30. Cade
CADE
I keep seeing him at twenty yards. Every time I blink, the lead attacker clears the granite again.
Twenty yards from Wren. Twenty yards from putting his hands on her.
Twenty yards because I missed the angle.
By the time we get back to the cabin, I’ve replayed the approach a dozen times. Maybe more. The outcrop blocked the draw, but I knew that. We planned around it, but they used it anyway.
Rhett parks tight to the cabin instead of in his usual spot. Boone’s out before the engine dies, rifle in hand, eyes on the treeline. I step down on the passenger side and scan the cabin, then the other side of the property.
Wren opens the rear door before Boone can reach it. Her face is pale, but her head is up, and her eyes are clear. There’s dirt on her face and pine needles in her braid.
I want to touch her, but I don’t, because I might not stop.
Rhett comes around the hood. “Inside. You’re exposed.”
For half a second, I think she might argue, because Wren has a stubborn streak wide enough to show up on a topo map, and under normal circumstances, I admire the hell out of it.
These aren’t normal circumstances.
She nods, and when she’s inside, she stands in the middle of the space like she’s not sure she belongs there.
“Sit,” Boone says in a tone much more gentle than Rhett would have managed.
She takes a chair in the living room, and Boone kneels in front of her with his first-aid kit, checking her hands, wrists, arms, and legs. He asks her to track his finger with her eyes, and she gives him a look that would make a lesser man back off, but she does it anyway.
I turn away before the tenderness in Boone’s face guts me completely.
Rhett already has maps spread across the table.
“I’ll inventory,” I say.
He nods. “Weapons, ammo, medical, water, fuel, food. Seventy-two-hour minimum. Seven-day preferred.”
“Already have seven,” Boone calls over.
Rhett keeps his focus on the map. “Confirm it.”
Before I reach the hall, Wren says, “This is my fault.”
“No,” the three of us say at the same time.
Arms braced on the table, Rhett looks over at her. “Turner’s responsible for his actions, and so are his men. You’re responsible for doing your job, and you did it.”
“I led them to you.”
“You found what they were hiding,” I say.
Rhett straightens and takes out his phone. “No more fieldwork.”
Wren’s spine stiffens, and I brace for a fight, but it doesn’t come. After a long moment, she nods but doesn’t say anything.
“We’ll gather whatever you need,” Rhett tells her.
I’m glad she’s not arguing, but I almost wish she would, only so I’d know she wasn’t traumatized by what happened today.
Boone dabs something on a scratch on her arm, and I head out to check supplies.
Later, the three of us go over a patrol schedule. From now on, two of us will stay awake at all times, our radios will always be charged and on us, and the exterior lights will remain off unless triggered.
Working fast and quiet, with a rifle slung over my shoulder and a sidearm at my hip, I reset the trip sensors along the north slope and reposition two game cameras on the creek approach. When I go back inside, Rhett’s checking weapons and Boone’s inventorying medical supplies.
Wren’s standing near the kitchen counter with her arms wrapped around herself, and I cross over to her before I decide whether or not it’s smart. She looks up when I stop in front of her, and for a second, neither of us speaks.
There are things I should say. Boone would find a way to make her smile, and Rhett would lay out a detailed plan for her safety. I can only give her what’s been running through my head for the past several hours.
“I should have seen them sooner.”
Her eyes soften, and she shakes her head. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No,” she repeats more firmly. “Cade, there was a rock face between you and them. It’s not failure, it’s geology.”
Across the room, Boone laughs, short and rough, but I don’t.
Wren steps closer to me. “You warned me as soon as you saw him. You pinned the man down, and you got me out.”
“He was twenty yards from you.”
“And he ended up screaming into a cloud of bear spray.”
“A detail I plan to enjoy later,” Boone says, “when I can feel anything except homicidal.”
A corner of Wren’s mouth lifts. It’s not fully a smile, but it’s enough to let me breathe.
