Chapter 15
The insurance forms blurred together after the first hour.
Paige sat at the desk in Tourniquet's room, surrounded by paperwork that promised compensation but delivered confusion. Claim numbers and policy references and rebuild estimates that kept turning into floor plans for a shop that no longer existed.
She'd been staring at the same paragraph for ten minutes.
"You're not reading anymore."
She looked up. Tourniquet sat on the bed, watching her with those assessing eyes that never quite turned off.
"I'm trying."
"You're spinning." He rose and crossed to her, pulling a chair beside the desk. "Show me."
She handed him the stack. His eyes moved across the pages with the same focus he applied to everything—methodical, thorough, absorbing information faster than she could process her own exhaustion.
"The policy covers structural damage up to three hundred thousand," he said after a moment.
"Your deductible's five thousand. The adjuster's estimate puts total loss at two-forty, which means you're looking at two-thirty-five in payout minus whatever the landlord claims for his portion of the building. "
"Frank owns the structure. I owned the business inside it."
"So your claim is separate. Contents, equipment, inventory." He flipped to another page. "This estimate says sixty-two thousand for business property. Another eighteen for lost income coverage."
The numbers washed over her. She knew she should care—should be calculating, planning, figuring out how to rebuild. But the figures kept sliding away, replaced by images of smoke and ash and everything she'd built turning to char.
"Hey." His hand covered hers on the desk. "Where'd you go?"
"Nowhere good."
"Talk to me."
She turned her hand over, lacing her fingers through his. The contact steadied her, the way it always did.
"I keep thinking about what comes after," she said quietly. "When Greer's handled and the insurance pays out and I'm supposed to just... start over. Build another shop. Pretend the last few weeks didn't happen."
"You don't have to pretend anything."
"I know. But that's what civilians do, right? They move on. They rebuild. They don't—" She stopped, searching for words. "They don't have a motorcycle club at their back and a man who kills people to protect them."
Tourniquet was quiet for a moment.
"Is that what you want?" he asked finally. "To go back to being a civilian?"
The question landed like a stone in still water.
"I don't know if I was ever really a civilian," she admitted. "I built the shop because I needed a mission. Structure. Something to move from Point A to Point B. But I was always just... pretending. Playing a role."
"And now?"
She looked at him—at the scars on his hands, the intensity in his eyes, the patches on the cut draped over the chair. A man who'd stopped pretending years ago. Who'd found a brotherhood that accepted exactly what he was.
"Now I'm wondering if I've been building the wrong thing."
He didn't respond immediately. Just held her gaze, letting her words settle.
"The shop can be rebuilt anywhere," he said slowly. "Different building. Different town. Ely, if you want. Closer to the compound, if that's better." A pause. "The question is what you're building it for."
"What do you mean?"
"Four years ago, you built it to prove you could survive outside the Army. To prove you could be something other than a convoy driver." His thumb traced circles on her palm. "What are you proving now?"
The answer came easier than she expected.
"I'm not trying to prove anything anymore." She met his eyes. "I just want to build something that matters. Something real."
"And what matters?"
"This." She gestured between them. "You. The compound. The way I feel when I'm here instead of pretending to be someone I'm not."
Something shifted in his expression. The assessment faded, replaced by something warmer. More vulnerable.
"Paige—"
"I'm not asking for a ring or a promise or whatever bikers do instead of those things." She squeezed his hand. "I'm just saying... when I think about what comes after, you're in it. Every version. Every plan."
He pulled her from the chair.
She went willingly, letting him settle her on his lap, her legs straddling his thighs, her hands finding his shoulders. The position was intimate without being urgent—face to face, breath to breath, nothing between them but honesty.
"I don't know how to do this," he said quietly. "Relationships. Long-term. The parts that aren't crisis management and threat assessment."
"Neither do I."
"I'm going to screw up. Say the wrong thing. Disappear into preparedness mode when I should be present."
"And I'm going to compartmentalize when I should feel. Push back when I should let you in. Try to drive my own convoy when teamwork would be smarter."
His mouth curved. "We're a mess."
"We're a matching mess." She leaned forward, resting her forehead against his. "That's the point."
