Page 71 of Grumpy Ex-Military Brewmaster’s Secret

"He's right," she says, once we've hung up. "I need this handled the way that actually protects us in court, not the way that makes you feel better standing guard with a flashlight."

"I know he's right. Doesn't mean the flashlight plan doesn't sound better to the half of me still wired for doing exactly this kind of thing for a living."

"I love that part of you. I just also need the part of you that knows when to let a professional handle it." She holds my eyes, steady. "Both parts. That's who I need tonight."

"Copy that."

Gunny turns up at the brewery within the hour carrying a canvas bag I recognize with a sinking feeling, and by the time Cole swings by to check the camera installation himself, Gunny's already got a hand-drawn diagram taped to the back office wall, complete with sightlines, a proposed rotation schedule for "overwatch shifts," and an arrow labeled FALLBACK POSITION pointing at the walk-in cooler.

"Absolutely not," Cole says, studying the diagram with the resigned patience of a man who's clearly talked Gunny down from some other imagined crisis before, more than once, years back.

"It's a solid plan."

"It's a plan for repelling an armed assault on a brewery, Gunny. This is a man who drinks decaf and hasn't broken a single law."

"Today."

"Today's all we've got jurisdiction over." Cole pulls the diagram down, folds it in half with the calm efficiency of a man handling a toddler's crayon drawing, and hands it back. "Go put your energy into making sure the actual camera's aimed at the actual door. That's the assignment."

Gunny grumbles the whole walk to the back door, muttering something about civilians never appreciating proper threat assessment, and I catch Jenna fighting a smile over his shoulder, the first real one I've seen from her all day.

It's late by the time the lights are up and the camera's mounted and the twins are finally down, both of us collapsed on the couch in the particular silence that comes after a day spent handling everything except the actual fear underneath it. Jenna's phone buzzes on the coffee table, and I watch her whole body go still before she even picks it up, some instinct in her already bracing before her conscious mind catches up.

She reads it once. Her face doesn't change right away, which somehow scares me more than if it had.

"What is it?"

She turns the screen toward me without a word.

I'll fight for what's mine.

I read it twice, then a third time, then a fourth, watching the words rearrange themselves and land on the same meaning every time. Two days before a holiday built around love, and here's a man reaching across three states with six words meant to sound reasonable and land like a threat anyway.

"Document it," I say, quiet, already reaching for my own phone to photograph the screen before anything can happen to it. "Send it to Cole tonight. Send it to Priya first thing."

Jenna doesn't answer right away, just stares at the words like she's daring them to mean something different the fifth time through, and I put my arm around her and draw her in close against me, steady, present, exactly the man she needs tonight instead of the one who wants to drive three states over and end this himself.

"Two days," she says finally, quiet. "Two days until Valentine's Day, and this is what shows up instead of flowers."

"We're not letting him have that day too." I press a kiss into her hair, meaning every word of it. "Whatever he thinks he's fighting for, he's not getting it. Not while I'm still standing here."

She turns her phone face down on the coffee table, the same motion I've made a hundred times myself over the years, and leans into me like she's borrowing some of whatever steadiness I've got left to spare tonight. I've got plenty. I intend to keep it that way for as long as this takes.

Outside the window the porch light Cole helped me angle catches the first thin snow of the night, and somewhere three states away a man who thinks a text message counts as a plan has no idea what he's actually up against.

35

JENNA

Iwake up determined, which is not the same thing as waking up unafraid, but it's close enough to work with. Derek does not get today. I decided that around midnight, lying awake staring at the ceiling, and I wake up still holding onto it.

The porch light's still burning from last night's new motion sensor when I step outside for the mail, and a patrol car rolls past slow enough to be visible and not slow enough to look like anything, Cole's version of a good morning wave. I lift a hand anyway. Small towns take care of their own. Even the parts of this one that used to feel unbearably nosy read differently to me now, less like gossip and more like a net stretched under me that I didn't know was there until I actually needed it.

At breakfast the twins are both vibrating with the specific energy of kids who've spent a week gluing paper hearts to shoeboxes, Eli narrating his entire valentine strategy like a man briefing a supply drop.

"I'm giving the dinosaur ones to the boys and the unicorn ones to the girls," he explains, entirely serious, buttering toast with the focus of a surgeon. "Except Marcus. Marcus gets a dinosaur one even though he's kind of annoying, because that's the rule. Everybody gets one."

"That's a good rule."