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D-Day muttered, “That’s one determined bastard.

”But that’s a Navy SEAL in action. Strung out on meds, stealing hospital scrubs, most likely, ninjaing his phone back from a sleeping, lethal CO with the same skills, like taking candy from a baby.

Yeah, we’re in the midst of Operation Lovesick, and he’s owning our asses.

Wounded, recovering…damn, LT. You gotta give him props. ”

I’m going to give him a boot in his ass,” Joker said.

Buck looked at them both. “Sounds like we’re forming a posse, boys.”

“You bringing rope, Buck?”

Buck laughed. “I’ll take any chance I get to rope that son of a bitch, but no, he’s wounded and lovesick. I do have a heart.”

“Even if it is two sizes too small.” D-Day deadpanned.

Bear winced as he laughed. “Dammit, get out of here before you break open my stitches. I need updates.”

Joker’s jaw ticked. “We’re not letting him pull this stunt alone.”

Bear, still reeling, exhaled. “He’s high on Everly crack, cut him some slack.”

Buck grinned, tossing Bear’s phone back on the bed. “Exactly why we’re going after that outlaw pain in the ass.” He looked at the others. “Let’s ride.”

Bunawan District Hospital, Agusan del Sur province, on the island of Mindanao, Philippines – Twenty-Four Hours Later

Everly watched her final patient leave with a nod and a thank-you that barely registered.

The door clicked shut, and the silence that followed felt heavier than it should have.

Her smile, the one she’d pasted on all day, fell away the moment her face was alone again.

It had only lived in her facial muscles anyway.

She pulled out her phone.

Three more texts from Zorro. She had kept her responses short so he would rest. Her heart clenched so hard it felt like someone had gripped it in their fist and squeezed.

She set her hands on the gurney, fingers splaying wide, grounding herself in the cold metal while everything in her threatened to come unglued.

Zorro.

Going down.

The weight of his body as it collapsed. The way she had killed that man to protect him, fast, brutal, surgical. She still saw it when she closed her eyes. Heard the blade hit bone. She’d had nightmares. Still did. But she couldn’t regret it. She wouldn’t.

She had always known what he was. What he did.

The kind of force he carried in every muscle of his body.

She’d seen it up close now, the way he moved when lives were on the line, the power he wielded, not just to destroy but to protect.

That was what undid her. That was the part that shook her to her marrow.

This was the man she loved.

The man she wasn’t sure she could live without.

Her body trembled with the need to see him, to touch him, to reassure herself he was alive.

She knew she was driving him crazy. Again.

But she had to leave. She hated it but she’d had no choice.

She wasn’t going to tell him what she needed to tell him over text or the phone, especially not until she had clarity.

Not this thundering ache that clouded every decision.

But it hurt. God, it hurt. Her flight left in four hours, and she wished she could sprout wings and just fly to him now.

If it hadn’t been for finishing out her contract with Doctors for the World, she would have been in San Diego already. Sitting beside his hospital bed, fingers tangled with his, making jokes about sponge baths and bad cable.

In Rio, before she left, Joker’s team had returned to the field.

BOPE had gone back in after Black Dawn. The insurgent cell was shattered, Batiste dead, taken down when Bear had rescued Bailee the first time.

It could have been worse—should have been worse.

But it hadn’t been because of his team, because of that impossible unity she had only ever seen the surface of in Niamey.

In Rio, she had lived inside it. It had marked her forever.

“Hey, chica ,” came a voice behind her, low and warm and impossible. “You look like someone needs to take the world off your shoulders.”

She froze. Her breath caught.

She turned.

Zorro stood in the doorway, dressed in light blue scrubs. Right in the same exam room where she’d once told him not to touch her, and now, all she wanted were those hands on her, everywhere, grounding her, saving her from herself.

She eyed his clothes. “You’re supposed to be in the goddamned hospital. What did you do?”

He shrugged, wincing, favoring his left side. “Okay, okay. Maybe all I can handle is a beach ball on my nose right now.” He gave her a sheepish grin, eyes twinkling with that mischievous glint that no woman, probably not even his mother, could resist.

He swayed slightly.

She was across the room in a flash, arms around him, holding him upright and anchoring herself in the same motion.

“Oh yeah,” he breathed. “That’s much better than a beach ball or a heavy world.”

She sobbed into his neck, her hands fisting the fabric of his shirt.

“Ah, Everly…”

She grabbed the front of his shirt and shook him, tears hot in her throat. “You scared me,” she snapped. “You were doing your job, and you scared the shit out of me.”

Then she saw the blood.

