Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
VIVIAN
Iwake up wrapped around Deck like he's a body pillow I've been using my whole life.
My head is on his chest, my leg thrown over his thigh, my arm draped across his stomach. At some point during the night, we migrated from the couch to his bed. I have a vague memory of him carrying me, of mumbling a protest, of him telling me to shut up and go back to sleep.
The morning light filters through the curtains, casting the room in soft gray.
I can hear his heartbeat under my ear, steady and slow.
He's still asleep, his face relaxed in a way I've never seen when he's awake.
The permanent furrow between his brows has smoothed out. He looks younger. Less burdened.
Logic tells me that I should extract myself before this gets awkward. Delay the minor imminent crisis about the fact that I made out with my bodyguard last night and then slept in his arms.
But, I don't move. I close my eyes and breathe him in, and let myself have this moment.
His arm tightens around me. "You're thinking too loud."
"I didn't know you were awake."
"I've been awake for an hour. Didn't want to disturb you."
I lift my head to look at him. His eyes are open, green and alert despite the early hour. "You've been lying here for an hour just... watching me sleep?"
"Watching the door. Old habit." But his hand comes up to brush hair from my face, gentle in a way that contradicts his words. "You sleep like the dead, by the way. Didn't even twitch when I got up to check the perimeter."
"You checked the perimeter? What time is it?"
"Oh-four-hundred. I'm back now."
"You got up at four in the morning, walked the entire perimeter, and came back to bed without waking me?"
"I'm good at what I do."
I drop my head back to his chest, processing. He protected me even while I slept. Even after everything that happened last night, his first instinct was still the mission. Still keeping me safe.
"No regrets?" His voice is carefully neutral.
"About last night?"
"About any of it."
I consider the question seriously. I kissed my bodyguard. I slept in his bed. I told him things I've never told anyone. By any reasonable measure, I've made a series of questionable decisions that would horrify my therapist and probably violate several federal guidelines about witness protection.
"No regrets," I say. "You?"
"I should have regrets."
"But?"
"I don't." His hand traces patterns on my back, absent and soothing. "I keep waiting to feel like I made a mistake. It's not happening."
"Maybe because it wasn't a mistake."
"Maybe."
We lie there in comfortable silence, the world outside the cabin still quiet. I could stay here forever. Wrapped in warmth and safety, the constant fear that's been my companion for six weeks finally quiet.
"We should get up." He says it without conviction.
"Probably."
Neither of us moves.
"What's the training schedule for today?" I ask.
"I was thinking we take a break from formal training. You've pushed hard all week. Your body needs recovery time."
"So no running? No shooting? No you throwing me around the living room?"
"I didn't throw you. I demonstrated controlled takedowns."
"Felt like throwing."
His chest rumbles with what might be a laugh. "Fine. I threw you. Gently."
"There's no gentle way to hit the floor, Deck."
"There is if you fall correctly. Which you now do."
I smile against his shirt. This easy banter is new. Different from the charged tension of the past week. Like we've crossed some threshold and found solid ground on the other side.
"If we're not training, what are we doing today?"
"Whatever you want. Within reason and security parameters."
"That's very generous of you."
"I'm a generous person."
"You're really not."
"I'm being generous right now. I'm letting you use me as a mattress."
I laugh, the sound startling in the quiet room. "I think you're enjoying being used as a mattress."
"I'm tolerating it."
"You carried me to bed last night. That's more than tolerating."
His hand stills on my back. "You remember that?"
"Vaguely. I remember you telling me to shut up."
"You were trying to walk and you kept veering into walls. It was inefficient."
"Inefficient." I lift my head again, grinning at him. "So you’re saying you carried me to bed because I was being inefficient?"
"Yes."
"Not because you wanted to?"
"Wanting had nothing to do with it."
"Liar."
He doesn't deny it. His eyes hold mine, warm with something I'm only beginning to recognize. Affection, maybe. Or the tentative first stages of something deeper.
"Breakfast," he says finally. "Then I'll show you something."
"Show me what?"
"Something I don't show people."
Curiosity sparks. "Now I'm intrigued."
"Good. Get up."
He rolls out of bed, leaving me cold and bereft in the sheets. I watch him disappear into the bathroom, admiring the way his shoulders move under his thin t-shirt, the confident set of his spine.
