Page 24 of Rush Turner (Seals on Fraiser Mountain #6)

Jessa

By the time the kids were scrubbed clean and settled in bed — only after twenty minutes of negotiating over bedtime stories and “just one more cookie” — my nerves were shot.

R ush hadn’t come inside yet. I caught glimpses of him through the window: moving from the barn to the porch, checking shadows like he was back on patrol somewhere halfway around the world. We had wild, crazy sex in the barn, and it was fabulous. My body parts are still aching for more.

I hated that he was worried about us, and that he felt that it was necessary to redo all the locks and add more cameras.

Hated that he felt he had to do it. Hated more that he was right.

I tucked Jill in one last time — she clung to my arm, sleep-heavy eyes blinking up at me.

“Is Rush gonna sleep here tonight?” he mumbled.

I smiled and brushed his hair off his forehead. “Probably, baby. Go to sleep. I’ll be right down the hall.”

He hummed something that might’ve been good , then drifted off.

I found Rush at the back porch, crouched low by the step, tightening something on a fresh door brace he’d installed.

I crossed my arms and leaned against the doorframe. “You planning to booby-trap the chicken coop next?”

Without looking up, he said, “Already did. Trip wire. If Tornado triggers it, too bad.”

I snorted a laugh, but my pulse still hummed with unease. “Rush…”

He straightened, the porch light catching the sharp cut of his jaw, the scar at his temple. There was no softness there — only that steady, deadly calm that should have scared me but didn’t.

“You done lecturing me tonight?” he asked, voice low.

I stepped up to him, close enough to breathe him in. “No. But I’m tired, so I’ll save it for tomorrow.”

His hand slid to my leg to my hip, firm and possessive. “Deal.”

We went inside. I locked up behind us, double-checking every window just like he’d taught me weeks ago. We didn’t talk much — didn’t have to.

I was halfway to telling him to come to bed when a noise cut through the silence.

A soft, metallic clink — from outside near the barn.

Rush froze. One hand lifted, palm out, telling me don’t move . His eyes went sharp, dark.

Another faint shuffle. Hoof steps? A raccoon? Or—

He crossed the kitchen in three strides, grabbing the small black pistol he’d stashed above the fridge days ago.

My breath caught.

“Stay here,” he murmured, his voice so quiet I barely caught it. “And if someone tries that door — you don’t yell. You shoot.”

He pushed the gun into my hands, kissed my forehead once — hard, fast — then slipped out the back door like a shadow.

Rush

I stepped off the porch slow, boots rolling silent over the dirt I knew better than my own damn house.

Past the oak. Around the garden. Toward the barn where the faint metal rattle had come from.

My gut said not Tornado . Not tonight.

I spotted the figure by the corner — small, hunched, hands moving clumsy at the padlock I’d installed that afternoon.

One more step and I had a clear view.

Not Kyle — he was rotting wherever he’d fallen. This was someone else. Skinny. Nervous. Too desperate to know he was already caught.

I stepped close enough to smell his cheap whiskey breath.

“You lost, friend?” I growled.

He spun, startled — dropped a rusty crowbar at his feet. Eyes wide, teeth yellow.

“Hey man— I was just— I thought—”

I grabbed a fistful of his grimy collar and slammed him back against the barn wall, low enough not to wake the kids.

“You picked the wrong damn farm, bud.”

His knees knocked together, stammering something about just needing cash, just needing to feed a habit.

I heard none of it. My mind was already on the girl in that house. The kids upstairs. The line I’d drawn around them that nobody would cross.

I pressed my forearm into his throat just enough to feel him wheeze. “You see this place again? You’ll wish the cops got you first.”

He nodded, eyes wide, tears leaking down the sides of his dirty face.

I pushed ten dollars into his hand and shoved him toward the road, booted him once in the ass for good measure. “Run.”

He ran.

And under the old oak, Tornado watched the whole thing like my personal backup.