She’d been at it for over an hour. Bent over her sketchbook at the table, charcoal pencil moving across the page in quick, economical strokes. She’d barely moved except to turn pages, her focus absolute. This was how she processed things too big for words.
The grief was still there. He could see it in the careful control of her posture, the way she held her shoulders like they might break if she let them relax. But the immediate crisis had passed. She was functioning. That was something.
He remembered that, like him, she’d always been a morning person. Her creativity had always been at its peak as soon as she woke. She’d be so focused on her work that she’d often forget to eat.
Looking at her in the morning light, watching her disappear into her work, brought a soft smile to his lips. He’d always loved when she was unguarded like this—he just wished it was under better circumstances.
His stomach growled. Damn, he was hungry. More than that—she had to be hungry, too. When was the last time either of them had eaten? The party last night? Twelve, maybe thirteen hours ago.
He opened the refrigerator and pulled out eggs, bacon, and bread. Cooking was something he could do. Something concrete and useful that didn’t require him to navigate the complicated territory of what had happened between them in the past few hours of the morning.
The smell of bacon must have reached her because she looked up, blinking like someone coming out of a trance. Her hair was still loose around her shoulders, and she was wearing his shirt and sweatpants. In that moment, she looked so much like the Alyssa he’d known that his chest did something he refused to acknowledge.
“You’re cooking,” she said. Her voice was hoarse, raw from crying.
“You need to eat.”
“So do you.”
“Yeah.” He cracked eggs into the pan, watching them sizzle. “I do.”
She closed her sketchbook and came to the counter. “What can I do to help?”
He put her in charge of the toaster—a small, manageable thing. As the smell of food and a fresh pot of coffee filled the air, they worked in silence, the natural rhythm they’d enjoyed when they’d been together sliding into place as if they’d never been apart.
At the kitchen table, eating scrambled eggs and toast, felt both surreal and oddly normal. Like they were pretending at domesticity in the middle of a crisis, or maybe as if the crisis had forced them into a version of intimacy they’d lost the right to.
“This is good,” she said after a few bites.
He nodded. Ate. The silence stretched, but it wasn’t uncomfortable, just heavy with things neither of them was ready to say.
She broke it first. “I have a consultation scheduled with the FBI field office in Billings two weeks from now.” She was looking at her plate, not at him. “Forensic sketch artist work. Cold cases, age progressions, that kind of thing. It’s my first federal contract.” A pause. “Was, anyway.”
He heard the disappointment in her voice, understood what she wasn’t saying. Her future was on hold.
“That’s good work,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to say. “Important work.”
“I thought so.” She pushed eggs around her plate. “I wanted to prove I could do something that mattered. Something real. Not just party sketches and caricatures at festivals.” She looked up at him. “I wanted to prove I could build something on my own.”
The unspoken part hung between them. After everything fell apart. After I walked away from you.
He took a drink of coffee to give himself time to choose his words. “You did build something. This isn’t your fault.”
“Feels like it is.”
“I know.” He finished off his toast. “You’ll get through this.”
“What about you?” she asked. “What are you doing these days? Is it all undercover work with the FBI?”
The change of subject was deliberate, and he let it happen. Talking about his career was safer than talking about hers, or about blame, or about any of the other things circling them like wolves.
“Shadow Point Security is expanding. Garrett, our leader, is building out a second team to focus on undercover work and consultations with the FBI.” He set down his fork, found himself talking more than he’d planned to. “There’s a team leader position open, and I’m in contention for it. I’d run my own unit. The evaluation is in three weeks.”
Her face brightened, despite everything. “Mack, that’s—you always wanted to have your own team. I mean, I know this isn’t the Marines, but you must be excited.”
She was right. He’d talked about it when they were together, those late nights when the future had felt possible and uncomplicated. He’d been the best at his job in the Marines, and he’d loved it, but he’d always wanted more. He didn’t want to just be a sniper. He wanted to lead his own team, to have that level of responsibility and trust. He wanted to do the work that mattered without someone else making all the calls.
“Yeah,” he said.