Chapter Six
Samson
I woke before dawn, the habit of years refusing to break even with a woman in my bed. Gray light seeped through the cabin windows, casting long shadows across the worn floorboards. Callie slept soundly, her breathing deep and even, one hand curled beneath her chin like a child.
I rose quietly and crossed to the river-stone fireplace, adding fresh wood to the fading embers.
Morning air carried a chill -- wrong for summer, or maybe the cold came from knowing a man with a badge and borrowed authority was out there hunting for her.
Bare feet silent on the floor, I moved into the kitchen and started coffee on instinct.
The routine steadied me while my thoughts circled back to yesterday. The letter. The phone call. Her attempt to leave, convinced sacrificing herself would spare me the fallout. As if fifteen years with the Kings hadn’t already taught me how to stand in a storm.
A soft sound from the bed pulled my attention back.
Callie shifted, eyelids fluttering as color returned to her cheeks.
The cut at her temple looked cleaner, calmer, healing without signs of infection.
Lyssa’s work and the antibiotics were doing their job.
Zip tie marks around her wrists would take longer to fade, both the visible wounds and whatever damage lived beneath the skin.
I poured coffee into my favorite mug. A small thing, offering her this particular mug. Probably wouldn’t even register with her. But it mattered to me, this subtle claiming.
She opened her eyes as I approached the bed. Her gaze swept the room, then fixed on me. The wariness stayed, but something else lingered beneath it, something which, with time, could become trust.
“Morning.” I offered the mug.
Her fingers brushed mine as she took it, no flinch this time. Progress. “Thank you,” she murmured, voice rough with sleep. She sat up, my T-shirt hanging loose around her shoulders, revealing collarbones too sharp beneath pale skin.
“Hungry?” I asked.
A nod, and a faint smile disappearing almost instantly. “I could eat.”
I moved back to the kitchen as she slipped from the bed, taking the mug with her to the bathroom.
My leather cut hung from a hook by the door, the Reckless Kings emblem catching early morning light.
Strange seeing it there instead of on my back or her shoulders.
A physical reminder of the claim I’d made, of boundaries redrawn.
The refrigerator hummed as I pulled out stuff to make breakfast. Behind me, the bathroom door opened, and Callie emerged wearing her jeans from yesterday -- cleaned and dried overnight -- and still swimming in my T-shirt.
She’d tied it at her waist, creating some semblance of fit, and rolled the sleeves to free her hands.
The bandages at her wrists were stark white against her skin.
“Can I help?” she asked, hovering at the kitchen threshold.
“Coffee’s fresh if you need another cup.” I nodded toward the pot.
She moved with quiet efficiency, pouring coffee, locating sugar in the pantry without having to ask.
Something domestic in the scene pulled at me -- her in my kitchen, morning light catching in her hair, the simple act of making coffee together.
A life I’d never imagined for myself until one dark road changed everything.
We settled at the worn wooden table by the window, plates steaming between us.
Sunlight filtered through the blinds I kept partially closed, habit born of years living on the defensive.
Strips of gold fell across the table, across her hands as they gripped the fork, across the curve of her neck where her pulse beat steady beneath skin.
“Good?” I asked, nodding toward her nearly empty plate.
“Really good,” she admitted. “Thank you.”
When we finished, she stood before I could, gathering plates with practiced movements. I followed her to the sink, falling into a rhythm without discussion -- me washing, her drying. The routine felt natural, as if we’d done this a hundred mornings.
Her hand brushed mine as I passed her a dripping plate, our fingers touching beneath the suds. Neither of us acknowledged it, but neither pulled away. Small victories.
“Your wrists don’t seem to bother you as much,” I observed, nodding toward the bandages as she set the dried plate on the counter.
She glanced down as if surprised to find them there. “You’re right, they don’t hurt as much. The antiseptic helped.”
My gaze moved instinctively toward the windows, checking locks, scanning the tree line beyond the glass. Old habits. Necessary ones.
“Is something out there?” she asked, catching the movement.
“No,” I assured her, though we both knew the truth lingered unspoken. Something was out there -- someone -- just not visible yet. “Just checking.”
She nodded, understanding without need for explanation. “You do it a lot. Check the windows, the doors.”
