Page 7 of Beckett
Through the window, I tracked movement. Audra emerged from the barn carrying water buckets, one in each hand. The weight pulled her shoulders down, but she didn’t stop to rest. Just kept moving, efficient loops from spigot to kennels to spigot again.
She moved like prey—quick, purposeful, constantly scanning. Every few steps, she’d check behind her. Not a full turn, just a slight angle of her head, peripheral vision sweep. Someone had taught her that, or she’d learned it the hard way.
Whatever had driven her to Garnet Bend, whatever made her react to my name like a slap, it was still hunting her. The way she carried herself, the way she had gripped that backpack like a lifeline—this wasn’t someone taking a break from city life. This was someone running.
Not my problem. Not my responsibility. I had enough ghosts without borrowing someone else’s nightmare.
Duke whined, sensing my tension. I forced my shoulders down, made my breathing even out. Control. Discipline. The same skills that had kept me alive in combat would keep me distant from whatever tragedy Audra carried with her.
Lark would only be gone for two weeks. I just had to get through two weeks without getting involved. Without caring. Without taking on another mission I couldn’t complete.
Chances were Audra wouldn’t show up that long anyway.
Through the window, she stopped to push her brown hair back from her face. The gesture exposed the line of her neck, and for just a moment, I saw her shoulders shake. Just once. A shudder that could have been exhaustion or could have been something worse.
Then she straightened, lifted the buckets, and kept moving.
“Simple mission,” I told Duke. “Stay out of her way. Let her do her job. Don’t get involved.”
Duke’s expression suggested he didn’t buy it any more than I did.
Chapter 3
Audra
I pressed my back against the barn wall, waiting for my heart to stop trying to escape through my ribs. Beckett Sinclair.TheBeckett Sinclair whom Todd had talked about. My brother’s voice echoed in memory, warm with the kind of respect he rarely gave anyone.
“Beck’s good people, Aud. Saved my ass more than once overseas. Kind of guy you want watching your six.”
The same man who’d just looked at me like I was something he’d scrape off his boot.
Gruff didn’t even begin to cover it. Borderline hostile was more accurate. Those storm-gray eyes had categorized me in seconds and found me wanting. Threat assessment complete: untrustworthy female, probably trouble, definitely unwelcome.
I’d been expecting—what? Some version of the hero from Todd’s stories? Someone who might offer the kind of steady protection my brother had described?
Instead, I’d gotten walls. Ice. A man who wanted me gone yesterday.
Which was fine. Perfect, actually. Better that Beckett wanted nothing to do with me. Safer for everyone if I just kept my head down, made as much money as I could each day, and figured out my next move.
Todd was right about one thing, though; in another life—my old life—I would’ve absolutely been attracted to Beckett Sinclair.
He was definitely handsome. Not the polished kind of handsome, but the weathered kind—shaped by grit and years that took more than they gave. Six-two, built solid from work more than some fancy gym. The scar slicing his eyebrow spoke of close calls, the sort you didn’t walk away from unchanged. But it was his eyes that caught me. Watchful. Guarded. Carrying a pain that felt familiar, like we’d both learned the same hard lesson about loss.
His calm control was something I craved like water in the desert. That ability to stand still without constantly checking shadows, measuring distances to exits, calculating how many seconds it would take to reach my car.
What would it feel like to move through the world with that kind of certainty? To know you could handle whatever came at you?
But he obviously wanted me out of his town as soon as possible. Message received, loud and clear.
He didn’t know my last name. Lark had only introduced me as “Audra.” Good. Better to keep it that way. If Beckett knew I was Todd’s sister, it would only lead to questions I couldn’t answer, sympathy I couldn’t accept, or worse—some misguided sense of obligation that would put him in danger. I just needed to make as much money as I could and then take off before my past caught up and destroyed this place too.
“Ready for the full tour?” Lark appeared in the barn doorway, her smile a little forced around the edges. She’d noticed the tension between Beckett and me. Hard not to when it had practically drawn sparks.
“Yes, please.”
“Don’t mind Beckett,” she said as we walked. “He’s not big on new people. Takes a while to warm up. Thoughwarmmight be overstating it. More like he goes from arctic to just regular cold.”
I managed something that might have passed for a laugh. “It’s fine. I’m just here to work.”
