19. Nora
Nora
I wake up slowly, wrapped in the heavy quilts and the even heavier warmth of Colt's body curled around me.
My cheek rests against his chest, and I can feel the steady thump of his heart under my ear like the most reliable metronome in the world.
I love this man. The realization hits soft and overwhelming at the same time.
It's fast, how completely he's taken up residence in my heart in just a few days, but I don't question it.
Not when his hand is splayed across my lower back holding me like I'm something worth holding carefully.
Not when every breath he takes rustles my hair and makes me feel safer than anything else in my life ever has.
But safety comes with a cost. If I let them put me into witness protection, I'll never see him again.
No more mornings like this. No more of his rough voice calling me darlin', or the way his palms map every inch of me like he's committing it to memory.
No more watching him split wood with those powerful shoulders, or sharing quiet laughter over burnt pancakes in this tiny kitchen.
The thought squeezes my chest tight, like one of those overly dramatic hugs in my cartoon panels where the characters get smooshed into hearts.
I can't let that happen. I have to fix this myself somehow.
I have to end the threat from the Armenians once and for all.
For us. Because I love him too much to just disappear on schedule.
Colt stirs beside me, his arm tightening around my waist for a moment before he presses a slow kiss to my forehead.
“Morning, darlin'.” His voice is rough and deliciously deep with sleep.
We linger there trading soft touches and softer words until the sun climbs higher and the cabin warms up around us.
Eventually he sits up, the quilts sliding down to reveal tanned muscle and the scars I've started tracing with my fingertips without quite meaning to.
He stretches his arms overhead, and I watch shamelessly as his back shifts and his jeans sit low on his hips when he pulls them on.
“I'm going to rinse off,” he says, leaning down to kiss me properly, his beard tickling my chin, his hand cupping my face like I'm fragile and fierce all at once. “Stay in bed a bit longer. You look too good right there to disturb.”
I nod and smile up at him, my heart doing that ridiculous flip it always does around him.
The second the bathroom door clicks shut and I hear the shower turn on, water rushing through the pipes, I slip out of bed.
The floorboards are cold under my bare feet, and I shiver as I grab Colt's flannel from the chair and pull it on, the fabric swallowing me whole, sleeves hanging past my hands.
My hands shake a little as I find the satellite phone he left on the shelf. I check the call log and see a name. Mason Cole. I dial before I can talk myself out of it, heart pounding loud enough that I'm sure it'll give me away even through a closed bathroom door.
“Mason here.”
“Hi, Mason.” I keep my voice low, letting the shower noise cover it. “This is Nora. Colt's Nora. I need to talk to you.”
There's a pause, and I can almost hear him shifting into Marshal mode. “Nora. Everything okay up there? Colt just called me earlier.”
I pace to the window, staring out at the sparkling snow and the tall pines standing like silent guardians around the cabin.
“That's why I'm calling. I love him, Mason.
Really love him. The kind of love where you draw silly cartoons of the two of you building a whole life together without meaning to.
But if I go into WITSEC, I'll never see him again.
I can't do that. I have to fix this myself.
There has to be a way to end it for good. Tell me there's a way.”
Mason lets out a slow breath. “There's a plan, Nora. Colt and I talked it through last night. We're going to draw the Armenians out on our terms. Set up an ambush using terrain he knows better than anybody. No more running.”
My mind races, spinning through possibilities like panels in one of my storyboards.
The shower keeps running steady in the background, giving me this small window of courage I might not get again.
I grip the phone tighter. “That's good. But what if I meet with them myself?
What if I offer to talk, or hand over something they want?
I could be the one to draw them out. Use me as bait, Mason.
I'm the one who saw everything. They want me specifically. Let me help end this so Colt and I actually get a real chance at something.”
The silence on the other end stretches longer this time.
When Mason speaks again, his voice is careful and firm, like he's talking down something spooked.
“Nora, listen to me. That's not a good idea, and Colt will never allow it.
He made that crystal clear when we were planning.
He's not putting you in danger, not even a little. He loves you. I could hear it in every word he said last night. He wants you safe above everything else, including his own plan working perfectly.”
I lean my forehead against the cool glass, watching a clump of snow slide off a branch and land with a soft poof below the window.
Of course Colt said that. My big, protective, growly daddy who'd rather face down an entire criminal network alone than risk one hair on my head.
It makes me love him more and want to scream at the same time.