“Habit.” I handed her the last plate.
“A good one,” she replied, drying it carefully. “Kept me alive these past months.”
The simple statement hung between us. I watched her place the plate with the others. The woman I’d found broken on the roadside lingered beneath the surface, while something stronger pushed forward -- a core of steel built by escape and survival.
“There’s coffee left.” I gestured toward the pot. “Want more?”
“Please.”
I refilled our mugs, and we moved back to the table by silent agreement. Morning light had strengthened, illuminating dust motes dancing between us. Outside, birds called to each other, oblivious to human concerns. Inside, we sipped our coffee, establishing a tentative peace in the quiet.
I held her gaze across the table and saw what she wasn’t saying. Not just about the threat circling her, but about us. About the claim I’d made and what it meant.
We’d take it one day at a time. Keep her safe. Handle whatever needed handling. I wasn’t making promises about forever. I was promising protection. Action. Control over the chaos trying to claw its way into her life.
Her fingers traced the rim of her mug. She carried guilt for bringing trouble to my door.
She didn’t need to. Some fights are worth stepping into. Some lines are meant to be drawn.
She searched my face for hesitation and found none.
Whatever waited outside those walls -- whoever thought they could touch her -- would have to go through me first. The truth of it settled deep, not heavy, not reluctant.
A decision. Mine. Made the moment I found her broken on the roadside. Reinforced every second since.
The coffee was warm in my hands as the sky shifted from gray to gold. Morning claimed the room inch by inch.
One day at a time.
Today, she was under my roof.
Today, she was mine to protect.
* * *
Afternoon sun slanted through the blinds, casting bars of light across my workbench where I bent over a carburetor.
The familiar work anchored my hands while my mind circled our situation like a bird of prey, looking for weaknesses, entry points, threats.
Across the cabin, Callie drifted along my bookshelves, fingers skimming worn spines, her quiet reverence pulling something tight inside me.
She’d been exploring the cabin since lunch, each cautious step carrying her farther from the protective corner she’d claimed this morning, territory expanding like a wild animal testing boundaries of a new habitat.
I kept my focus on the metal parts before me, giving her space while remaining acutely aware of her movements.
The carburetor needed rebuilding -- Beast’s Harley was running rough, and he’d asked me to take a look.
Normal. Routine. Something solid to focus on while everything else shifted like sand beneath my feet.
“You have a lot of books,” Callie observed, voice quiet but carrying across the cabin. Not a question, but an invitation to conversation.
I glanced up, catching her profile against the afternoon light. “Reading passes time on long runs between chapters. Even if we can’t read while we’re riding, it gives us something to do on breaks or if we stay overnight at motels along the way. Brothers swap them around.”
She nodded, pulling a weathered paperback from the shelf -- some thriller I’d read years back, plot forgotten but for fragments. Her movements felt different today -- less guarded, shoulders lower, fingers steady as they turned pages. Small signs, but they meant everything.
“This one’s been read a lot.” She held up a dog-eared copy of Steinbeck, spine cracked from repeated openings.
She returned it to the shelf with care, continuing her exploration.
I watched her from the corner of my eye, noting how her borrowed clothes -- my T-shirt, her cleaned jeans -- hung loose on her frame.
Another day or two of regular meals would help, but the hollows beneath her cheekbones spoke of deprivation longer than her few days on the run. Some hunger went deeper than food.
A soft exclamation drew my attention back. Between two books, she’d found what I’d known was there but had forgotten to remove -- an old photograph, edges worn from years of handling before being tucked away.
“Is this you?” she asked, turning to show me the faded image.
My shoulders tensed, hands stilling on the carburetor. The young man in the photograph stood beside a Harley I barely recognized -- no cut, no Kings emblem, just bad choices and longer hair. A face untouched by scars or years. A stranger wearing my features.
“Lifetime ago,” I answered, voice rougher than intended.
She studied the photo, then me, measuring the distance between who I’d been and who I was now. “Before the Kings?” she guessed.
I nodded, setting down my tools. Some conversations deserved full attention. “Just after my dishonorable.”
Her eyebrows lifted slightly, but no judgment crossed her face. Just curiosity.