Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
CADE
You can always tell when a horse knows how the day’s going to end.
This morning, Delilah’s gelding has its ears laid so flat I can see the white of its eye from forty yards.
Not typical for her thoroughbred. Not typical for the Munro estate, either.
Even with a press line cordoned off tight as a munitions crate, and half the State Patrol in high-vis, there’s a drag in the air.
Helium sucked out of the moment. Senator’s team missed it, but I didn’t. Neither did the horse.
Munro's running his mouth like a goddamn faucet—typical.
Delilah sits that thoroughbred like she was born in the saddle.
All business in her tailored jacket and those boots that could gut you with one kick.
She's on autopilot, barely registering the bullshit as the senator works the press with some half-assed story about family legacy and the "Great American West." Christ. The man owns a vineyard but says "ranch" because that's how he learned it from a chain restaurant menu.
Delilah's giving the cameras that practiced smile—the one that doesn't reach her eyes.
Her gaze keeps sliding left. Her posture's tight as a tripwire.
After three tours and one week on her detail, I can read her signals like a tactical map.
I scan the line. Usual suspects: local TV, farm rag, a podcaster with a $2,000 mic and $15 shoes.
One, though, is dead ahead. Bad stance for media—left hand jammed inside her jacket, right thumb texting under the pad.
Chin dipped so her hat covered his eyes.
Closer than comfort. No press badge. Just a cheap DSLR and a lens worth more than his entire outfit.
He’s not curious; he’s focusing. On Delilah.
I lock it in. The rest of my universe shrinks. Delilah’s posture. The horse’s twitch. The man with the camera. If my instincts are off, I apologize to no one. I don’t move—yet. The fastest way to get a mark to act is to act like you haven’t noticed him at all.
Munro gestures like he's crying over some dead steer, and the crowd eats it up.
Delilah's stirrup slips. Her knuckles go white.
The thoroughbred's flanks heave with sweat, nostrils flaring like a bull's.
I break protocol. Close the gap in three hard strides, tracking both the horse and that fake reporter.
No one else appears alarmed, but my gut is never wrong.
Delilah locks eyes with me—first acknowledgment all morning. I give her one sharp head-shake. She reads me instantly, shifts her weight back, drives her heels down, and grips the saddle horn with a fist. That's when the air splits open.
It’s a professional job. A suppressed round cracks through space and punches bark off an alder post two feet from her knee.
The impact hits like a sledgehammer. The horse, already wound tight as piano wire, explodes sideways with the force of a freight train.
Delilah's thighs clamp the saddle; her grip is iron on the horn.
The cameras freeze. Munro's shout comes too late.
I'm already moving, muscles firing before my brain can catch up.
She releases, and I yank her free, arms clamping around her waist, pinning her close to my chest. Two more shots bark out—one slams into the dirt at my boot, the next goes wide.
I clamp Delilah tight, my hand so rigid on her ribcage she’ll wear bruises.
She quakes—not dramatic, not staged, just pure adrenaline.
She lets go, and I use all of my weight to drag her free, arms around her waist, and pin her close to my chest. Two more shots, lower caliber—one slams into the dirt at my boot, the next I can’t place.
I hold Delilah tight, my hand so rigid against her ribcage she’ll have bruises.
She’s shaking—not dramatic, not for show, just adrenaline dump, cold and pure.
She crumples into my side, knees buckling as I whirl us behind a stone planter.
The world mutes; the crowd stutters into confused murmurs as security finally kicks into gear.
The “reporter” vanishes. Munro howls for calm, his voice three octaves higher than usual.
I drag Delilah down, sheltering her head, and sweep a three-sixty scan.
She pants, and I grind her face into my jacket, forcing her focus onto the leather, hay, or me.
“You alright?” I say, voice low.
She laughs—a sound with no joy in it. “That’s a new one. I think so.”
I let go, but not really, keeping my hand on her shoulder. I check her arms, her face, the fragile bit of throat that always looks so breakable. No blood. She’s intact.
“Stay down,” I say. “Do not move until I say.”
Her face is right up against mine, freckled and flushed. She gets it now—this isn’t politics. This isn’t theater. It’s the real game. She nods, biting her lip, and presses her forehead into my chest. Sweat soaks through her collar.
The security detail is finally swarming, doing slow-motion clearances like it’s a staged event.
The sniper is gone or hiding, and the press is scattered in a panic.
The senator’s chief of staff is yelling something into a walkie, but no one’s listening.
For the first time, I feel my own pulse, heavy in my throat. I almost lost her.
I pull out my phone and text our driver to bring the SUV up now. I look at Delilah again, and she’s watching me. Eyes wide, every wall torn down.
“You’re not getting back on that horse,” I say.
She manages a smile, sharp around the edges. “Was hoping you’d say that.”
“Can you walk?”
“Do I have a choice?”
I haul her to her feet. One hand around her waist, the other sweeping the area.
I get her moving, keeping my body between her and the line of fire.
For the first five steps, she limps. She must have hit hard when I yanked her.
I want to check her right there. But I know we’re still in the zone.
When the SUV screeches to a halt at the end of the drive, I all but toss her in the back seat.
We slam the doors; the glass is triple-reinforced, tinted so dark the outside world goes black. Delilah’s shaking still, but now it’s down to a fine vibration, like a tuning fork. I don’t speak until I’m sure no one’s in earshot.
“Let me see,” I say, reaching for her right leg.
