Page 34 of Sniper's Pride

“I’m not sure I’m a communal bath sort of person,” she said. The shadow she’d seen out her window couldhave been anything. Or nothing, more likely. The doorknob twisting had been terrifying because it hadn’t been dramatic or explosive like the rest of her nightmares. And if she hadn’t found that bruise on her thigh this morning, she might have dismissed it as a new take on the same anxiety dream. But she’d pinched herself. So hard it ached when she moved. And it was all well and good to think that Griffin and his friends could help her. Protect her. But what happened when they couldn’t? When, like last night, she was on her own? “Unless there’s some kind of self-defense class along with the bathing. I think I would be up for that.”

“A martial arts bath? Like water aerobics, only with actual front kicks?”

“Maybe just the martial arts part.” Mariah smiled. “It wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world to start protecting myself. Trouble being what it is.”

Everly brightened. “Funny you should mention that. Blue’s been teaching me some things, but I’ve been thinking that he should teach them to more people. More women, I mean. This is Alaska. It can get dangerous out here in the last frontier.”

“Sign me up,” Caradine said brusquely as she stalked back out and slapped down two big mugs of coffee on the table between them. It was the very thing Mariah had wanted but hadn’t asked for, since she’d been sitting like she was in rigor mortis for the past few hours. She took hers gratefully.

Everly squinted at Caradine. “Why am I not surprised that you don’t want to sit in a nice, spring-fed hot pool, but if there’s a possibility that you could learn how to maim someone, you’re all in?”

“I don’t need to soak,” Caradine replied. With greatdignity. “I have a private shower upstairs, thank you, because I live in the twenty-first century. But I wouldn’t mind learning how to kill people with my hands.”

Everly shook her head as Caradine stomped away again, then slid into the chair across from Mariah to claim her own mug.

And now that the caffeine was doing its work and Mariah had unclenched from that fierce position she’d learned to hold for hours while David performed one of his devastatingcritiquesor while she was surrounded by the sheep-like wolves at Atlanta’s high-society dinner parties, she could focus more squarely on this overly friendly woman.

Mariah was from the South. The Deep, kudzu-choked South. The sweeter and more friendly the smile, the less she trusted it.

“Why are you doing this? Is this a Grizzly Harbor thing? An Alaska Force thing?”

Everly froze with her mug halfway to her mouth. “Which thing?”

Mariah knew the smile she gave in return down to its last contour. Polite. Nonthreatening. She’d practiced it in the mirror for years. “Is this part of the intake process? They question me officially, then you invite me to get social so you can dig deeper when I’m not expecting it to see if there are discrepancies?”

“Uh. No. None of that. I have nothing to do with what Alaska Force does. I’m with Blue, that’s all.”

“Then I don’t understand.”

Everly started to reach her hand out on the table and then stopped, as if she’d considered touching Mariah but had decided against it. And her gaze was almost uncomfortably bright.

“When I found my way to Grizzly Harbor last summer, I thought—I knew—that I was going to die. Maybe not that day. Maybe not that week. But almost certainly before the end of the summer. I remember what that feels like. I guess I just wanted to let you know that you’re not alone.”

“That’s really nice of you. Are you this nice to all of Alaska Force’s clients?”

Everly grinned. “Only the ones who go shot for shot with Caradine and walk away. Allegedly.”

Mariah felt her own smile thaw. “That’s fair.”

And after that she allowed herself to get swept along in this odd day that felt stolen. She should have died twice now, by her count. The fact that she was alive and kicking and tucked away in pretty Grizzly Harbor was a gift.

Mariah had spent so many years trying so hard to be more, better, different. It felt like some kind of liberation to simply... let herself be there. No more and no less. Nowhere to go and nothing to do.

Everly and Caradine bickered good-naturedly for a while longer, giving Mariah the impression that they did it all the time. Then Everly had set out into the village, so Mariah went with her, soaking it all in as Everly consulted with Blue via text, then decided to rouse up local interest in the self-defense class she wanted to put together. She made flyers, then posted them in the bathhouse and the general store, chatting with people she ran into along the way.

But Mariah didn’t have to charm anyone. She didn’t have to pretend that charming them was possible when she knew full well it wasn’t, the way she always had in Atlanta. Nothing was expected of her on these twistingstreets, some muddy in the spring afternoon and others made of wood that creaked satisfyingly beneath her feet. All she had to do was act like Everly’s shadow, maybe throwing in an affirmative comment or two when pressed.

This is what a safe, comfortable life feels like,she told herself. And if she was a touch too wistful, no one had to know.This is what happy looks like.

And while Everly lived out a random happy day, Mariah could simply tag along as if she were on a holiday in the other woman’s life. She didn’t have to make decisions. She didn’t have to worry, either. There was no one to impress, no one to disappoint.

And besides, every time she looked up, she saw one of Griffin’s friends. Alaska Force in action, she assumed. Impressive muscles everywhere and a matching stern, uncompromising expression.

“That’s Rory, and he wants you to see him,” Everly told her when she caught Mariah staring up at the watchful, sculpted man on the next street, higher up the hill. He’d been tailing them all over the village without ever venturing close enough for Mariah to tell if he was actually as attractive as he appeared. A requirement to join Alaska Force, apparently. “He’s brand-new, but even if he wasn’t, if any of them were really tracking us, you’d never know it.”

When Everly ducked into the post office, open for the first time since Mariah had arrived, Mariah stayed out on the street. She wanted to stare at the harbor and the sea beyond. She wanted to gather it all inside her and hold it there. The sturdy green of the forest clinging to the hills, the mountains capped with snow above and wreathed in fog lower down. The rocky shore and thehouses and shops that clung to it, stretching from the docks in a semicircle studded with bright colors against the gray. The moody afternoon that seemed about to clear at any moment but never did.

The only constant was the ocean in the distance, a symphony of blues with whitecapped waves, and the mountains keeping watch all around.

---