Page 24 of The Tracker (Cowboys of Silver Spur Security #5)

DAWSON

D awson hadn’t slept. Not really. After Jesse’s message, he was certain Ana wasn’t working alone and someone knew they were closing in. His mind had stayed sharp even as his body held Evangeline’s through the night.

Morning crept in through the blinds like a threat, not a comfort.

The air was heavy with anticipation, tension wound tight along his spine.

Outside, the world was unnaturally still—no traffic, no birds, just the low hum of an AC unit and that dense, watchful silence that comes before a storm.

Every instinct warned him that something was off, that something was coming.

Evangeline stirred beside him just before dawn. Words hadn’t been necessary—they’d reached for each other in the dark, drawn together by heat and need, leaving no space for anything but touch. But now, daylight pressed in, demanding decisions.

He rose, leaving the warmth of the bed, and moved to the edge of the hallway, arms crossed as he watched her pad naked toward the kitchen.

Morning light caught her bare back, illuminating the faint rope marks he’d left behind—marks he’d wanted to see, reminders of everything that had changed between them.

Last night had changed something. Not just between them—but in him.

Something had unlatched deep in his chest, a pressure valve he didn’t know existed.

Her trust, her surrender—it had settled into his bones like truth.

He felt it now, heavy and unsettling: the pull to protect her not because it was the job, but because it was personal.

For the longest time sex had been transactional for him—not prostitution, but two people fulfilling a need for a few sessions maybe more. Fast, forgettable nights with clean exits. But it had never been that way with Evangeline. She had found the cracks and widened them.

She hadn’t just warmed his bed—she’d stayed.

And that meant more than he’d expected. For the first time in years, he felt like he could finally exhale.

He remembered a different woman and a mistake that had cost him everything, but pushed the thought aside.

This was different. Evangeline didn’t hide her fire—she shared it with him, and he found himself wanting more.

Evangeline stopped at the coffee maker, her fingers hovering over the buttons, then glanced back at him over her shoulder with a teasing flick of her eyes. "You’re staring." Her voice carried a sleepy drawl, but there was amusement woven in, like she already knew exactly what he was thinking.

"You’re naked," he replied, voice low and rough.

"You expecting modesty now?" She smirked—no, not smirked, she smiled with bite—and turned back around with that slow sway of her hips that made him want to throw her over the counter and start all over again.

But there wasn’t time. He checked the front lock again, scanned the shadows along the floor for movement. His phone stayed silent, but his instincts weren’t. They whispered danger was coming—soon.

He pushed off the doorframe and crossed to the table, grabbing his phone.

No new messages from Jesse yet, but that didn’t mean things were quiet.

Langley was dirty. Ana was either a pawn or a traitor.

But who else stood to gain? Dawson mentally ticked through the board—Langley was obvious, but there were others with motive.

That jackass from accounting who’d been too nosy about international contracts.

The legal chief who refused to chase down the paper trail on Peter’s projects.

Hell, maybe even someone in marketing—the leak could’ve started anywhere.

But only a few had access, and fewer had the balls to silence Rhodes.

He needed names. Connections. Movement. Peter Rhodes had been silenced.

And someone wanted Evangeline to take the fall. The web was tightening.

"We need to talk," he said, setting the phone down. "And not about how good you look wearing nothing."

She poured coffee into a mug, no cream, just how he liked it, and for a split second, something twisted in his gut.

That she remembered, that she noticed, made his chest pull tight.

It wasn’t just the familiarity—it was the intimacy of it, the quiet way she knew him without asking.

And he didn’t know if that comforted him or scared the hell out of him.

She walked it over. "Then talk, cowboy."

He took the mug but didn’t drink. “Langley’s been dirty for years,” Dawson said.

“Back when I was still with the Rangers, his name came up in a defense contract that went sideways—phony shell corporations, missing funds. The case vanished before it ever reached an audit. Another time, I heard his firm had used insider info to corner a market before a major acquisition. Perfectly legal, if you didn’t mind getting your hands dirty.

Langley always had people to bury things—he knows how to cover his tracks.

But Rhodes getting killed? That was a message.