“Damn it. Come here.” She guided him, none too gently, to the gurney and pushed him down. She pulled his shirt off without preamble, dragging it over his head. His molasses eyes tracked her hands, full of honeyed heat and something even deeper, something that made her chest clench.

“You ripped your damn stitches,” she growled. “They were healing so well.”

“Ouch,” he muttered, mostly amused. “I packed my own med kit. Ran out of painkillers after my driver ran over that damn bumpy road.”

“Do not be charming, Martinez,” she warned, her tone snapping like Joker’s when his team acted out. “I swear to God, I’ll sedate you with a mallet.”

He opened his mouth. She gave him the Look .

He wisely shut it.

She ripped off the bandage. He winced, but the smile stayed.

“You kissed me in all that chaos and blood and death…” His voice softened. “I’ve never felt more alive.”

She grabbed the lidocaine and injected it around the wound. He didn’t flinch this time, just watched her. His eyes said everything that was in her heart.

She snipped out the ruined stitches, jaw clenched tight and started again.

As she threaded the last one, he whispered, “Everly. I tried to be patient. I know what I do scares the hell out of most people.”

She exhaled through her nose. “I’m not most people.”

“No. You’re not.”

She covered the wound with a fresh bandage, and then there was nothing left to do but face him.

“I saw you,” she said quietly. “Uncle Sam’s weapon.”

“That side scared you?” His pinched face evened out as the anesthetic took effect.

She shook her head. “No. Your selflessness does. You give and give and give. Can you, just once, think about yourself? You deserve that.”

A breath. Her voice broke slightly on the next line, almost tender despite the sarcasm. “How many Navy Crosses do you need , exactly?”

His eyes sparked. “Wait. Was that a joke? At my expense? I’m so proud of you.”

She smacked his arm. He winced, then grinned.

“I’m just kidding. It’s numb. Doesn’t hurt.” He made one of those faces that realized he’d pushed Buck too far. “You don’t have a rope around here anywhere, um, do you, cowgirl?”

She laughed, exhausted and breaking.

“I don’t know whether to kiss you, fuck you, or ask you to marry me,” she muttered.

“All of the above an option?”

“Martinez—”

He cupped her face in both hands and drew her toward him.

“I couldn’t stay in that bed. Not without knowing.

” She buried her hands in his hair, clenched the strands in her fists while her heart rolled over and over.

“Tell me you’re coming home with me. I’ll leave the Navy.

” She stiffened. “I’ll follow you wherever you go.

I’ll…hell, Everly, I don’t know how to breathe without you anymore. Please. Just…come home with me.”

He rested his forehead against her collarbone, his voice breaking. “I love you, querida . More than my own life. I know that scares you, but it’s just the truth. I’ll give it all up for you.”

She trembled, her whole body aching from the magnitude of what he’d just given her.

Lifting his face with both hands, she looked him dead in the eyes, and said, “No.”

His expression went white and bleak.

She smiled softly. “I would never ask you to leave the Teams. That’s your choice to make. Whatever you choose, I’ll stand beside you. I’ve accepted an administrative position with an NGO in San Diego. UCSD offered me Chief of Surgery…and a teaching post.”

Zorro blinked. Hard.

“I’m coming home, Mateo. I’m building a life with you, your team, their wives, your family.

I’ll be there when you come back from wherever you go.

With your brothers. Every time. I’ll be there.

With my heart. My body. My love.” She kissed him, slow and certain.

“I’ll weather distance and danger and every fear that ever lived inside me because you’re worth it. Eres mi hogar . You’re my home.”

He exhaled like he hadn’t breathed in days. “Damn…that world just got a fuck-ton lighter.”

She pulled back. “I have stipulations.”

“Oh, counselor . Do tell.”

“One, you call me querida at least once a day. Two, I expect dirty talk in Spanish. Three, weekly dinners with your family. Dani’s already got me booked for coffee. Four—” She leaned in, grinning. “I want to ride Bear’s Paint. That’s nonnegotiable.”

“That horse only listens to him.”

She raised a brow. “He said he’s waiting for a rider with a storm in her heart.”

Zorro groaned. “Fucking Bear. Should I be jealous?”

“Yes. He’s handsome. Quiet. I think he has a teepee.”

Zorro’s jaw dropped. “I’m going to murder him and bury him in that damn teepee.”

Down the hall there was a deafening roar. “ Fuck-ing Mar-tin-ez! Where are you? ”

Zorro stiffened. “That sounded like my LT. Quick, hide me. You’re only in trouble if you get caught.”