He kissed her then—soft, unhurried, nothing like the desperate collision after the assault or the fumbling revelation of their first time. This was something else entirely. A conversation continued in a different language.
His hands slid up her back, pulling her closer. She felt the warmth of him through her clothes, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, the way his body relaxed into hers like coming home.
"Reed," she murmured against his mouth.
"Paige."
Just their names. Just acknowledgment. But the weight of it filled the room.
She pulled back long enough to strip off her shirt. His followed. And then it was skin against skin, familiar now, mapped and memorized over nights that had become a geography of their own.
He lifted her, carried her to the bed, laid her down with a gentleness that had nothing to do with fragility. His eyes moved over her body—not assessing, not cataloging damage for once. Just looking. Appreciating.
"Beautiful," he said.
"You've mentioned."
"I'll keep mentioning." He settled over her, weight braced on his forearms, mouth finding the curve of her neck. "Until you believe it."
"I believe you believe it."
"Good enough. For now."
What followed was different from before.
The first time had been discovery—learning each other, finding the places that made breath catch and backs arch. The second had been survival—adrenaline and desperation, proving they were alive through the only language that made sense.
This was neither.
This was knowing.
His hands moved with familiarity, tracing paths they'd traveled before but finding new depths. She responded in kind, matching his rhythm, anticipating his needs before he voiced them. Two people who'd learned each other's bodies and chose to keep learning.
"Stay," he said against her skin. Not a question. A statement.
"I'm here."
"After. When Greer's done. When the rebuilding starts." His mouth found the scar on her shoulder, the place where she'd reached for someone and lost. "Stay."
"Where else would I go?"
"Anywhere. Ely. Duluth. Back to a civilian life that doesn't include violence and motorcycle clubs and—"
She caught his face in her hands, made him meet her eyes.
"I'm not going anywhere."
"Paige—"
"I spent six years pretending I wasn't who I was.
Trying to be normal. Trying to fit into a world that didn't understand why I checked exits or flinched at loud noises or couldn't sleep without a weapon nearby.
" Her thumbs traced his cheekbones. "And then I met you.
And you didn't ask me to be normal. You just... saw me."
"I see everything."
"I know." She pulled him down, kissed him with everything she had. "That's why I'm staying."
The kiss deepened. Bodies aligned. And when they came together this time, it was with the certainty of people who'd made their choice and meant it.
Slow. Deliberate.
No adrenaline driving the pace. No first-time nerves adding edges. Just two people who knew exactly what they wanted and took their time getting there.
He moved inside her like he was memorizing the feeling. She wrapped around him like she was claiming territory. The rhythm built gradually—waves on a shore, inevitable and patient—until the crest caught them both.
She came apart with his name on her lips—his real name, the one that belonged to her and no one else. He followed, his whole body shuddering, her name broken against her throat like a prayer.
Afterward, they lay tangled together, breathing slowly returning to normal.
"The shop," she said eventually. "I think I want to rebuild it here."
"Here?"
"Not literally at the compound. But close. Ely, maybe. Somewhere I can be part of both worlds."
"Both worlds?"
"Flowers and violence." She smiled against his chest. "Weddings and warfare. The life I built and the life I found."
His arm tightened around her.
"I can work with that."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." He pressed a kiss to her hair. "I'll help you find a space. Something with good light. Maybe a bigger cooler this time."
"You know about flower shop requirements now?"
"I've been paying attention."
She laughed—soft, genuine, the first real laughter she'd felt since the fire.
"Of course you have."
"I pay attention to everything about you." His voice dropped. "Can't help it. Don't want to."
She propped herself up on one elbow, looking down at him. In the low light, his face was relaxed in a way she rarely saw—the constant vigilance quieted, the preparedness loop finally still.
"Reed Maloney," she said. "You're going to be stuck with me for a long time."
"That's the plan."
She kissed him again—slow, savoring—and let herself believe in futures that included both flowers and the man who'd fought a war to give them back to her.
No adrenaline. No triage.
Just a medic's careful hands and a veteran's trust in someone who'd seen the same war from a different seat.
The slowest they'd been together.
And somehow, the deepest.