40. Wren
WREN
Novak calls just after midnight, and Rhett answers on the second vibration.
Cade’s out on watch. Boone’s on the couch, sitting with his eyes closed, though I know he’s awake. I stand at the sink with my hands wrapped around a mug of tea, and every inch of my body goes on alert.
“Copy,” Rhett says. It’s just one word, but it’s more than enough to make my pulse start climbing.
He listens for another minute, his gaze moving over the map that’s spread in front of him, then he says, “Dawn. Understood,” and my body goes cold.
Rhett ends the call and sets the phone on the table. “Novak moved faster than expected.”
“Dawn?” Boone’s eyes are wide open now, and he gets to his feet.
“His primary team is already staged near the corridor,” Rhett says. “Off the spur road, under tree cover. He also has a unit below the bridge and two overwatch positions on the ridgeline.”
My fingers tighten. “Near here?”
Rhett’s face softens in the almost invisible way it does when he’s about to tell me something serious and doesn’t want to make it worse. “Near enough.”
“Novak’s people are guarding us?” Boone asks.
“Covertly. All the approaches are covered. If Turner sends another team, they’ll walk into federal crosshairs before they get anywhere near the property line.”
As Rhett radios for Cade to come inside, I let out a small breath. The coverage outside is a relief, but it’s small comfort when dawn is only hours away.
“What time do we move?” Boone asks.
When Cade comes in, Rhett tells them both that Novak wants them ready at four-thirty. “He’ll brief final details here, then we step off before first light.”
My stomach drops, like a block of ice.
Cade picks up the magazine beside his rifle and checks. “He wants to hit them when they’re tired.”
“After a night move,” Rhett says. “Before they reset. Turner’s people were trying to extract before the week’s out, but Novak doesn’t think they’ll wait anymore.”
“Turner knows the walls are closing in,” Boone says.
“He knows enough to run,” Rhett says. “So we don’t give him time.”
We. At dawn, the three men I love will be walking into the wilderness toward armed traffickers.
Standing in the middle of the kitchen, I suddenly have no idea what to do with my hands. I look around the room at the three men who took my work seriously, respected me, took me in when I needed protection, and held me together when I was afraid. The three men who made me theirs.
Suddenly, Boone’s at my side, putting an arm around my shoulders. “Wren.”
I won’t break down now. I won’t.
I set the mug on the island and look them each in the eyes, one at a time. “I need you all tonight,” I say.
Boone holds me tighter. “You have us.”
“No, I mean, I need you. I want you. If the cabin’s being defended, I want us all to be together.”
Ever since the attacks, it’s been rare that the three of them are in the cabin at the same time for more than a couple of minutes. But tonight, they don’t need to stand watch. None of them needs to be out there alone in the dark. For a few more hours, they’ll be safe from danger.
“I don’t want anything between us left unsaid,” I tell them. “Or unfelt.”
Rhett looks at the door, then the windows, and Cade says, “I checked the sensor lines twenty minutes ago.”
“Novak’s men have the approaches covered,” Boone says, stroking my back gently. “If anything moves out there, we’ll hear it.”
Rhett looks back at my face, and whatever he sees there darkens his gaze. “Radios stay on,” he says. “Weapons stay close.”
“Of course,” I say.
“If anything—”
“Rhett.” Boone cuts him off.
Rhett looks back at his brother, then nods once. He folds the map, and I hope he can put thoughts of tomorrow away with it, at least for a couple of hours, for long enough to breathe.
Cade checks the locks again, Rhett checks the radios, and Boone banks the fire, leaving a low, red glow beneath the grate.
These are ordinary, end-of-the-night activities, but tonight every motion feels sacred because things may never be the same after tomorrow, and I want to remember them like this.
Rhett walking ahead, Boone barefoot on the wooden floor, and Cade sliding his hand along the wall as the four of us make our way into the hall.
Rhett closes the bedroom door behind us with a final, quiet click, and for a moment, we all seem to hold our breaths.
Then I rise onto my toes and kiss them one at a time, feeling their heartbeats beneath my hands. I kiss them until our breath grows ragged and the room narrows to the low, familiar sounds of men letting go by degrees. Boots come off, then shirts.
I stand between them in the dark, touching them, and Boone sucks in a breath when my hand comes too close to his wound.
“Boone.”
“I’m fine. I’m sore, not breakable.”
I brush my thumb gently below the bandage. “No, you’re not.”
None of them are breakable, but they’re mortal, and something small inside me wants to cry and beg them not to go in the morning, but I know that’s not who they are.
