Page 1 of The Marriage Mission

ChapterOne

The familiar grip of tension seized Noah Henri as he surveyed the landscape. The air was thick, laden with the residue of battles past, each corner shadowed with potential dangers. It was a scene of neglect, a territory where chaos reigned supreme, untouched by the hand of order for what might have been eons.

Noah wasn't big on hyperbole, which he knew the wordeonsto be. The building hadn't stood for an indefinite period of time. It was thirty years old, having been erected the same year he was born. The exterior was well kept and inviting. But on the inside, it was dark and twisted.

Huh. So maybe it was a bit more like him than he'd originally thought.

His eyes, trained to spot danger in its many forms, immediately honed in on the enemy—wires, like coiled serpents, sprawled haphazardly across the battlefield. They twisted around aging machinery, their frayed and exposed innards a loud witness to the ravages of time and inattention. It was a minefield of electrical hazards, each step potentially his last.

The smell of the frontline enveloped him—a mix of burnt offerings and the acrid tang of grease, lingering like the ghost of assaults long finished. The sounds of the last stand, though absent, echoed in his mind: the clang of pots and pans, the sizzle of meat on the grill, the frantic calls of comrades in arms. This kitchen was no place for the faint-hearted. The equipment, veterans of countless meals, stood worn and weary, their once gleaming surfaces dulled and scarred by the skirmishes of daily service.

With a thud, Noah dropped his work bag on the floor, surprised to find it gleaming enough to eat off of. Not that he would. He knew this restaurant, Chow Town, came with a bunch of stars given from people who sat on the other side of the wall every night in this small town. He had come in through the back. The door had been opened by one of his military brothers.

"It's not pretty in there. But I knew you were the man for the job." That was all Fish had said.

Sergeant Min-ho Pike was a man of few words, which was likely why Noah didn't mind returning to the man's company. He wasn't one for company these days, either. Not after…

Noah gave a shake of his head, not letting those flashes of memories invade his mind. Flashbacks were the walking nightmares of veterans.

"You good, Henry?"

"Yeah, Fish."

"Let me know if you need anything. Gotta get back to the vegetables."

It was still odd to hear the big man say things like that. Noah was used to watching Fish handle heavy weapons of machine guns, mortars, and anti-tank weapons. Now he was chopping potatoes and carrots. That knife did look sharp enough to garrote a man, though.

"Just stay out of Chef Chou's way," Fish called as he palmed the knife.

"Is he here?"

"She. And yes, she's always here."

"But don't worry," called another line cook. "The lights will flicker and there'll be a loud boom before she appears."

The other cooks and workers chuckled. But quietly. As though they believed the walls were listening.

Fish wasn't laughing. The man looked dead serious. Back in their Army days, they'd had fierce female drill sergeants and team leaders, so Noah knew the man had a healthy appreciation for women in leadership. If this woman got under his skin enough to warrant a warning, she must be something else.

Noah turned back to the task at hand. The wiring of the restaurant was packed out of sight behind a wall and also up in a crawl space. He decided to tackle the crawl space first. He'd seen what was behind the wall. He didn't hope for any more organization than the disarray he'd already seen.

Disorder was an anathema to someone like him. As an EOD specialist who handled explosives, Noah liked order. Thrived on it. Things were either black or white. Ones or zeros. Live wires or duds.

Up in the crawl space, his movements were deliberate, mindful of the booby traps hidden in the shadows. The strategy was clear: assess, dismantle, rebuild. He would need to marshal all his skills for this operation, every lesson hard-earned in the field now critical. His hands, steady despite the adrenaline, were ready to defuse the situation, to bring order back to this forsaken place.

He had been hired not as a soldier but as an electrician, brought in to tame the wild, outdated wiring, to make this restaurant safe for the civilians who enjoyed the fare. The irony wasn't lost on him—a man who had faced down the threat of real bombs now tasked with defusing the metaphorical ones lurking in the walls of a small-town eatery.

Better this than having lives in his hands again. Better to work alone than forge any new friendships. Even though the people in this small town kept trying, despite his only having been here for two days.

The desk clerk at the hotel continued to try and make small talk with him, seemingly undeterred by Noah's grunts or silence. The teen at the gas station eyed him with open curiosity and big eyes like a puppy hoping for a scratch behind the ears. Even Fish was friendlier than usual. Noah had actually gotten a few sentences out of him when the man had been mostly silent the whole five years he'd known him before. What was with this place?

He didn't care. He wasn't going to stay around long enough to find out. He'd get this job done. Pack his stuff and move on. Jack Reacher style.

Except Noah carried around more than a toothbrush. And he was vain enough to want a few changes of clothes that he kept in a suitcase. And he drove a new Ford truck instead of hitchhiking or taking buses. Other than that, he had no attachments. Couldn't afford them. Not after.

He gave another shake of his head to ward off the flashes of memory. Then Noah set to work. The battlefield inside the crawl space transformed before his eyes, from a zone of danger to an orderly grid. It would take another crew three weeks to do the job. Working alone, after hours, it would take Noah a week. Ten days tops. He was that good.

Noah knelt among a tangle of wires under the dim glow of his flashlight, tools spread out around him like a surgeon's instruments. The air was rich with the smell of brewing coffee and the early whispers of cinnamon. He was focused on the wiring, the quiet click of his wire strippers slicing through the silence, when the sound of a frustrated voice drifted up toward him.

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