No Time for Caution

by K. T. Samois

Ree means every word. She knows what J wants to do to her, and worse — to Hardin. I won’t let her get him back. I’ll kill her, first.

  “Jesus, Ree. You were dying of shock.”

  “Irrelevant. Someone should have thought of it. And you — you know her. How do you know her?!”

  Evie suddenly looks like she’d rather be literally anywhere else, and two ugly splotches bloom on her cheeks, copper penny bright. “We’re… uh… acquaintances?”

  Ree snaps her gaze to Evie’s immediately. She knows her sister has a lot of acquaintances, all in varying degrees of intimacy. Her voice, when she speaks, is frigid. “What do you mean, ‘acquaintances’?”

  “It means I’ve seen her in bad moods, Ree. And we’re competitors, if you must know. Professional. All business.”

  Ree isn’t sure she believes it, but she doesn’t want to pick that fight today. She settles for pinching the bridge of her nose again; it seems to work for Hardin’s migraines, so maybe it’ll work for hers. “Fine. Acquaintances. What’s the game plan?”

  Evie grimaces. “I’ll... figure something out. You may need to move.”

  The thought of ever stepping foot in her apartment again makes her skin crawl.

  “Y-yeah, that’s fine. I... I don’t really feel the neighbourhood anymore, Evie. I…” Ree’s voice quavers, the first hint of fear coming through the cracks.

  Ree shoves it mercilessly back, but Evie’s already reached out to bundle her into her arms. “I’ve got you, Thing Six.” Evie’s deft fingers start braiding her lank and tangled hair into something resembling order, and Ree leans into the touch, grateful for the easy childhood familiarity.

  “We’ll talk soon. Just — start looking around.”

  “God, you and Hardin, with the house-hunting,” Ree murmurs, mollified.

  “Oh? That’s clever. I like him, you know? He kept his cool in there.”

  “You could hear?”

  “I was tech support. Ree—”

  “I know, Evie. I’ll be careful, and I’ll start looking.”

  “I... thought you were going to push me on this,” Evie admits wryly, and Ree shakes her head.

  She might have, once, but now she knows better. She’s going up against someone she failed to kill the first time. It’d be stupid to turn down help.

  “I — no. Can I ask something?”

  It’s the first time Ree’s ever asked her sister for anything, but there’s been nothing she’s needed as much, either.

  “Anything,” Evie assures her, starting on the other braid. “Although I reserve the right not to answer if it’s classified or likely to get me indicted.”

  Ree snorts wryly.

  “Yeah, no. Just... if something happens to me-“

  “Nothing will.”

  “I’m sorry, Evie. Did the middle of my heartfelt sentence interrupt the beginning of your paranoia? Shut up. If something were to happen to me — promise me you’ll take care of Hardin?”

  Evie finishes the braid with a little elastic she fishes out of her pocket, but Ree can’t help but notice the small smile on her lips.

  “What?”

  “Of course I will, Ree.”

  “Okay,” Ree says, because she trusts Evie with her life, and the things she has that are more important than even that.

  “He’s outside, isn’t he?” Ree asks, with aching fondness.

  “Pacing like a German shepherd.”

  “How do I look?” Ree asks, a bit of her old vanity returning. Evie pops it like a balloon.

  “Like shit, Ree; might as well say hi. He’s marrying you; he’s going to see you bare-faced, eventually.” Ree stares at her, aghast.

  “I smell, don’t I?”

  “Like hospital, sure, and he hasn’t left here in days either. Like I said. You two are alike.”

  “Maybe he could wash me.” Ree nibbles at a thumbnail as she muses aloud.

  Evie’s eyes flick to the EKG machine, whose steady beep has just added some syncopation to the rhythm. “Easy, Ree, or your heart monitor is going to give you away,” she advises.

  Ree goes pink.

  “I — oh, you are such a party-pooper. Just go, if you’re going to ruin my fantasies.”

  “I’ll send him in, you dirty bird. I love you, Ree. Don’t do something that stupid again.”

  Ree thinks of the company, of the people she leads, who she’d die to protect. Of Hardin, a Captain.

  My Captain.

