Ryder woke to the low rumble of a diesel engine coughing to life outside, the sound rattling through the thin trailer walls like thunder before dawn. He blinked into the gray morning light, the taste of dust still in his mouth, and looked down.
Isobel lay curled against him, her breath steady, her skin pale as moonlight where the bedspread had slipped aside. One long leg draped over his, the soft weight of her body pressed into him like she was made to fit there. For one tender second he let himself admire her, the curve of her, the fragile warmth.
Then his gaze caught the bruises. Dark finger-shaped stains blooming along her arm, the swollen lip, the shadowed purple at the corner of her mouth. His throat tightened. Anger flared sharp in his chest — Manhattan steel and Tennessee fire col
