Page 57 of Shared By the Mountain Men Triplets

Boone lowers his eyes for a second, and Cade’s stare looks wounded, making my stomach twist.

“Careful,” Rhett says.

“I am being careful. That’s the whole point. But you wouldn’t have questioned a command just because the safest option was to walk away from a mission.”

“The difference is, you’re not expendable.”

Cade’s words hit like a blow, because it sounds like he knows exactly what being expendable feels like.

“I didn’t say I was.” My voice is lower, but still determined. “I’m not trying to make this sound risk-free. I know what I’m asking you to accept.”

“You’re not asking,” Rhett says.

“No,” I admit. “I’m not.”

A few different things flicker in his eyes. Definitely frustration, probably respect, and maybe even a furious kind of pride he doesn’t want to admit.

“I’m not going to sit in the cabin while bureaucratic gears slowly turn. If my work can help take him down sooner, I’m going to do my part.”

Boone says my name quietly, and I look at him.

“We’re not trying to take that from you,” he says.

“Aren’t you?”

Boone absorbs the hit without flinching, then shakes his head. “No. We’re trying not to picture what happens if you’re out there and we get to you too late.”

His words are raw, and I go quiet for a couple of minutes, studying my map without really seeing it.

Eventually, the conversation continues, and near the end, the three men exchange looks, seemingly having another entire conversation with each other with no words required.

Instead of feeling shut out, I think Ihave a good understanding of what they’re saying. They’re either deciding how to let me win, or figuring out how to survive losing.

Rhett turns back to me. “You continue the survey under conditions. You don’t go into the backcountry alone.”

“I don’t remember agreeing to conditions.”

His eyes hold mine. “If you want to treat this like an operation, then you get operational protocols.”

“It’s a comms plan,” Cade says. He looks hard again, like a man who could disappear into a ridgeline and decide the fate of anyone below it.

“It’s not us giving you permission,” Boone says. “It’s accountability.”

Rhett’s attention never leaves me. “You will not enter the backcountry alone. One of us shadows you close enough to reach you in minutes.”

I open my mouth, but he cuts me off with a lifted finger. It should infuriate me, and it does, but it also makes my pulse pound for different reasons.

Rhett proceeds to give me his “operational protocols,” which are a lot like the preparation before I went out at night with Cade secretly shadowing me, only now there are even more rules and double the warnings.

When Boone talks about the extra safety gear they’ll want me to take, and I protest carrying a heavier pack, his charm gives way to seriousness.

“Losing you isn’t negotiable for us,” he says.

I glance down at the map again, which is one of theirs, and notice how my markings share space with theirs. Something about the way they’ve integrated my work with theirs reminds me that these three former Rangers aren’t arguing with me because they doubt my competence, but because they know competent people can get killed when they rely on luck.

They’re setting out the kind of protocols they would when someone matters to the mission and to the team. I’m no longer just their client or their responsibility.

I’m part of their unit.