  “No promises!” Ree chirps instead, and Evie heaves a long-suffering sigh.

  “Christ. You sound like Moira now. I’m out. I’ll send him in,” Evie says, and lets the door swing shut after her.

  ***

  If it takes Hardin thirty seconds to get into the room, she’d check the timer. She’s barely blinked before he’s there in the chair by her bedside, hands warm around hers.

  No gloves, I see. She smiles, even though it hurts.

  “Hi Hardin,” Ree says. He makes a noise that sounds alarmingly like a sob, and Ree struggles her way into a sitting position. “Oh, hey, hey, it’s okay. Don’t — don’t worry, I’m here. It’s okay.”

  “I ought to say that to you, Riona. Your arm-”

  “I’ll wear long sleeves.” That's what sensible, pragmatic Ree would say. The part of her that remembers having a beautiful epaulet mourns, but she takes a breath and lets the grief pass. She hasn’t lost her arm or its movement.

  “It’s just skin, Hardin. And she just took the bit she burnt, anyway. It was always going to be a bit of a mess.”

  “I’m sorry, Riona-”

  “No. Don’t apologize,” she says, cutting him off dead. She’s had some time to think it over. “I wanted to be a player, not collateral. Players lose pawns.”

  “If I’d gotten there earlier-”

  Ree takes a breath and lets it all go. The pain and stress and fear — she allows those backstage emotions to dissipate in centre-stage calm. “You came as soon as you could, Hardin. Let’s not do this to ourselves. We won this round. Is everyone-”

  “Safe and sound and sending their best wishes for a speedy recovery. Everyone’s fine, Riona.”

  “Oh, thank God. Thank you, Hardin. Thank you.”

  He stares at her.

  “For what, Riona?”

  “For coming to get me. Evie tells me you and Theo rappelled down off of the roof? That was clever.”

  Hardin continues to stare, and Ree isn’t sure why.

  “What?” She asks, because his expression has twisted into something that looks like the bastard lovechild of apoplectic fury and manic laughter.

  “Thank you for coming to get me?! What am I, an Uber? A megalomaniac abducted and tortured you, and it was my fault.”

  Ree shifts to face him more fully, hissing as her cracked ribs twinge.

  “I was there, Hardin, I know where I went. But don’t take all the credit. She hates me just fine on my own. J was explicitly clear about that. She doesn’t like the fact that I’m the brains of this outfit. I think it makes her insecure.”

  “Insecure.”

  “Mm,” Ree agrees. “One day, some psychologist is going to make their career writing about her pathology. But it’s all academic — if she liked me before, she doesn’t now. We can’t stay at the apartment. Can you believe that I don’t really want to? I don’t — I don’t think I like that building very much anymore,” she says, genuinely mournful.

  “I’m sorry, kitten.”

  Ree sucks in a shuddering breath. “I know. C-could you come here, please?”

  Hardin climbs into bed with her, dipping the mattress towards him. Ree rests her head on his chest, her ear to his heart. If she closes her eyes, the sound of his heart is louder than the beep of her monitor. Tucked against him this way, she can almost believe she’s safe. After a long moment, she finally finds the courage to speak.

  “I thought of this,” Ree says. “Of you. Whenever she wanted to play her little games, I’d imagine myself here, beside you. I imagine
d myself in our bed, listening to your heart, and no matter what she did to me, she couldn’t break me. I just thought of you, and it was enough.”

  “Riona.” Hardin says, and she can hear the tremble of nerves in his voice as he shifts, reaching into the pocket of his tactical pants for something.

  “I never want to be without you again.”

  Ree’s eyes go wide as he cautiously extricates a small ring pouch from his pocket.

  He’s careful not to jostle any of the wires when he shifts in bed to face her. Ree’s tucked carefully against him, still as you please, but she can feel her stomach flutter with nerves.

  Please. Please, let that have been real. Please let it have been real.

  Hope flutters desperately in her chest, and that useless heart monitor picks up the rhythm.

  “Riona Araby, you’re the most magnificent woman I’ve ever met, and I’d rappel down a million skyscrapers to come get you. Will you marry me?”

