rest of the day, they framed out the walls, hammered in headers, lifted and braced as if they’d worked together for years.
The physical closeness was unavoidable. At one point, they both ducked under a cross-beam at the same time, chests nearly touching, breath intermingling.
Gavin’s pulse picked up, but he held the line.
He could feel her presence, the heat of her, the steadiness.
They spoke more now, but it was all mission-focused: “Hold this steady.” “Mark that side.” “You got it?” “Yeah, I got it.” But every exchange carried more weight than the words alone.
As the sun dropped, they nailed off the last rim joist, dusted the splinters off their hands, and stood back to look at what they’d done. A full day’s work and it looked damn good.
Asha turned to him. “Not bad.”
He grinned, letting the sweat dry on his face. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
They stood there, not quite close enough to touch, not quite willing to break the silence. He found himself watching the curve of her jaw, the way her lips pressed together when she was thinking.
The last bit of light went out once the sun hit the hills.
The last rays threw long, jagged shadows across the frame of the cabin and turned the grass below into a sea of gold.
Gavin sat on the back of the Ranger, elbows on knees, watching the world drain from color to gray.
He could hear Asha moving behind him, cleaning up the site, the thud and scrape of lumber, the metallic clang of tools dropping into a bucket.
Eventually, her footsteps came up beside him.
She lowered herself onto the bed, leaving just enough space for the cooling air to slide between them, but not enough for it to feel accidental.
She didn’t say anything, just gazed out at the lights blinking on in the distant ranch house and the faint glow of Ironhaven on the horizon.
They sat there for a long time, not counting the minutes.
Gavin tapped the pad of his index finger against his knee, three times, then two, then three. After a moment, he heard the tap of Asha’s boot on the slab, the exact same pattern. He didn’t smile, but something in his chest relaxed.
When he looked over, she was looking away. He followed her gaze up to see what was so interesting. She was staring at the emerging night sky. The stars popping out, first one, then a hundred, then the whole sky.
“You believe in fate, Gavin?” she asked, so quietly he almost missed it.
He considered. “I believe in physics. Action, reaction. You do something, something happens back.”
She nodded, as if this was the answer she expected. “What if there’s nothing left to react to?”
He let that sit for a moment. The air got colder, enough to raise goosebumps on his arms. “You keep moving,” he said. “Even if you don’t know where you’re headed.”
She shot him a look, unreadable. “That a military thing or just you?”
He considered. “I don’t think there’s a difference anymore.”
A low, tired laugh. “Yeah.”
They fell back into silence. He felt the urge to say something else, anything to break the tension, but every choice seemed cheap. So he just sat, letting the nearness work on him.
Asha shifted, arms wrapped around her knees, her body turned slightly toward him now.
He could feel the heat coming off her, could see the veins in her forearms, the way her breathing kept to its own pattern, but lined up just so with his.
When he glanced at her face, he caught her profile in his view, and it gave him pause.
Yes, she was strong, both in mind and body, but he also could see that she was tired.
He was again struck by just how beautiful she was to him.
Maybe not in the traditional damsel in distress way, but he couldn’t seem to look away from her.
He wondered what she saw when she looked at him. If it was the scars, or the bad attitude, or something less obvious. He didn’t want to ask. He was afraid of the answer.
She spoke first. “You ever get used to it?”
He blinked. “To what?”
She motioned at her arm, then at his side. “Any of it.”
He was honest. “No.”
A little nod. “Didn’t think so.”
The night thickened. Stars sharpened. The silence between them got heavier, but not awkward. More like it was packed with things neither of them could say.
She straightened, braced her hands on the concrete behind her, and stretched her legs out. “Tomorrow’s gonna suck,” she said. “That frame’s not going up by itself.”
He snorted. “I’ll bring extra Advil.”
Another beat. “I’ll bring the coffee. Stronger this time.”
They both stood at the same second, the movement so synchronized it startled them both. He turned to her, she turned to him, and for a moment neither backed off. Their eyes locked, not searching, not flirting, just… seeing the other person. The moment stretched, taut as a tripwire.
Then she looked away, and he did too. They started back toward the ranch buildings, side by side, boots hitting the dirt in time, arms close but not touching. The space between them was loaded, as if there was an electric charge building toward something neither was ready to say out loud.
He didn’t say goodnight when they split at the cabins. Didn’t need to. Tomorrow would come, and they’d both show up, and the work would go on. For now, the only thing that mattered was that she matched him, step for step, all the way to the end.