I am in so much trouble.
Breakfast is the same as it’s been all week with coffee from the percolator I've finally mastered. We eat facing each other, but the table feels smaller now. Our knees brush underneath. He steals a piece of bacon from my plate. I steal it back.
"So where are we going?" I ask as I clear the dishes.
"About a mile north. There's something up there I want you to see."
"A mile in which direction? Through easy terrain or difficult terrain?"
"Medium terrain. Wear the hiking boots Mace brought."
I change into tactical pants, thermal layers, and the hiking boots that have given me blisters I'm trying to ignore. When I emerge, Deck is waiting by the door with a small pack over his shoulder.
"What's in the bag?"
"Supplies."
"For what?"
"Stop asking questions and follow me."
The hike takes about forty minutes. He sets an easier pace than usual, pointing out landmarks and explaining the terrain as we walk. Teaching, even when we're not formally training. I file away information about water sources and natural shelters and how to navigate by sun position.
The trees thin as we climb, the trail growing rockier. And then, suddenly, we break through to a clearing that steals my breath.
We're on a ridge overlooking a valley I didn't know existed. Mountains stretch in every direction, snow-capped peaks catching the morning light. Below us, a river winds through dense forest, glinting silver where the sun hits it. The sky is enormous, blue, clear and endless.
"Oh," I say. It's inadequate, but words fail me.
"I come here when the cabin feels too small." Deck stands beside me, looking out at the view. "When the walls close in and I need to remember why I'm here."
"It's beautiful."
"It's perspective. When you can see this much of the world, your problems feel smaller."
I turn to look at him. "Is that why you brought me here? To make my problems feel smaller?"
"Partly." He sets down the pack and pulls out a blanket, spreading it on a flat section of rock. "I also wanted you to see it. No one else has."
"No one?"
"Not even the team. This is my place. My..." He shrugs, uncomfortable with the sentiment. "My sanctuary, I guess."
The significance isn't lost on me. He's sharing something private. Something precious. Inviting me into a part of his world that's been his alone for five years.
"Thank you." I sit on the blanket, tucking my legs beneath me. "For trusting me with this."
He sits beside me, close enough that our shoulders touch. "I don't know why I do. Trust you. It doesn't make sense. I've known you less than two weeks."
"Maybe trust doesn't follow a schedule."
"Everything follows a schedule. Trust is built through consistent behavior over time. Repeated positive interactions that establish patterns of reliability."
"You sound like a psychology textbook."
"I sound like someone who's learned not to trust easily."
"And yet here I am. In your secret sanctuary."
He's quiet for a moment, staring out at the view. "Here you are."
I lean into him, resting my head on his shoulder. He tenses for a moment, then relaxes, his arm coming around me.
"I've spent five years keeping people at a distance," he says.
"Telling myself it was safer. Smarter. That I couldn't afford to care about anyone because caring makes you vulnerable.
Now I'm sitting on a mountain with a woman I can't stop thinking about, and all my careful distance seems pretty fucking pointless. "
"You think about me?"
"Constantly. It's extremely annoying."
I laugh. "I think about you too."
"Yeah?"
"Constantly. Also extremely annoying."
He pulls me closer, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. We sit in comfortable silence, watching the light change across the valley as the sun climbs higher. A hawk circles in the distance, riding thermals with effortless grace.
"Tell me something about yourself," I say. "Something you fight yourself to not tell anyone."
"I told you about the interrogation. That's not enough?"
"That was about what you did. I want to know who you are."
He considers for a long moment. "I was engaged once. Before Kandahar."
The revelation catches me off guard. "What happened?"
"She couldn't handle the deployments. The secrets. The way I'd come back different after every mission." His voice is flat, recounting facts. "She left a month before the ambush. Said she didn't recognize me anymore. That I'd become someone she couldn't love."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. She was right. I was already gone by then. The job had hollowed me out. There was nothing left for her to love."
"That's not true."
"It was then." He looks at me. "I don't know what's left now. But whatever it is, you seem to have found it."
My heart clenches. This gruff, closed-off man, offering me pieces of himself like gifts he's not sure he's allowed to give.
"Tell me something else," I say.
"What do you want to know?"
"Anything. Everything. What's your favorite food? What music do you listen to? Did you have pets as a kid?"
