Page 91 of Beckett

“Jet? What are you doing out here, buddy?” Lark’s voice carried across the yard.

The relief hit me so hard my knees almost buckled. Just Lark. Just Lark coming home.

“Jesus Christ, Lark.” Coop lowered his weapon. “You scared the shit out of us.”

“Coop? What the hell are you doing here? Is that a gun?”

Beckett rushed up to her, and I followed right behind. Jet was running around in circles, beside himself with excitement that all his favorite people were in one place. “Why are you driving with just your parking lights?”

“It’s late.” She shut the door behind her and petted Jet. “I didn’t want to wake anybody up. I was going to surprise you guys in the morning by having the chores done. What the hell is going on?”

She looked past them and spotted me standing in the shadows. “Audra? What’s happening?”

I moved forward on unsteady legs. “I’m sorry. We thought… There’s been some trouble.”

“Trouble?” Her gaze went to Beckett, then Coop. “What kind of trouble?”

“The kind we need to tell you about inside,” Beckett said. “You weren’t supposed to be back until tomorrow.”

“I decided to drive straight through.” She looked between all of us, concern growing. “Someone want to tell me what’s going on?”

We moved inside, Lark automatically putting on coffee like she knew we’d need it. I gave her the abbreviated version—starting with my stalker and ending with the near-drowning incident. I felt sicker with every word.

She listened without interrupting, her face growing more serious the more information I shared. When I finished, she was quiet for a long moment.

“So this person, this stalker, they followed you here? To Garnet Bend?”

I nodded, shame burning in my throat. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to bring danger here. If you want me to leave?—”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Her response was immediate, firm. “You’re not going anywhere.”

The unexpected support made my eyes burn with tears I refused to let fall.

“I mean it,” she continued. “This isn’t your fault, Audra. And we don’t abandon people here just because things get difficult.”

“She’s right,” Beckett said firmly, his hand finding mine and squeezing. “We protect our own in Garnet Bend.”

Then his expression shifted, that look I’d seen before at the cabin when pieces were clicking together in his mind. “I need to call Travis. I think we’ve been looking for enemies in the wrong place.”

Chapter 30

Audra

“Beckett was right.”

Travis’s voice came through the Warrior Security conference room speakers with crystal clarity, and despite the late hour—nearly midnight—the room erupted.

“Mark the calendar,” Coop said, stretching back in his chair with that easy grin that had probably charmed a hundred women and disarmed twice as many enemies. “This historic moment needs to be documented.”

“Already screenshotted for posterity.” The response came dry as dust through the monitor, accompanied by the rapid-fire clicking of keys.

“Bound to happen sometime,” Aiden rumbled from his corner position, his massive frame deceptively relaxed. “Even a broken clock’s right twice a day.”

“You assholes finished?” Beckett’s jaw worked, a muscle jumping beneath the skin, but I caught that telltale twitch at the corner of his mouth. These men—they’d bled together in placesthey’d never talk about, seen things that would break most people. This teasing was their language of brotherhood.

Hunter leaned forward from his position at the head of the table, hands flat against the polished wood. “What exactly was Beck right about?”

The banter faded as everyone turned their attention to the monitor. Lachlan stood sentinel near the door, still in his sheriff’s uniform with dried mud on the cuffs—he’d been at the bridge site until an hour ago, processing the scene in case it would give us any details about the stalker.