  The heart monitor gives a sharp beep of warning, but Ree couldn’t care less.

  “Yes,” she says, holding out a trembling hand. When he slides the ring onto her finger, it feels like the weight of the world lifts from her shoulders.

  “It’s breathtaking,” she says, turning her hand this way and that so that the centre stone can embrace the light.

  He’s taken care with the setting; it’s simple, minimal, and elegant. The three-carat oval diamond burns like icy fire on her hand, and Ree has a moment, just one, of imagining the way it would catch the stage lights.

  “It suits you.” Hardin presses a kiss to her hand, slow and worshipful.

  Ree feels a weary smile tease her mouth.

  “You know what I like.” Her own hand comes up to cradle his cheek and draw him closer to her. He rises like water, with no resistance. He’s close enough to kiss, so she does. It makes her mouth twinge, but she doesn’t care.

  “I love you,” she whispers. “I love you, I love you.”

  He holds her close, and Ree can feel the way his heart thuds with her words. He doesn’t speak. Eventually, Ree can’t keep quiet; she lifts her head up an inch.

  “Hey Hardin?”

  “What?”

  “You’ll still be… um…” The heart monitor betrays her again, giving a shrill blip of alarm as her heart-rate spikes, but Ree is done being shy.

  “I don’t want things to change between us, Hardin. Promise me they won’t?”

  “What do you mean, Riona?” His voice is studiously neutral, but she can feel the tension in the lines of his body.

  She takes a breath, steels her nerve, and commits.

  “Vanilla. You won’t go vanilla on me, will you? Promise me things won’t change between us. I like the way they are.”

  “Never.” Hardin says, and Ree seals their deal with a kiss.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Six Months Later

  “That’s the last, gone.” Hardin says, stepping into the room.

  They’ve filled the boxes and packed the tchotchkes, sending them off to the new house. That’s left Ree’s on the floor of their bedroom, facing a neatly wrapped leather-covered notebook.

  The last thing to go, Ree thinks as she puts the last piece of tape in place. The paper’s gorgeous; a thick matte black that she’s tied with gold ribbon. The effect is striking, and Ree hopes he enjoys his gift. She hasn’t told him what it is, but she suspects he has a guess or two. She shifts, splaying her legs even more deeply into a butterfly stretch. It’s the one that seems to catch Hardin’s attention most consistently, and this time’s no different. When she catches him checking her out, she grins up at him, and he snaps his gaze away.

  It’s their last night in this apartment, and to be honest, she’s glad. I don’t want to step foot in this building again. All I can smell is copper. The only thing that’s made it tolerable is-

  “I won’t miss this bed.” Hardin says, interrupting her thoughts.

  She lets them dissipate like an old nightmare and turns her attention to her fiancee. He’s planted himself in the middle of their bedroom like an obelisk. He’s dressed in black from head to toe and stands out in the conch-pink room like an ink smear on silk.

  “I will.” Ree says. When he holds his hand down to help her to her feet, she accepts. “I made some of my happiest memories in this bed.”

  She’s written them all down in that little red book, along with a few suggestions of her own.

  “I made my happiest memories with you, not a too-small mattress,” Hardin says, knocking the air out of Ree’s lungs.

  She forgets, sometimes, that he’s a romantic. God forbid I mention it, though…

  “That was smooth. Are you single?”

  “No, and my fiancée is a jealous woman. Kiss me, quick, before she finds us.”

  She really wishes she could, but then she’d want to follow up. “Don’t tempt me, Hardin, or I’ll never leave.”

  “I’ll never let you go.” Hardin’s voice rings with conviction. There’s something about his expression that catches her attention; he’s too introspective for her comfort.

  Something’s up…

  “See, when you say it so deadpan.…”

  Trying to get information out of Hardin by oblique means is like trying to interrogate a Tamagotchi. Ree’s far too keyed up for that. When his hand dips into his pocket and pulls out a small box, Ree resorts to the battering ram of brutal honesty.

  “Hardin, what are you doing?”

  “Riona, I don’t want to let you go. I didn’t have the time to do this properly before; there wasn’t enough time. I want to do this the right way.”