There’s a sound outside, and every one of us freezes.
A vehicle, moving slowly on the road.
Rhett picks up a rifle, crosses to the front wall, and angles himself beside the curtain.
Tires crunch at the end of the drive, then stop.
I ease back the other side of the curtain and watch a man get out of an old pickup. His shoulders are hunched, and his face is hidden beneath a weathered ball cap. He opens the mailbox, shoves a white paper inside, then gets back in the truck and peels off.
“I’ll get it,” Boone says.
“No.” I’m already reaching for the door.
Late afternoon shadows stretch long between the pines, and the road is quiet except for the fading engine noise. I move off-angle, using the ditch and timber instead of the open drive, eyes sweeping my surroundings.
There’s a sealed envelope in the mailbox. No address, and no stamp.
I carry it back into the cabin between two fingers and set it on the table. Boone puts on gloves to slice open one end, then tips it until a photograph slides out.
For a long moment, my brain refuses to make sense of it.
It’s Wren, smiling, sitting at a table at the restaurant in town next to Kira Parker, who’s holding her baby in her lap. There’s a dark-haired woman sitting across from them, but we can’t see her face, because it’s not a posed shot. In fact, it appears to be taken from outside the front window.
“Fuck,” Boone whispers.
“Turn it over,” Rhett tells him.
One line is written in black marker: Back off, or you’ll pay.
Wren reaches for the chair behind her and grips the back of it. “That’s Kira and Elena.” Her face loses all color. “And Kira’s baby.”
Rhett picks up his phone and calls Atlas first, then Buck Brennan, telling them about the men on the trail this morning, and about the threat that involves their families. Boone stays close to Wren while Rhett tells the men to be on alert.
When he ends the second call, Wren says, “I can leave.”
My chest goes cold as she speaks faster. “Not because I want to. I know running doesn’t fix this, but if my being here brings danger to you, and to Kira and Elena and their children—”
“No,” Boone says.
“No,” I repeat.
When she looks at me, there’s fear in her eyes, but it’s not for herself.
Rhett steps closer to the table. “We’re not handing over our mountain or our town because Turner’s trying to scare us.”
“This isn’t about pride,” Wren says.
“You’re right. It’s about territory.” Rhett’s voice hardens. “Not land. People.”
Boone moves to Wren’s side. “If you leave, Turner learns that pressure works, and he’ll lean harder on the next person.”
“Atlas won’t run,” I say. “Buck won’t. Their families won’t be safer if we fracture.”
As Wren’s throat moves, Rhett holds her gaze. “Easy decision. We stand.”
Boone nods once. “We stand.”
They look at me, but they don’t need to. “We stand,” I say.
Wren exhales like something inside her has cracked, but she doesn’t break. She looks down at the photo and uses the tips of her fingers to turn it face up again.
It’s a stolen moment made into a weapon.
“He’s not going to make me regret making friends,” she says, finally, with her usual determination back in its rightful place.
Boone smiles, though there’s nothing easy about it today. “That’s our girl,” he says.
Wren gives him a look, but he doesn’t walk it back.
As night falls, we keep preparing. Boone finishes loading magazines, while Rhett and I review maps. I mark one with every approach to our property, and note every blind angle and every place a man might think he can hide.
Wren comes over and stands close enough that her sleeve brushes my arm. She studies the map with tired eyes.
“That drainage there,” she says, pointing. “Wildlife stopped using it a couple of weeks ago. I thought it was displacement from traffic farther north, but maybe men are cutting through there.”
Rhett leans in, Boone comes over, and all three of us look where Wren points.
She should never doubt she’s part of our operation. She’s inside the center of it. She’s ours.
Turner made his threat, and we’re going to answer. Back off, or you’ll pay.
I look at the map, then at the woman beside me, then at my brothers, and finally, the rage inside me goes quiet. It’s not gone, but now it’s turned into something useful.
If Turner comes for us again, he’s going to learn what it means when we answer.