He huffs out a breath. "Is this an interrogation?"
"It's the ‘getting to know you’ thing you wanted to avoid. But that's what people do."
"I don't do 'what people do.'"
"Humor me."
He's quiet for a moment, then: "Steak. Rare. With potatoes. I don't listen to music much anymore, but I used to like classic rock. And I had a dog growing up. A mutt named Sergeant."
"Sergeant?"
"My dad was military. Everything was military."
"Is that why you enlisted?"
"Partly. It was expected. Also, there wasn't much else for me in Montana. Small town, no money, no prospects. The Army offered a way out."
"And you stayed for twenty years."
"I stayed because I was good at it. Because it gave me purpose." His jaw tightens. "Because I didn't know who I was without it."
"Do you know now?"
"I'm learning." He looks at me. "Your turn. Tell me something about you."
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything. That's what people do, right?"
I smile at him throwing my words back at me. "I wanted to be a dancer when I was little. Took ballet until I was twelve. My dad used to come to every recital, front row center, even when his shift schedule made it nearly impossible."
"What happened?"
"I got tall. And curvy. Turns out the ballet world has very specific ideas about what dancers should look like." I shrug. "So I found other ways to perform. Debate team. Mock trial. Anything where I could be on a stage and make people listen."
"And law school?"
"Was the logical progression. I wanted to fight for people who couldn't fight for themselves.
Like my dad did." The old grief stirs, muted now but never gone.
"He was killed trying to protect a witness.
Some gang retaliation thing. The case never went to trial because the witness was too scared to testify. "
Deck is quiet, but his arm tightens around me.
"So I became a prosecutor. Spent my career making sure witnesses weren't scared. Making sure cases went to trial. Making sure the bad guys faced consequences." I laugh, but it's hollow. "And now I'm the witness who's too scared to leave the mountain."
"You're not too scared. You're being smart."
"Is there a difference?"
"Yes." He turns me to face him, his hands on my shoulders. "Fear that makes you cautious is intelligence. Fear that makes you freeze is a problem. You're not freezing, Vivian. You're assessing. Preparing. Doing exactly what you should do."
"Sometimes it doesn't feel that way."
"Feelings lie. Actions tell the truth." He holds my gaze. "And your actions tell me you're one of the bravest people I've ever met."
The certainty in his voice undoes me. I lean in and kiss him, soft and sweet, nothing like the desperate urgency of last night. He kisses me back with equal gentleness, his hands cupping my face like I'm precious.
When we break apart, his forehead rests against mine.
"I could get used to this," I whisper.
"Don't."
I pull back, stung. "Don't?"
"Don't get used to it. Not yet." He must see something in my expression because he quickly adds, "I mean the safety. The peace. Don't get complacent."
"Oh." Relief floods through me. "For a second I thought you were—"
"I wasn't. I'm not going anywhere." He kisses me again, brief and firm. "But we still have work to do. A trial to prepare for. An organization that wants you dead. I don't want you to drop your guard just because things feel good right now."
"Ever the optimist."
"Ever the realist," he gives back.
I know he's right. The Castellanos haven't given up. The trial is still weeks away. We're in a brief pocket of peace, but it won't last. It can't last.
But sitting here on this mountain, in this man's arms, with the world spread out below us in all its vast indifference, I let myself believe it might.
"Can we stay a little longer?" I ask.
"Yeah." He pulls me back against his chest. "We can stay."
We sit on the ridge until the sun is high overhead and my stomach starts growling. Then we hike back down to the cabin, where Deck makes lunch and I help, moving around each other in the kitchen with an ease that feels earned.
The afternoon passes in quiet domesticity.
I read on the couch while he reviews security footage.
He teaches me to play chess, then gets frustrated when I start beating him through sheer stubborn refusal to lose.
We argue about what to make for dinner and compromise on pasta with the last of the vegetables from his garden.
That night, I sleep in his bed again. Again not for sex, we both seem to understand that we're not ready for that yet, that we're building something that deserves patience.
But once more, I fall asleep with his arm around me and wake up to his heartbeat under my ear, and it feels right in a way nothing has felt in a very long time.
I'm falling for him. Hard and fast and probably stupidly.
And for the first time in my life, I don't try to stop it.