Chapter 25
Ronan and Lila’s cottage smelled like garlic and rosemary when Caleb and Harper arrived.
Lila opened the door before they reached the porch.
She looked different than the last time Caleb had seen her—tanned, the lines around her mouth softer, the coiled tension that had lived in her shoulders for most of the Caldwell investigation finally gone.
The honeymoon had been good for both of them, but it showed on Lila in ways that were harder to hide.
“You’re late,” she said.
“Traffic,” Caleb said.
“There’s no traffic in Blossom Springs.”
“We took the scenic route.”
Lila’s gaze moved past him to Harper, standing just behind his shoulder with her hands in the pockets of a sundress she’d bought at the thrift shop on Main Street two days ago.
She’d tried it on in the living room and asked his opinion, and he’d said it was fine, and she’d told him that “fine” was a word men used when they didn’t actually look.
He’d looked. The dress was more than fine.
“Come in,” Lila said. “Ronan’s on the deck pretending to supervise the grill, which really means he’s drinking beer and watching the water.”
They followed her through the cottage. It was warm and unguarded in a way Caleb’s place had never managed—photos on the walls, books stacked on every flat surface, a throw blanket draped over the couch that had clearly been used for its intended purpose instead of folded for display.
A framed wedding photo sat on the mantle, and Harper paused in front of it.
“Beautiful dress,” she said.
“I almost didn’t wear it.” Lila glanced at the photo. “I changed three times. Ronan finally told me I looked perfect in the first one and to please stop making him nervous.”
Ronan was exactly where Lila said he’d be—standing at the grill with a beer in one hand and tongs in the other.
“About time.” He set down the tongs and pulled Caleb into a one-armed hug. “Starting to think you’d gone feral in that cabin.”
“It’s a cottage.”
“It’s a bunker with better windows.” Ronan released him and turned to Harper. His gaze sharpened briefly before settling. “Harper. Good to see you again.”
“Likewise.” Harper shook his hand. “Thank you for the assist with the story.”
“That was all Caleb. I just made sure the right people saw the final product.” Ronan gestured toward the deck chairs. “Sit. Steaks are almost done, and Lila made something with potatoes that she claims is edible.”
“It’s au gratin,” Lila called from inside. “And it’s more than edible.”
“She’s been taking cooking classes,” Ronan said, lowering his voice like he was sharing classified intelligence. “Online. From a French chef. There have been experiments.”
“One soufflé. One.”
Harper’s mouth twitched. Not the guarded, almost-smile Caleb had gotten used to over the past weeks. Something less controlled. She pressed her lips together like she was trying to hold it in, and then she stopped trying.
The laugh was quiet and a little rusty, like a hinge that hadn’t been turned in a while. But it was real, and it changed her entire face, and Caleb had to look away from her before he did something stupid like tell her that in front of people.
Dinner was good.
Better than good. The steaks were charred on the outside and pink in the center, and Lila’s au gratin was layered with something she refused to identify beyond “herbs from Quinn’s garden.
” They ate on the deck with the inlet going dark beyond the railing, and the conversation moved the way it does between people who are testing the edges of a new configuration—careful at first, then less so.
Ronan told the honeymoon story about the rental car that had died on a mountain road outside Positano, and Lila corrected every detail he got wrong, which was most of them.
“It wasn’t a mountain. It was a hill.”
“It had switchbacks.”
“Three. Three switchbacks. You’re describing the Amalfi Coast like it’s the Himalayas.”
“We had to carry the luggage,” Ronan said to Harper, as if appealing to a jury. “Two miles. Uphill.”
“Eight hundred meters,” Lila said. “Mostly flat. I timed it.”
Harper was watching them the way she watched everything—with the focused attention of a woman who cataloged details professionally.
But the set of her shoulders had dropped over the course of dinner.
She’d stopped checking the tree line every few minutes.
She’d accepted a second glass of wine, which was one more than her usual operational maximum.
Lila noticed. Caleb saw her notice, and he saw the small nod she gave herself, the kind of private assessment one survivor makes of another.
After dinner, Lila pulled Harper inside to look at something on her laptop—municipal records she’d been cross-referencing with property transfers—and Ronan leaned against the deck railing with a fresh beer.
“She’s good,” Ronan said. “Sharp. Observant. She clocked three exits before she sat down.”
“Old habits.”
“Same habits you have. Same ones I have.” Ronan took a pull from his beer. “She fits, Caleb.”
“Fits what?”
“This life. The work. The constant low-grade vigilance that makes it impossible to date a civilian without feeling like you’re lying every time you say you’re fine.” He looked at Caleb directly. “She doesn’t need you to explain any of that. She already lives it.”
Caleb didn’t answer.
“I’ve known you for six years,” Ronan said. “Three apartments. Two cities. Zero relationships that lasted longer than a month. And that’s not because you’re bad at it. It’s because you couldn’t find someone who could live inside the perimeter you’d built.”
“That’s a hell of a speech.”
“I’ve been practicing. Lila says I’m emotionally articulate now.”
Inside the cottage, Harper laughed again—that same surprised sound, like she kept finding it in unexpected places. Caleb watched her through the screen door. She was leaning over Lila’s laptop, pointing at something on the screen, her dark hair falling across her cheek.
“Yeah,” he said. “She does.”
“She does what?”
“Fit.”
Ronan clapped him on the shoulder. “She’s good for you.”
Caleb didn’t argue.
They drove back to the cottage in the quiet that had stopped needing to be filled weeks ago.
