“Good to see you again, Miss Chambers.” Duncan shook her hand. “You look like you’ve fully recovered from your brush with death.”

“Please just call me Louisa,” she said. “And I’m doing well, thank you.”

“Good to hear.”

She looked down and saw he was still holding her hand. Cody’s jaw twitched, and for a split second she wondered if he’d noticed it too.

“I’m Alyssa Martin.” Ally leaned in toward Duncan. “But you can call me Ally.”

Duncan squeezed Louisa’s hand before reaching out and shaking Ally’s. “Good to meet you. We’re excited to hear where you’ve landed with your ideas. Cody, would you mind showing them in?”

Cody practically groaned. Okay, so he didn’t groan, but Louisa imagined him groaning because the look on his face was like a visual groan that said, I don’t want to be here.

Louisa would pour on a little extra charm, just for him. She smiled at Duncan, then followed Cody into the room where the other guardsmen were gathering.

According to what she’d read, there were twenty-five men stationed at Brant Point. While there had been women in the past, there were currently none. So she had to sell twenty-five men on an idea that would play much better with women. And she had to do it in front of Cody Boggs.

No problem.

She took her place at the front of the room while he made his way to the back wall, where he stood and stared with all the expression of a stone-faced statue. Well, this wasn’t unnerving at all.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” she whispered to Ally.

Ally stopped shuffling the folders she was sorting and faced Louisa. “Yes, you can.”

“Not with him standing back there watching me.” She shook her head. “Don’t look!”

She’d caught Alyssa mid–head turn, but it was too late. Her friend jerked her eyes back to Louisa’s. “I don’t think he saw me.”

Louisa sighed. He’d definitely seen her. Ally was brilliant, but she was kind of a ditz.

“He’s just a guy, Lou.”

No. He was not “just a guy,” and that was the problem. He was Cody. She’d broken his heart, and he’d saved her life.

But not just that. He’d done it so well. He’d done it in a way that had left her daydreaming about him. She never thought she was the type to want to be saved, but now that she had been, she wondered what other dangerous situation she could put herself in just so they could do it again.

“Are we ready, ladies?” Duncan stood beside them.

Ally glanced at Louisa as if to ask for an answer to the man’s question.