Chapter 6 MAGGIE #2
"We prepare for round two." He starts reloading magazines, the movements automatic and efficient. "And we hope Guardian HRS arrives before the cartel comes through with more enforcers."
I help him reload, my hands finding their rhythm despite the shaking. This I know how to do. This makes sense. Unlike everything else that's happened in the past three days.
"Frost?" My voice is quieter than I intend.
"Yeah?"
"In the warehouse. When you cut me loose. You looked at the trust documents, and I saw your face. You almost said something."
His hands go still on the magazine he's loading. "Yeah."
"You asked me my name, but then called me Magnolia. My full name."
"You said nobody calls you that."
"Nobody does." I set down the magazine and lean against the table. "But you looked at that document and you said it."
"Yeah. I did."
"Why?"
He's quiet for a long moment. "Because it's a beautiful name. And I don’t know why you hate it so much."
The honesty catches me off guard. Most people don't ask. They just accept that I go by Maggie and move on. But Frost is looking at me like he actually wants to know.
"My mother named me after the state flower," I hear myself say. "Georgia's state flower. Magnolia. She said it was a symbol of southern beauty and strength. Grace and resilience."
"Sounds like her vision for you."
"Yeah. She had this whole picture of who I'd be. Delicate. Beautiful. The kind of daughter who'd make her proud. Who'd marry well and have babies and host dinner parties and—" I stop, feeling the familiar tightness in my chest. "Be everything she was before cancer took it all away."
Frost doesn't interrupt. Just listens with that same steady focus he brings to everything.
"She died when I was twenty. Tyler was seventeen." I'm pacing now, unable to stand still. "And suddenly I wasn't Magnolia anymore. I was the adult. The one who paid the bills and made sure Tyler finished high school and kept us from falling apart."
"So you became Maggie."
"I became whoever I needed to be. Joined the Army because we needed the money and the benefits and because someone who was delicate and beautiful couldn't do what needed doing.
" My voice cracks. "I spent ten years not being Magnolia.
Being strong instead of beautiful. Being hard instead of graceful.
Taking care of Tyler because that's what our mother would have wanted. "
"And Tyler betrayed you."
The words land like a physical blow. "Yeah. He betrayed me."
"So being Magnolia didn't work, and being Maggie didn't work." Frost sets down the magazine, moves closer. "Maybe the problem isn't which name you use. Maybe the problem is trying to be what other people need instead of who you are."
"I don't even know who that is anymore."
"Yeah, you do." He's close enough now that I can see the shadows under his eyes, the stubble on his jaw, the way he's looking at me like I'm something other than a rescue or an asset or a problem to solve.
"You're the woman who made a joke about my scowl while she was zip-tied to a chair.
Who kept pace during extraction without slowing me down.
Took out two vehicles without blinking. Who's standing here reloading magazines after a firefight like it's just another Tuesday. "
"That's just training. Survival."
"That's you." His hand comes up, cups my face with surprising gentleness. His thumb traces the edge of the bandage on my temple. "Magnolia or Maggie or whoever you decide to be tomorrow. That's you surviving."
I should step back. Should maintain distance. Should remember that this is a combat situation, and we’re not safe, and six cartel enforcers just tried to kill us. One got away. And there's probably more coming.
But I don't want to step back.
I want to step forward.
"Frost—"
"Colt." His voice is rough. "My name is Colt. Coulten Harrison."
"Colt." Testing it. It fits him better than Frost, somehow. Warmer. More human. "I need—"
"What do you need?"
Everything. Nothing. Something that isn't fear or anger or the hollow ache of Tyler's betrayal.
"Something real," I manage. "Everything else—Tyler, family, who I thought I was—it's all lies. But this—" I gesture between us, this strange connection forged in violence and truth. "This feels real."
"It is real."
"How do you know?"
His hand comes up, cups my face, and his eyes are so dark, they’re almost black. "Because I haven't felt anything like this real in five years. Not since Caracas. Not since I stopped letting myself feel anything that mattered."
I should step back. Maintain distance. Remember we’re not safe, that violence closed in once and will close in again.
But I don’t want to step back.
I want to step forward. Want to grab something good before the world catches fire again.
"And I matter?"
"Yeah, Magnolia. You matter."
The name on his lips doesn't sound like an insult or a memory I'm trying to escape. It sounds like a promise.
"The cartel could come back." I move closer.
"They will." His thumb traces my lower lip.
