Page 8 of Protector of Talon Mountain

SADIE

He doesn’t just walk in. He invades the café, taking up space… a lot of it. This has to be the man Mayor Burton hired as the new sheriff, Zeke MacAllister. The rumor around town is that he’s a former Navy SEAL, and he has that look about him.

He’s not the loud kind of big, either. Not like the loggers who swagger in smelling of diesel and frozen sweat, or the out-of-towners who talk too much to make up for being out of their element. No. Zeke MacAllister is the kind of big that doesn’t need noise. He walks like someone who knows the floor will move for him. He doesn’t just take up physical space, he takes up the air and everything else around him. He has shoulders that look as if someone carved them from stone. He’s all clean lines and tactical stillness. His mere presence shifts the whole feel of the café, like the room adjusts around him without his even having to ask.

I watch him like a hawk from behind the counter. His eyes, in turn, sweep the room. Just once. That’s all it takes. It’s not casual. It’s not curious. It’s clinical. Calculating. He’s checking for exits, threats, faces. Like he’s still on a mission and this is enemy territory.

My pulse jumps.

He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t introduce himself. Just orders black coffee and a blueberry muffin like it’s a command.

And I give it to him.

Neutral. Clean. No eye contact longer than it needs to be. I’m proud of that. It’s been a long time since a man shook me up like that, and I hold the line.

Or at least I thought I did—until I realize I’m still gripping the edge of the counter after he’s long gone. My knuckles are white. My palms are damp.

I release the counter and shake my hands out like I’m flicking off the tension. Like it’s just one of those things. A reaction.Nothing more.

He’ll be gone soon, anyway. Men like that don’t stay.

“You good?” Jenny, my part-time employee, peeks over from her side of the espresso machine, eyes narrowed. She’s seventeen, sarcastic, and blessed with the kind of radar only teenage girls have for male hotness and emotional dysfunction.

“I’m fine,” I say, reaching for the tray of clean mugs to stack.

“You sure? Because that dude was...” She fans herself with a receipt slip. “Like... wow. Intense.”

“Military,” I say.

“Yeah, like the sexy Navy SEAL in that streaming show where he never smiles and somehow ends up shirtless every other scene.”

I shoot her a look.

She shrugs. “I’m just saying. If he wants a cup of coffee, I’ll bring it straight to his shower.”

“Out.”

She laughs and disappears into the kitchen to grab more cinnamon rolls. I take the moment to steady myself. To breathe. He’s just a man. A new sheriff. Passing through.

I’ve seen worse. Hell, I loved worse. But still... Zeke MacAllister doesn’t feel like a man who passes through anything. He feels like a man who claims a space and keeps it for his own.

Even the way he looked at me—calm, cool, unreadable—like he already knew things about me I hadn’t said out loud. Like I was a book he was already halfway through.

That should scare me, but it doesn’t. It... unsteadies me, which is far worse. Scary would repel me, unsettling draws me like a moth to a flame.

The bell chimes again, and I flinch, almost spilling an entire pot of coffee on my boots. Just an old man, Walter Barnes, in for his usual stack of pancakes and an hour of not-so-subtle gossip. I smile, wave him to his seat, and fill his mug without asking.

Routine. Predictable. Safe.

“New sheriff looks like he bites,” he mutters into his cup.

“Bites?”

Walter nods. “All coiled up and ready to snap. Like one of those trained dogs they don’t let kids pet.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t like people,” I say, setting down the cream.

“Then why come here?” he counters. “Why take the job?”

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