The driver answered straight away.“Yes, sir.Pinedale.Located an hour’s drive northeast of Obsidian Ridge.Arrival in under four hours.”
He leaned back and closed his eyes, the tablet still resting in his hand.A smile touched his lips, thin and humorless.They would set themselves up in Pinedale and start to build the picture of a man with mental health issues, who needed help.A man who couldn’t be trusted to make his own decisions, that perhaps, he had been coerced to come to Obsidian Ridge and that he was there against his will.The colonel would set the scene properly.
“Time to bring my boy home.”
Chapter Five
Three weeks later,Eli stood in the kitchenette of his small barracks studio, staring into a half-full mug of coffee like it might offer up the answers to questions he wasn’t ready to ask out loud.
Three weeks since the therapy session that turned into a kiss that turned into something more—long swims, late-night conversations, stolen touches in quiet corners, and kisses that lingered just a little too long to be casual.It was soft.It was slow.And it scared the hell out of him.
Not because it wasn’t good.But because it was too good.
And too good never lasted.
He shook the thought away, sipping his coffee, his body still humming with the buzz of morning laps.Marsh had opted to skip the pool that morning, tinkering with something in the lab, but Eli had swum alone, using the time to breathe, to center.
Or at least he had tried to.
The sun slanted in through the window, casting long shadows over the desk where his rehab program proposal sat half-drafted.He’d been working on it between sessions, building a case for a specialized aquatic therapy wing on the Ridge.Ezra had been quietly enthusiastic about the idea.Quietly enthusiastic was Ezra-speak for hell, yes, let’s do this.
His eyes drifted toward the sketch he’d made the night before—a blueprint for a hydrotherapy pool with privacy lanes and sensory-adaptive lighting.Marsh had teased him about the lighting notes, calling them ‘spa vibes,’ but Eli had caught the way his mouth quirked, how his eyes softened.
He’d come a long way from the bitter, closed-off man in the chair.
And maybe Eli had helped.Just a little.
He set the mug down and wandered to the window.From here, he could just make out the edge of Marsh’s lab, its wide bay door cracked open to let in the morning light.The memory hit without warning—sharp and warm.
It was two weeks ago and Eli stood in the doorway to Marsh’s lab, listening to the man cursing.Loudly
Eli, one brow raised, arms crossed.“You know, some people say talking sweet to the prosthetic helps it cooperate.”
Marsh glared at him.“This thing was fitted when I was still high as hell on morphine.It’s useless now.”
“Let me see,” Eli said, walking over and crouching down beside where Marsh sat, the old socket and limb laid out like an autopsy.
