BABY

UNINVITED GUEST

“No,” she said quietly. “Mistake of mine.”

The truck door opened hard enough to rock back on its hinges. A broad man stepped out in jeans, work boots, and the kind of confidence that usually came from winning arguments no one else agreed to have. He scanned the porch, the windows, the grounds, already moving like a person who believed private property was merely a slower version of permission.

Damon.

The name suited the shoulders. Too much force for the room it entered.

Connie set the half-eaten strawberry down with careful fingers. “Do not,” she said without looking at him, “tell that man I’m here.”

He folded his napkin once, buying himself a second to enjoy the request.

“I thought you were leaving.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Convenient timing.”

Her eyes snapped to his. Whatever glamour she wore in easier moments had thinned, revealing something cleaner and far more useful than charm.

“Please.”

There it was.

Not weakness.

Priority.

He rose from the table.

Outside, Damon was already mounting the porch steps.

He rose from the table with no visible hurry, smoothing a hand once over the front of his shirt as though greeting trouble required the same standards as greeting guests. Connie watched him go with the rigid stillness of someone trying not to reveal which outcome unsettled her more, Damon entering or the innkeeper handling it.

At the foyer, Damon pounded once on the front door instead of using the handle already in front of him. Men like that preferred announcements to access.

The innkeeper opened it on the second strike.

For a moment the two men simply regarded each other. Damon broad, rain-marked, jaw already set for conflict. The innkeeper leaner, cleaner, one hand resting lightly on the edge of the door as if deciding whether to widen it or close it.

“Morning,” he said.

“I’m looking for a woman.”

“Aren’t most people?”

Damon’s eyes narrowed. “Dark hair. Pretty. Mouth on her like a lawsuit.”

From the dining room, Connie closed her eyes briefly.

The innkeeper considered the description with polite interest.

“You’ll need to be more specific,” he said. “Half my guests are dangerous.”

“I’m not joking.”

“No,” he said softly. “That’s the first disappointing thing about you.”

Simon let the silence breathe a moment longer, watching Damon decide which kind of man stood in front of him. Most chose wrong when given only one glance. Damon looked like the type who had built his life on first impressions and force, which meant patience would feel like insult.

“I’m going to ask once,” Damon said, stepping closer. “Is she here?”

Simon’s gaze dropped briefly to the mud on the porch boards, then returned to the man’s face.

“You’ve already asked once,” he said. “Poor listening is rarely cured by repetition.”

Damon shoved the door wider with one hard hand and took a step inside.

Connie made a small sound from the dining room. Fear, anger, warning, Simon couldn’t tell which yet.

Interesting.

He closed the door calmly behind Damon.

Locks clicked.

Then Simon smiled for the first time that morning.

“Now,” he said, voice soft as folded linen. “Let’s discuss your manners.”

Damon turned at the sound of the lock, surprise flashing across his face before pride rushed in to cover it. Men like him often mistook enclosed spaces for advantages simply because they were still standing in them. He squared his shoulders and gave Simon the kind of grin usually worn by people who had never been corrected early enough.

“You think a door changes anything?” Damon asked.

“No,” Simon said. “But it improves the acoustics.”

He moved first.

Not dramatically. No warning growl, no puffed chest, no theatrical swing telegraphed from the shoulder. He stepped in close and drove the heel of his palm up beneath Damon’s jaw hard enough to snap the man’s head back and send him stumbling into the umbrella stand by the wall. Wood clattered. Metal rang. Connie rose halfway from her chair in the dining room, shock cutting clean through whatever plan she’d been building.

Damon cursed and charged on instinct.

Simon sidestepped him with almost bored precision, caught a fistful of jacket, and redirected the larger man shoulder-first into the plaster wall. A framed landscape shattered to the floor beside them. Damon wheeled around red-faced, swinging wide now, angry enough to become predictable.

Simon had always appreciated predictable men.

“You crazy son of a b***h,” Damon spat.

“Frequently diagnosed,” Simon replied, ducking the next punch.

Then he struck Damon once in the ribs, once in the throat, and once across the mouth with an efficiency so practiced it looked less like violence than housekeeping.

Damon folded to one knee choking on air and blood, one hand clamped to his throat while the other searched the floor for dignity and found only broken glass. Simon stood over him breathing evenly, cuffs still neat, expression untouched by effort. It always disappointed him how quickly loud men became wet-eyed.

From the dining room came the scrape of a chair.

Connie was already moving.

Smart girl.

She snatched her duffel with one hand and her coffee with the other, then hesitated only long enough to throw the hot cup across the foyer. It burst against Damon’s shoulder in a splash of black heat that made him howl and curse upward at fresh gods.

Simon looked at her then, genuinely impressed.

“Resourceful,” he said.

“Busy,” she replied, already backing toward the front door.

Damon tried to rise, rage dragging him higher than strength could manage. “Connie!”

She pointed at both men in turn.

“No.”

Then she yanked the door open and ran into the morning mist.