She flinches, more out of pride than pain. “I’m fine, Cade—”
“You’re bleeding,” I snap.
Sure enough, her thigh is a mess. Bright red slides through her torn pants. Grazed, not punctured, but it’s ugly and deep. I rip open the medical kit, douse a pad with antiseptic, and clamp it to the wound. She hisses, eyes gleaming with unshed tears.
“Keep pressure,” I say. She listens, holding it steady.
My hands are still shaking—not externally, but I feel it in the way my fingers move, over-tight, over-precise. I press her leg, checking for bone or joint damage, then bandage it tight. When I look up, she’s not blinking.
“Anyone else would be dead,” she whispers.
I snort. “Anyone else wouldn’t be worth the effort.”
She laughs again, this time almost normal, and in that sound, my heart rate ratchets down a few.
She catches me looking at her and doesn’t look away.
Her pupils are huge, face gone soft and open.
I’m not supposed to notice that. Not supposed to register how she’s breathing, how her hands have quit trembling only because she’s got them fisted into my shirt now.
“Thank you,” she says, and her voice is small, not in a weak way, but like the air’s been wrung out of her lungs.
I let my own hand drift from her thigh to her waist, not moving away. I know it’s the wrong moment, but the urge is animal and bigger than discipline. For a moment, neither of us has anything to say.
“Was this the plan?” she asks finally.
“Plan changed,” I tell her. “Security on the ranch is garbage. You’re the target now.”
She nods. “Dad’s going to lose his shit.”
“Don’t care. If he wants you alive, he’ll listen to me.”
Her gaze flicks to my lips, then back up.
I should shut it down, re-establish boundaries, bureaucratic nonsense I’ve drilled for decades.
But there’s blood on her leg, a gunman out there with her name on a bullet, and I want nothing more than to keep her pressed against me until the outside world is a rumor.
I put my hands on either side of her face and force her to look me in the eye. “You move when I say. You speak when I say. And from now on, I will not leave your side. Understood?”
She blinks once, slowly. “Understood.”
The SUV rolls, the driver following my silent signal to head for the safe house.
I keep my body braced up against her, scanning the road and the vineyards as we pass them.
The adrenaline’s making everything raw—colors too sharp, sounds too close.
Delilah burrows in, face mashed against my chest. No complaints, no words for several minutes.
Then: “Cade, are you afraid?”
“Never.”
She smiles against my jacket. “Liar.”
But she likes that about me, and so do I.
I keep my hand on her, making sure the bandage doesn’t bleed through, but really just so she knows she’s alive.
We drive in a cocoon, the world outside irrelevant, the rest of the day a problem for future me.
Now, I have Delilah Munro’s pulse thrumming against my ribs, and the sound of her breath is the only thing I want to hear.
By the time we reach the security gate, the ranch is chaos—helos overhead, local sheriff in a tantrum, news choppers circling like carrion birds.
I don’t talk to the Senator, don’t even acknowledge the man.
I walk Delilah inside, both of us ignoring the noise of a world still in motion.
Through three doors, two security scans, and finally to the room that’s been scrubbed and swept and triple-checked by my best guy.
We stand in the entry, me still holding her up, her breathing faster now—in pain or in fear, I can’t tell. She tries to pull away, but I don’t let her.
“You need to sit,” I say.
She does, finally, crumple into a leather chair.
Wind outside rattles the windowpanes, and the chills run right up her arms. I strip off my jacket, draping it around her shoulders. She doesn’t move to return it.
I sit on the coffee table opposite her, elbows on my knees. “You could have died today.”
“Yes,” she says flatly. “I know.”
“Doesn’t bother you?”
She shrugs, but the bravado is gone. “It seems to bother you more than me.”
That shouldn’t feel like a compliment, but it does. I lean in, hands clasped, and even with a room between us, there’s no escaping her. She’s looking at me like she did before the shooting, but the intensity is doubled—stripped of rules, of bullshit.
“Why?” she asks.
“Why what?”
“Why did you jump when no one else did?”
Because if I lost you, every second of my life becomes a punchline. I can’t say that, so I just shake my head. “It’s my job.”
“No, it’s not,” she says, voice thin and hungry. “Everyone knows the senator takes priority. But you saved me.”
I can’t look away from her. “He’s not my priority. You are. I was hired to protect you.”
She laughs, raw and shaking. “Is that the only reason?”
I let the silence stretch. We both know.
Delilah uncurls from the chair, limping over until she’s right in front of me.
She’s so close I can see every freckle, her pupils a slow-focusing camera lens.
I register the pain in her stance, left leg bent a little, weight shifting off the graze, but she stands in front of me anyway.
The blood’s already dried in a strip down her thigh, dark against the pale skin.
She’s daring me to touch her, but I know her game—she wants control.
And I don’t hand it over.
“Sit down,” I say. She ignores me and pushes between my knees. Her fingers come up, pressing at my jaw, cool and shaking. Her breath is mint and adrenaline, so sharp it stings.
“Say it, Cade. Why?” This isn’t a person who’s ever been protected in her life, not really. Shielded, handled, but never chosen. Now she wants the truth, the ugly kind. I let her grab my jaw and hold my eyes. Her touch is the only thing about her that’s hesitant.
“Because you matter.”
She doesn’t move away. Neither do I. The space between us goes taut, like a wire pulled too tight. The last thing I want to do is walk away, but I have no choice.
“We’re done for today. You should get some rest.”