“But I'm already in danger just by knowing what I know. If I can help finish it faster, we all win. Please, Mason. There has to be something I can actually do.”
“I get it, Nora. You're brave as hell for even suggesting it. But Colt's right on this one. We've got a solid plan without putting you front and center, decoys, routes he controls, the works. You stay put and let us handle it. Promise me you won't do anything rash.”
I swallow hard, throat tight with everything swirling in me. “Okay. I promise I won't do anything rash right now.”
We talk a little longer, Mason giving me a few more details without giving away too much, and by the time we hang up I feel both better and worse at once. Better because there's real momentum now, an actual plan instead of just waiting. Worse because I already know I'm not going to just sit here.
I hang up and stay by the window a long moment, phone heavy in my hand, running through everything Mason didn't quite say along with everything he very clearly meant.
Promise me you won't do anything rash. I made that promise honestly, in the moment I made it, and I'm already turning over exactly how much room the word rash leaves me to work with.
I could call the local sheriff, except Colt's already looped in every level of law enforcement that matters, and one more voice repeating what Mason just told me isn't going to move anything.
I could try to find Richard Rogers's family, except I don't know their names, and showing up uninvited with information about a murder feels like exactly the kind of decision that gets a civilian hurt in the second act of every thriller I've half watched while inking somebody else's deadline.
I could post something publicly, some vague warning meant to draw attention, except the Pertrosyans clearly have resources enough to make inconvenient people disappear quietly, and putting myself on their radar in public feels less like drawing them out and more like drawing a target on my own back in permanent marker.
Every option collapses the same way when I turn it over.
Either it does nothing at all, or it does something and gets somebody hurt, possibly me, possibly Colt, if he comes running to fix whatever I've broken trying to help.
I make myself sit with that second possibility longer than feels comfortable.
What does it actually look like if I try something and it goes wrong.
Not the brave version where the music swells and everything resolves in my favor because I meant well.
The real version, where Colt finds out I've done something reckless behind his back and has to choose between the careful plan he built with Mason and rushing in to save me instead, which is exactly the outcome his whole plan has been built to prevent in the first place.
That thought alone nearly talks me out of it completely.
Nearly. But underneath the fear there's something harder and more stubborn, the same something that made me lean toward a murder scene instead of running from it, the same something that had me crouching in the snow finding a boot print Colt would rather I hadn't gone looking for at all.
I'm not built for waiting quietly while other people decide my future on my behalf.
I never have been. It's gotten me into exactly as much trouble as it's gotten me out of over the years, and I don't have a good argument for why this time should be any different, except that this time the stakes are a man I love instead of a missed deadline.
I don't have a plan yet. Not really. Just the beginning of one, small and half formed and entirely unauthorized, sitting in my chest right next to the promise I just made and fully intend to bend the moment I find a way to do it that doesn't get anybody killed.
The shower turns off a minute later, and I put the phone back exactly where I found it and climb into bed again, pulling the quilts up to my chin like they can hide what I'm already turning over in my head.
I hear Colt moving around in the bathroom, the clink of something metal, the rustle of a towel.
When he steps out, hair damp and tousled, water still trailing down the ridges of his abs, he looks like every rugged fantasy I've ever doodled come to life, and my heart aches with how much I love him and how much I'm already planning to worry him.
“You okay, darlin'?” he asks, climbing back into bed and pulling me close against skin still warm from the shower.
I nod and bury my face in his neck, breathing him in and letting his arms chase away the what ifs for now. “Just thinking about us. About how much I love this. Love you.”
He makes a low, satisfied sound in his chest and kisses the top of my head. “Good. Because you're stuck with me, Nora. Armenians or no Armenians.”
I smile against his skin, but inside, my mind's already turning over ideas, piece by piece, the way I'd sketch out a new comic strip panel by panel before I know how it ends.
I have to do something. I love him too much not to.
Maybe I can find a way to reach them on my own terms, something that keeps Colt entirely out of the line of fire while ending this nightmare for good.
It's reckless, and he'd be furious if he knew I was even considering it, but if it means we get to keep this, keep each other, I've already decided it's worth the risk, even knowing exactly how badly it could go.
For now I let him hold me, tracing patterns on his chest, listening to his heartbeat settle back into its ordinary, unhurried rhythm.
But the resolve settles deep in my bones anyway, quieter now, more deliberate than it was an hour ago.
I have to fix this. For us. No matter what it ends up costing me to do it.