Harper had her window down, her arm resting on the door, the warm Florida air moving through the cab. She was looking at the road ahead, but her thoughts were somewhere else. Caleb could always tell when she was processing—her fingers moved as if she were typing, even when there was no keyboard.
“They’re happy,” she said. “Ronan and Lila. Actually happy. Not the performing-happy that people do at dinner parties. The real kind.”
“They earned it.”
“I know.” She was quiet for another mile. “Lila told me something while you and Ronan were having your deck conversation.”
“What conversation?”
“The one where he told you I was good for you.” She glanced at him. “Lila warned me it was coming. She said Ronan had been rehearsing it since they got back from Italy.”
“He denies that.”
“He would.” She turned back to the window. “She said something else. About what it’s like to be with someone who operates the way you do. The surveillance habits, the compartmentalization, the constant risk assessment.”
“What did she say?”
“That it’s not easy. But that the alternative—being with someone who doesn’t understand—is worse. Because then you’re hiding from the person who’s supposed to know you best.”
Caleb pulled into the gravel drive and cut the engine. The cottage sat dark against the tree line, the inlet catching what was left of the light.
“You’re not temporary, Harper.” He said it to the windshield because looking at her while he said it felt like too much. “And you’re not a complication. I need you to know that.”
She was quiet for long enough that he started to worry he’d miscalculated.
“Then don’t treat me like one.”
She reached across the console and pulled him toward her by the front of his shirt. The kiss was firm and deliberate, the kind that had intention behind it. Her hand stayed fisted in his collar, holding him there, and he let her set the pace because this was hers to decide.
When she pulled back, her eyes were open and steady.
“Inside,” she said.
They made it as far as the hallway.
His back hit the wall first. She pushed him there, both hands flat on his chest, and kissed him again with a focus that left no room for ambiguity. He cupped her face and slowed it down—not because he wanted to, but because he needed to see her. Needed to know this was a choice and not a reaction.
“Harper.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“I wasn’t questioning that.”
“Then stop thinking.” She pulled his shirt free from his jeans. “I can hear you analyzing from here.”
“Force of habit.”
“Break it.”
Her hands were under his shirt, palms flat against his stomach, and the analytical part of his brain that she’d accurately diagnosed went quiet.
He pulled her dress over her head in one motion.
She wasn’t wearing a bra—the sundress hadn’t needed one—and the sight of her in the dim hallway made his breath catch.
She reached for his belt buckle. Her fingers were steady.
“Bedroom,” he said.
They left a trail from the hallway to his door—her sandals, his shirt, his belt somewhere near the threshold. He laid her down on the bed and took a moment to look at her. Dark hair across his pillow. The rise and fall of her breathing. A thin scar on her left hip that he hadn’t seen before.
“Broken bottle,” she said, following his gaze. “Bar in Memphis. Long story.”
“Tell me later.”
“Count on it.”
He crawled over her, bracing his weight on his arms, and kissed her jaw, her neck, the hollow of her throat. She arched into him, her fingers dragging down his back.
“More,” she breathed.
He gave her more. Kissed a path down her stomach, her hip, the inside of her thigh.
She opened her legs wider, and he settled between them.
The first stroke of his tongue drew a sound from her that he wanted to hear again.
He took his time. Learned what made her gasp, what made her fingers twist in the sheets, what made her hips rock against his mouth.
She was unguarded in a way he’d never seen from her. Walls down. Defenses abandoned.
That trust hit him harder than the physical sensation.
He slid two fingers inside her and curled them forward while his tongue circled her clit. She came with his name on her lips, her whole body pulling tight and then releasing.
He didn’t stop until she pushed at his shoulders.
“I need you,” she gasped. “Now.”
Condom from the nightstand. He rolled it on and positioned himself at her entrance. Her hand came up to rest on his chest, right over his heart.
“I can feel it racing,” she said.
“Yours too.”
He pushed inside. The feeling of her around him made his vision blur. He held still, giving her time, watching her face.
“Move,” she said.
He did. Slow at first. She wrapped her legs around his waist and changed the angle, and he groaned at how deep he could go.
She matched his rhythm, her hips rising to meet each thrust, and when he reached between them and found her clit, she told him exactly what she needed—pressure, speed, the precise motion that would push her over. He gave it to her.
She came with a sharp cry, her body clenching around him. The sensation pulled him under. He thrust twice more, and then he was gone, burying his face in her neck as the release crashed through him.
They lay tangled together, breathing hard.
After a while, he dealt with the condom and pulled her against his side. She came willingly, her head on his chest, her finger tracing a slow circle on his sternum.
“Thank you for not making it weird,” she said. “When I told you. About not having been with anyone since before I went underground. Most people would have treated me like I was fragile.”
“You’re the least fragile person I’ve ever met.”
“I don’t feel that way.”
“Nobody does. That’s the secret.”
She was quiet for a moment. Then she propped herself up on one elbow and looked at him. In the dim light filtering through the blinds, her face was open in a way he’d only seen in glimpses before—unedited, without the careful composure she wore like armor.
“I don’t know what happens next,” she said. “With Montgomery. With the investigation. With any of it.”
“Neither do I.”
“But I know I don’t want to do it alone anymore.” She laid her palm flat against his chest. “Whatever comes—I want to face it with you.”
Caleb covered her hand with his.
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
She settled back against him. Her breathing slowed. Her hand relaxed on his chest. Outside, the inlet was dark and quiet, and somewhere out there, Montgomery was plotting his next move, and Graham was preparing for whatever came next at the hospital.
But in this room, Harper’s weight was warm against his side, and her breathing had found the rhythm of sleep.
Caleb closed his eyes. He wasn’t thinking about tomorrow. He was thinking about this.