Chapter Fifteen
Abigail
Abby slept for fourteen straight hours.
When she finally woke, the disorientation was brief.
She didn't panic at the sight of the timber ceiling or the heavy steel storm shutters over the window. The lingering, bone-deep chill of the floodwater was gone, replaced by the heavy, comforting warmth of the thick quilts and the lingering scent of cedar on Will’s oversized t-shirt.
She sat up, stretching carefully. Her right knee was stiff, protesting the movement with a dull ache, but the sharp, dangerous pain from the laceration had receded.
Abby swung her legs over the edge of the bed and found a pair of clean, thick wool socks resting on the nightstand beside the Motorola radio. She pulled them on, ran her fingers through her tangled hair to tame it, and opened her door.
The main living area of the lodge was a massive, open-concept space anchored by a towering river stone fireplace. The fire was roaring, casting a warm, flickering orange glow over the heavy leather furniture and the exposed timber beams.
It was a fortress, but tonight, it felt like a home.
All five men were in the room.
Trent was sitting in a high-backed leather armchair near the fire, a thick hardcover book resting on his knee, though his dark eyes were casually tracking the room.
Leo was cross-legged on the floor near the hearth, completely absorbed in the glowing screen of a ruggedized laptop, wearing oversized noise-canceling headphones around his neck.
At the massive, raw-edge dining table, Will, Kyle, and Kaiden were deeply embroiled in a game of poker. The stakes appeared to be a pile of 9mm brass casings and what looked like a jar of homemade beef jerky.
"I'm telling you," Kaiden was saying, leaning back in his chair and tossing three brass casings into the center of the table, "if the mudslides on the lower ridge wash out the access road completely, we're going to have to take the ATVs up the goat trail to get supplies next month.
And I am not hauling fifty-pound bags of flour on a quad again.
Kyle strapped it wrong last time and I looked like a powdered donut for a week. "
"I strapped it to standard military specifications," Kyle fired back, not looking up from his cards. "You drive like a maniac. It's a miracle the flour was the only thing that broke."
Will sat at the head of the table, a deck of cards in his large hands. He was wearing the same charcoal t-shirt, his broad shoulders relaxed. He was smiling…a real, genuine smile that crinkled the corners of his grey eyes.
Abby stood in the hallway, watching them.
In Los Angeles, her social circles had been transactional. Dinners were for networking. Drinks were for securing leverage. Conversations were carefully curated minefields of passive-aggression.
These five men were lethal, highly trained operators hiding from the world, yet the energy in the room was unguarded. They weren't performing for one another. They were just existing, anchored by a brotherhood forged in places most people couldn't even point to on a map.
Will’s eyes flicked up from the cards, catching her standing in the shadows of the hallway.
The smile on his face didn't vanish, but it shifted, softening into something deeply intimate and intensely focused just for her. He set his cards face-down on the table.
"Look who's up," Will said, his deep voice cutting through the banter.
The other four men turned to look at her. There was no awkward silence, no sudden tension at the presence of a civilian.
"Morning, sunshine," Kyle grinned, throwing his cards onto the table in defeat. "Or, evening, I guess. It's almost 2100 hours. You slept through the rest of the storm."
"I feel like I slept for a year," Abby admitted, stepping fully into the warm light of the room. She walked toward the fire, her slight limp unhidden.
Trent closed his book and set it on the side table. "How's the knee, Abby?"
It was the first time the commander had used her first name, and the subtle shift in respect wasn't lost on her. "Stiff. But it's holding."
"Will," Trent said, a mild command. "Get her a plate. Kyle made stew."
"I've got it," Will said, already standing up. He walked toward the kitchen, his hand brushing lightly against Abby's shoulder as he passed her. The brief contact sent a jolt of warmth straight down her spine.
"Pull up a chair," Kaiden offered, kicking out an empty wooden chair at the table. "Do you know how to play Texas Hold 'Em? Because Kyle is currently robbing me blind and I need a distraction."
"I've played a hand or two," Abby said, taking the seat.
"Don't let the innocent face fool you, Kaiden," Leo chimed in from the floor, typing rapidly. "She was a senior VP in corporate acquisitions. She literally lied for a living."
Abby laughed, a bright, genuine sound that made all four men pause for a fraction of a second. "He's not wrong. I have an excellent poker face."
Will returned from the kitchen carrying a steaming bowl of thick beef and vegetable stew and a thick slice of buttered bread. He set it down in front of her, sliding a glass of water next to it.
"Eat," Will ordered softly, pulling his own chair out and sitting directly beside her.
Abby took a bite of the stew. It was incredible, rich and heavily seasoned. She ate while the men dealt a new hand, dealing her in without hesitation. They used the brass casings as chips, explaining the values to her as they went.
They didn't treat her like glass. They didn't tiptoe around her trauma or look at her with the suffocating pity she had come to expect from people back home.
When she bluffed Kaiden out of a massive pot of brass casings with nothing but a pair of twos, the entire table erupted in laughter, and even Trent cracked a genuine smile from the armchair.
As Will dealt the next hand, his large, calloused fingers flicking the cards with practiced precision, Abby looked around the table.
She was stranded in the Bitterroot Mountains, cut off from the rest of civilization by a raging flash flood, sitting in a heavily fortified compound surrounded by heavily armed men.
And for the first time in thirty years, she felt like she belonged.