Someone inside Shaw is helping cover it up. ”

Evangeline sat down opposite him, her expression sharpening.

Dawson watched her carefully, noting the way her jaw set, the flicker of steel in her gaze.

There was no panic—just resolve. And something in him tightened, equal parts admiration and fear.

She was walking straight into the fire with him, no hesitation.

That kind of courage didn’t come without cost, and it made him want to shield her even more.

"You think it’s about more than the leak."

"It’s not a leak. It’s a purge," Dawson said flatly. "Rhodes was expendable. So is anyone else who steps in the way. That includes you."

She held his stare. Brave. Stubborn. "Then we step out of the way. We hit back."

Dawson leaned in, his tone shifting. "You’re not the one with the training. You’re not the one with the weapon. You’re not the one who knows what a hit looks like. This isn’t PR. This is war."

Her chin lifted. “And I’m a born-and-bred Texan with a concealed carry license, steady aim, and more backbone than most of the suits I’ve had to deal with. Are you going to keep underestimating me, or are we doing this together?”

Something dark and heated curled in his gut. Hell, he liked her like this. Fire and steel.

But liking her didn’t make her bulletproof.

He stood, circled the table, and gently caught her chin in his hand. “Then you follow my lead. In every room. On every call.”

Her life might have been built on press kits and careful optics, but what they were walking into didn’t care how well she could spin a story.

The words came out as instinct, as training—yet a quiet thread of guilt ran through them.

She wasn’t a soldier. She hadn’t signed up for any of this.

Still, here he was, asking her to step into a world where the rules were brutal and the risks were real.

“No freelance heroics, Evvy,” he continued. “You run point with me, or you don’t run at all.”

Her breath caught. She nodded. "Fine. But if someone starts shooting, I’m not ducking behind you. I’m shooting back."

Dawson’s mouth twitched. "Good girl."

Her pupils flared.

And just like that, the air shifted.

“You don’t get to win every argument just because you’re barefoot and naked,” he said, his voice low.

She raised an eyebrow, mouth curving. “That’s a bold statement from a man who just called me ‘good girl.’”

His grip tightened. “Keep talking like that, and I’ll make sure you can’t sit through your next board meeting.

” The mug clattered as it hit the table.

Her hands went to his chest, palms flat.

He didn’t kiss her. Not yet. He needed her to feel it—his command, his restraint, the promise in every inch of his body pressed to hers.

"Bedroom," he said.

She opened her mouth, sass ready to fly, already forming something wicked on her tongue—but then she saw his eyes.

Heat and hunger warred with something deeper—command, possession, promise.

It cut through her bravado like a blade.

Her breath hitched, the retort dying unspoken. She swallowed hard and went.

He followed. Her hips rolled just enough as she walked that it burned his restraint. He wanted to toss her over his shoulder, growl out a warning, fuck the danger out of both of them. But control was everything. He wanted her soft but willing, trembling but brave.

Dawson didn’t stop her with commands this time—he watched.

His pulse thudded in his throat, hands flexing at his sides with the effort it took to stay still.

Every nerve in his body felt coiled tight, waiting to snap.

This wasn’t about control anymore—it was about need, heavy and alive, crackling under his skin like static.

Evangeline turned, chest rising and falling, her eyes were wide, pupils dark, but there was steel behind them.

He stepped closer, slower than before, letting his presence fill the room like a storm rolling in. "You’re not afraid of me," he said.

She shook her head. "No. I’m afraid of what you make me want."

Dawson closed the distance and took her face in his hands—not gentle, not rough.

Just real. "Then we’re even." His voice was gruff, but there was a flicker of something raw beneath it—like evening the scales was his way of hiding how deep this went. He wasn’t ready to say what she meant to him.

Maybe he didn’t even know yet. But this?

This was him protecting whatever it was, in the only way he knew how.

He kissed her with a bruising intensity, more heat than finesse, like a claim staked in flesh and breath.

It wasn’t a question. It was a declaration—of need, of control, of something unspoken tightening between them like wire drawn taut.

She gasped, her nails digging into his arms, and he growled against her mouth.

She stood before him, breathing like she’d run a mile.

“On your knees,” he said.