  Ree stares at him in disbelief. Hardin’s always shown his affection by bringing her little trinkets, but she’s wearing a diamond big enough to blind pilots. Dibs have clearly been called. “Hardin — you’ve proposed already.” She does her best to keep the reminder gentle.

  It’s been a long day full of rehearsal dinner drama and pre-wedding jitters. Maybe he’s forgotten. Hard to miss, though; I’m still in white.

  “I have,” he agrees, and now there’s a small smirk flirting with the corner of his lips. The one he wears when he has a wonderful secret he can’t wait to share. “But this isn’t a ring, Riona.” He opens the box, and for a moment, Ree is a bit confused.

  “No… It’s- a pendant?”

  “A necklace,” Hardin says, and there’s a tone to his voice that makes Ree straighten her spine.

  “A — Sir.” As she stares down at the pendant, her collar, Ree’s smile blossoms like an orchid.

  “You understand what this is.” Hardin says, closing the last bit of distance between them. His voice is soft, but strong as chains. It isn’t a question.

  “I do,” Ree says. It’s years of fantasies, of daydreams and little scribbles in journals, and hiding that book from everyone.

  It’s finally, finally, getting what I want.

  So she reaches out and takes it.

  Riona drops her head enough that Hardin can fasten the clasp of the necklace easily. It’s a diamond to match her ring on a platinum chain as thin as a whip. As his hands pull away, Ree can feel the solid weight of the stone against her sternum, and her hand raises to it. A simple oval, nothing anyone would ever think out of place — but the intent behind it is clear.

  “Turn it over,” Hardin says, and Riona obeys. There, engraved on the back, is the triskelion. Ree’s thumb traces over it, slowly.

  He knows you well, Ree.

  She knows what she can offer him in return.

  “Hardin,” she says, voice tremulous. “You are the first light that I see in the morning, and the last star at night.”

  His eyes are wide and very blue; she doesn’t need to be a good cold-reader to recognize shock. She grows bolder as she goes, voice steady. “I vow to serve and support you, to love you and cherish you,” she adds, picking up steam as she goes and meaning every word.

  “I pledge your name will be the one I call in the night-” she says wit
h considerable emphasis, gratified to see his smile go hard and possessive in return.

  “-and the one I whisper with the last breath I have. I promise to honour you above all others, sharing in your triumphs and toils. You cannot possess me.” Ree says, remembering glass walls and muffled sounds — and then banishes that ghost.

  “I choose to share my life with you.” Riona says, and her voice rings with conviction. “You’re the brightest part of my days, Hardin, and the sweetest part of my nights. I would do everything all over again, every single second of it, because I get this. I get to be yours.”

  Hardin’s hand trembles as he fixes the clasp around her throat, but by the time it cups her cheek, it’s steady.

  “I would have no other honour,” she hears him say, voice thick. His fingers tangle into the fine platinum chain, holding the diamond pendant in his hands and gently reeling her in. Ree has no room or desire to resist, and his easy dominance makes her so weak in the knees she has to grip his shoulders to stand upright.

  “Hardin, please,” she whispers, desperate for him to close the distance, to get his hands on her, to make every single dirty scribble in that journal a reality. For a moment, his kiss turns rough, and he holds her to him like he’s a breath away from shredding the white Dior dress right off of her. Then, just as Ree’s got a mind to let him, he pulls away.

  “We should go to bed, Riona.” Hardin’s lips brush the shell of her ear, and his teeth graze over the lobe with a decadent threat.

  “God, yes,” she agrees, arching against him in invitation. I’m going to scandalize the neighbours. I never have to see them again, so I can be as loud as I want-

  “Then I’ll wish you a good night, kitten.” Hardin murmurs with a rumble of amusement underneath, pressing a chaste kiss to her forehead and taking a full step away.

  Ree stares at him.

  “Evelyn texted five minutes ago. She’s downstairs.”

  Ree’s eyes narrow.

  “Let me walk you to the door,” Hardin says, and without his support, Ree wobbles like a fawn.

  “Are you serious?” Ree cannot believe him, but his smile is wicked.

  “As the situation, kitten. I’m only a man. You can’t stay any longer.”