Chapter 876

Caroline’s face burned. She shot a final, annoyed glare at Jarrod, muttered her thanks to the doctor, and turned to leave.

She was at the door when his voice stopped her.

“Thompson.”

She paused, looking back over her shoulder.

He stood by the examination table, his posture relaxed but commanding, his right arm still immobilized in its brace, his splinted left hand resting at his side. His tone was clipped, formal, and completely impersonal.

“Get some rest. Tomorrow’s training will be harder.”

It wasn’t just an order. It was a warning. And it was a statement of faith. He was telling her that he knew what Sloane was planning, and he trusted her to handle it.

She understood. A new wave of strength, of determination, washed through her. Their bond had been tested by fire, and it had emerged stronger, harder.

She nodded, her own gaze firm and clear. “Yes, sir.”

She turned and walked out of the infirmary, ready for whatever came next.

She walked away from the infirmary, the cool night air a balm on her flushed skin. The hard-packed dirt of the path was steady beneath her boots, a welcome certainty after the emotional vertigo of the last hour.

Her heart was still a frantic drum against her ribs.

His final words, “Tomorrow’s training will be harder,” echoed in her mind. It was a warning, a promise, and a vote of confidence all at once.

She took a shortcut back to the barracks, a narrow service corridor that ran between the back of the command building and a row of supply depots. The overhead lights were infrequent, casting long, distorted shadows. Her mind was a battlefield, replaying the kiss, the raw confession of her jealousy, the dark satisfaction in his eyes.

A door marked PRIVATE opened just ahead of her.

Caroline stopped instantly, her body lowering by instinct, her weight settling onto the balls of her feet. No one lunged from the darkness. No arm hooked around her waist. No body slammed her against the frame.

Jarrod stood inside the threshold, half in shadow, his right arm still locked across his torso inside the heavy medical brace, the rigid bulk of it distorting the front of his dark utility jacket. His left hand remained trapped in its splint at his side, useless and still. He looked less like a man waiting to seize her than a wounded commander holding a line he refused to cross.

Her training remained alive beneath her skin. In a fraction of a second, her body had already prepared for violence, her free hand ready, her stance angled to break away.

Then she smelled it.

That familiar, infuriating scent of cedar, leather, and something else, something that was purely him. The scent of gun oil and clean soap.

The tension did not drain from her body this time. It sharpened.

“Colonel,” she said, her voice cool.

Something moved in his eyes at the title. Irritation. Hurt. Approval. All of it gone before it could become usable.

“Doctor.”

The word landed between them like a private oath disguised as a rank.