"We could die."
"So maybe we stop wasting time." Then his mouth is on mine, and it’s not soft.
Not gentle.
Desperate and angry, needing to feel something other than betrayal and loss. His hands tighten on my face, and then he's kissing me back with the same intensity, the same need.
We shouldn't be doing this. Seven men just tried to capture me. More are probably coming. We're in an abandoned ranch with limited ammunition and no backup, and a fifty-thousand-dollar bounty on my head.
But right now I don't care.
Right now, I need this to be real.
His hands slide down to my waist, pull me closer, and I go willingly. The rifle clatters against the table as I set it down, reaching for him instead. My fingers find the hem of his shirt, slide underneath to feel warm skin, hard muscle, and the raised edges of scars.
He pulls back just enough to look at me. "Magnolia—"
"Don't." I cut him off. "Don't tell me this is a bad idea. Don't tell me I'm not thinking straight. I know exactly what I'm doing."
"Do you?"
"I'm choosing something for me. Not for Tyler. Not for my mother's memory. Not because I'm supposed to or because someone needs me to." I meet his eyes. "For me. Because I want this. Because I want you."
Something shifts in his expression. "You're sure?"
"I've never been more sure of anything."
He kisses me again, and this time it's different. Not desperate. Deliberate. Like he's memorizing the taste of me, the feel of me, the way I fit against him.
My back hits the wall, and his body presses into mine, solid and warm and real. His hands are everywhere—my waist, my hips, sliding up under my shirt to trace the curve of my ribs. I arch into him, needing more, needing everything.
"Colt—" His name breaks on a gasp as his mouth finds the hollow of my throat.
"Say it again."
"Colt."
His hands tighten on my hips, pulling me harder against him. I can feel the dog tags under his shirt, pressed between us, Sofia's ghost a reminder that he's done this before—chosen feeling over protocol, chosen a person over orders.
Chosen wrong and spent five years punishing himself for it.
But right now he's choosing me.
I reach up, pull his face back to mine, and kiss him with everything I have. All the fear and anger and grief I've been holding in for three days. For ten years. For however long I've been trying to be something I'm not.
His shirt comes off. Then mine. Skin against skin, his hands mapping me like terrain, finding every place that makes me gasp. I'm shaking, but not from the cold.
Not from fear, but from the sheer relief of feeling something good after days of nothing but terror.
"Magnolia." He says my full name against my neck, and it doesn't sound delicate or fragile. It sounds strong. Real. Like he's seeing all of me—Magnolia and Maggie and whoever I'm becoming—and choosing it all.
"I'm not—" I start, but he stops me with another kiss.
"You're not what?"
"Delicate. Beautiful. What she wanted me to be."
"No." His hands frame my face again, forcing me to look at him. "You're better. You're strong. Capable. Brave. You survived your brother selling you and a cartel hunting you, and you're still here. Still fighting. That's not delicate. That's fierce."
The word breaks something open in my chest.
"The woman your mother wanted you to be?" Colt’s thumb traces my cheekbone. "She's still here. But not because you're delicate. Because you're strong enough to be both. Grace and resilience. Beauty and steel."
I kiss him again, and this time it's not desperate. It's claiming. His hands slide down to my thighs, lift me up, and my legs wrap around his waist instinctively. He carries me to the couch, lays me down with surprising gentleness, given how hard we're both breathing.
His mouth trails down my neck, across my collarbone, and I arch into him, my hands in his hair, pulling him closer. The dog tags swing forward, cool metal against my heated skin, and I catch them. Hold them.
"Sofia's?" I ask.
"Yeah."
"You wear them every day."
"Every day for five years."
"Why?"
He lifts his head and looks at me. "Because I made the wrong choice." He stops, swallows hard. "Because I needed to remember what happens when protocol matters more than people."
I trace the chain, feel the worn edges of the tags. "And tonight?"
"Tonight I'm choosing differently."
"Even if it costs you everything?"
"Yeah. Even then."
I pull him down, kiss him deep and slow, and feel him surrender to it. His weight settles over me, solid and grounding, and for the first time in three days, I feel safe. Not because we're actually safe—we're not, we're probably more exposed than ever. But because I'm not alone anymore.
His hands find the button of my jeans, and I arch my hips to help him. We're moving fast—probably too fast—but I don't want to slow down. Don't want to think. Just want to feel.
"Maggie—" He pauses, his hand on my waist, his breathing ragged. "We should—"