Page 65 of Warrior Security
The nightmares hadn’t stopped. They’d gotten less frequent, but Lark had been lying in this bed on the bad nights, watching Tova end up on my chest and pull me back from wherever I went. More than once. Enough times that she’d stopped asking if I was okay afterward and started just putting her hand on my chest until my breathing leveled out.
She’d seen what I carried at night and decided I didn’t have room for what she was carrying too.
The fact that she might not be entirely wrong burned more than if she’d been completely off base, and I fucking hated myself for it.
There was no way sleep was coming tonight, so I did what I’d done early on at Pawsitive when sleep wouldn’t come. I got up, pulled on boots and a jacket, and went outside.
Lark didn’t stir.
The property had its own life after midnight. The barn settling into its frame, a low murmur from one of the horses, the tree line along the south boundary solid against the sky. I walked past the paddock, past the equipment shed, heading toward the back pasture without a plan beyond putting my feet in motion and hoping my head would follow.
I still didn’t know how to bring up the letter. If I led with the fact that she’d hidden it, the conversation would become about my hurt, and that wasn’t the point. The point was whether we were actually doing this the way we said we were.
Together.
I was somewhere between the barn and the south fence line when I saw the lights.
Low. Near the ground. On the back acreage, close to where the access road came in from the county route. Two sources, maybe covered headlights, maybe flashlights. They were near the south boundary, close to the stretch of fence I’d found cut weeks ago.
Moving.
Not kids. Kids didn’t run covered headlights at two in the morning on someone else’s land. This was exactly what Hunter had told me to watch for. Activity. People on the property. Vehicles moving. His words:you see that, you call me, day or night.
Fuck. My phone was on the nightstand next to Lark’s bed.
I started moving toward the south fence line, keeping low, staying out of the open. I’d get closer. Get a count. Get some useful intel. Then get back to the house and make the call.
That was when I saw someone else. A figure crossing the open ground toward the back boundary. Fast. Coming from the direction of the house.
Goddamn it, it was Lark.
She’d probably woken up, gone looking for me, and had seen the same lights I had.
She was heading straight for them, and she had no idea what she was walking into. She thought this was trespassers, maybe kids, something she could deal with by walking up and telling them to get the hell off her land. She didn’t know about the drug operation running through the county. She didn’t know her back acreage fit the profile of every staging point they’d been using.
She didn’t know because I’d never told her.
I ran toward her. Yelling wasn’t an option. At best, it was going to scare them off and we’d never catch them. That was, if they didn’t shoot first and ask questions later.
I had to reach her before she reached them.
I had a head start. I was closer to the boundary than she was, off to her east. I cut sideways across the open ground, angling to intercept her before she reached the tree line.
It was going to be close. I pushed for more speed.
There was no way to do this gently and not let her be seen by the drug runners. I hit her in a low-flying tackle and twisted midair to take her weight, and we both went down hard about twenty yards from the tree line, my back absorbing the ground and her body landing on top of mine. I got my hand over her mouth before she could make a sound.
She fought. Hard.
Her elbow drove into my ribs. Her teeth found the heel of my hand and bit down hard enough that I nearly let go. She was twisting under me, all fury and adrenaline, and I deserved every bit of it because a woman who just got tackled and pinned at two in the morning had every right to do damage.
“Lark.” I kept my voice barely above a whisper. “It’s me. You have to be quiet.”
She froze. Her breath came ragged against my palm. Her whole body was shaking.
I took my hand off her mouth. She shoved me sideways and scrambled back, putting distance between us.
“Logan?” Her whisper was raw. She was already on her feet. “What the hell are you doing?”