I know they can’t sit here and do nothing, and even though that wouldn’t be the truth, because they’ve already done so much, that’s what it would feel like to them.
I lean down and press my mouth to the uninjured side of his chest, right over his heart. Boone slides his hand into my hair as Cade steps closer and anchors me against him. Rhett watches us with eyes that are dark and unguarded.
They undress me with reverence and impatience tangled together, and I finish undressing them the same way. They touch me like I’m precious, and I touch them like they’re already home.
When Rhett lowers me to the bed, I pull him along with me. Cade follows, and Boone stretches out on my other side. When he winces, I give him a look reminding him to be careful with himself.
He smiles and kisses my shoulder. “Bossy little scientist.”
“Wounded mountain man.”
“Grazed,” Boone says.
Cade’s mouth finds the side of my neck. When I gasp, Boone’s smile fades into something hotter. Rhett bends over me and slides his hand along my jaw. “Tell us what you need.”
“You,” I say, with no thought or hesitation. “All of you. Not thinking about tomorrow. Not holding anything back.”
Rhett’s gaze flares, and Boone whispers, “Sweetheart.”
“No.” I touch Boone’s face, then Cade’s arm, then Rhett’s chest. “I mean it. I don’t want careful memories. I don’t want half of you because you’re trying to protect me from loving you too much.”
“That’s not possible.” Rhett strokes his thumb along my cheek. “You already love us too much.”
He’s cocky, and he’s one hundred percent correct, and my eyes burn with how strongly I feel it. “Then let me love you.”
He lowers his head to mine and just stays there, breathing with me. Then he says, “Letting you was never the hard part.”
Cade covers my hand with his. “Believing we get to keep you was.”
Boone’s voice is low against my hair. “Believing we get to come home to you.”
My heart squeezes in my chest. “Believe it.”
After that, the three of them surround me until there’s no room for fear to come between us. Rhett’s the first to make me come, and he watches my face like my pleasure is his only mission. Cade squeezes my hand and twines our fingers together, his grip saying more than words.
I turn to Boone, and he’s watching me like I’m the only reason he wants to survive what’s coming.
“Don’t,” I whisper.
His brow creases. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t look at me like goodbye is ever an option.”
He strokes a hand over my thigh. “It isn’t.”
“Promise me.”
For once, he doesn’t have a joke ready. He doesn’t use his charm to deflect. “I promise,” he says. “I’m coming back to you.”
Cade runs fingers through my hair, then tugs gently. “We all are.”
When I look at Rhett, he sits up and reaches for me. He takes my face in his hands, his thumbs brushing beneath my eyes, catching tears that were hanging on behind my lashes.
“Listen to me,” he says. “We’re coming back. Novak has the operation. We know the land, and we know how to work together. And we have something now we didn’t have before.”
“What’s that?” I whisper.
“A reason to be careful.”
Cade and Boone slide their arms around me and hold me tight. All three men touching me, all of us connected. Cade presses his forehead against the side of my head, and Boone rests his chin near my shoulder.
“You’re the best thing that ever happened to us,” Boone says.
All I can do is whisper his name in response.
“Before you showed up, we were just working, keeping each other alive. Surviving, because that’s what we knew how to do.”
Cade’s hand tightens on me, and Rhett’s gaze drops for a second.
“But we weren’t living,” Boone says. “The house feels like a home now.”
A sound escapes me, something raw that I can’t contain.
“You made us want the future.” Cade whispers it against my cheek, and something inside me breaks wide open.
I pull Cade’s mouth to mine, then Boone’s, then Rhett’s, and I try to answer them with my kisses, because my heart is too big right now for me to form words.
Everything that follows is more than just bodies coming together. It’s a vow made with hands and mouths and breath. Mine, we tell each other silently, over and over again.
Mine, always.
We lie tangled together afterward, Rhett on his back with one arm beneath my head, and my hand on his chest, directly over his heart.
Cade is behind me, his body curved along mine, and his breath warm against my neck.
Boone lies on Rhett’s other side, reaching carefully across his brother to rest a hand on my hip, stubborn even in his tenderness.
Outside, somewhere beyond the blackened windows, men wait with rifles and radios, but we have a few more hours here in this bed.
I close my eyes and breathe in the scent of them and memorize the feeling of their hands on my body. The weight and the warmth of them, the roughness and the tenderness.
Rhett covers my hand with his, Cade’s lips brush my cheek, and Boone’s fingers flex at my hip.
All of us, together, always.