But Riley Hart might just be the one opponent I can't defeat.
4
RILEY
The kitchen is a disaster, blackened peppers floating in the sink, the acrid smell of burnt food lingering in the air. I stare at Elias's broad back as he scrubs the ruined pan, muscles tensed beneath his flannel shirt. He hasn't looked at me since our confrontation on the porch, since I touched his face and dared him to deny what's between us.
Since he walked away.
"I'll order pizza," I say, my voice still tight with frustration. "Delivery might take a while getting up the mountain, but?—"
"We don't need to order anything." He doesn't turn around. "There's stew in the freezer. I'll heat it up."
The strained formality in his voice makes me want to scream. To grab him by those impossibly broad shoulders and shake him until he stops pretending.
Instead, I move past him to retrieve bowls from the cabinet, careful not to let our bodies touch. "Fine. Stew it is."
We work in tense silence, Elias thawing and heating the stew while I set the table. The domesticity of it feels both wrong andright, wrong because of the distance between us, right because being here, in his space, feels natural despite everything.
When we finally sit down to eat, the silence becomes unbearable.
"Brad won't be a problem," I say, desperate to break the tension. "He's all talk."
Elias's blue eyes finally meet mine across the table. "Men like Cooper don't give up easily."
"I'm not afraid of him."
"You should be." His fingers tighten around his spoon. "His type is dangerous precisely because he's predictable. Entitled. Used to getting what he wants."
"Sounds like you've dealt with his kind before."
A shadow crosses his face. "In the Rangers. In this job. Men who think rules don't apply to them."
I study him, seeing beyond the hard exterior to the experiences that shaped him. Dad had told me some stories about their military days, but I know there are others, darker ones, that he took to his grave.
"What did you do? In the Rangers?"
His jaw tightens. "Things I don't talk about."
"Not even with Dad?"
"Bill knew. He was there for most of it." Elias takes a bite of stew, clearly hoping I'll drop the subject.
But I can't. Not tonight. Not when I need to understand the man behind the walls.
"He never told me much about your time overseas," I press gently. "Just that you saved his life once. That he wouldn't have made it home without you."
Surprise flickers across Elias's face. "He said that?"
"Many times." I offer a small smile. "He idolized you, you know. Thought you hung the moon."
Something like pain crosses his features. "Bill was the better man. Always was."
"He didn't think so." I set down my spoon, leaning forward. "What happened between you two? Why did you both leave the Rangers?"
Elias is quiet for so long I think he won't answer. Then he sighs, a sound that carries the weight of decades.
"Kandahar, 2005. Routine patrol turned ambush." His voice drops, becomes distant. "Bill took a bullet meant for me. Nearly died. I carried him twelve miles to the extraction point."
