Chapter 5
Five
J ack
I don't fucking deserve this.
That's all I can think as I ladle out venison stew, her eyes heavy with the afterglow of what we did in the workshop. Images flash through my mind—her body thrashing in the river current, her lips blue when I dragged her to shore, the way she trembled against me when I carried her up the mountain. She’s already carved herself into my bones. Even how I stand feels different now. My spine is straighter. The little bones in my ears work better because I want to fucking listen to every sound she makes.
I sat her at the table while I went to work on the food. She looked a little curled up for a minute, not unjustified because she just had a mutual masturbation session with a guy she met barely a day ago, and from what I can tell, little Delaney Hart has saved all the best parts of herself for me.
Unconfirmed, but assumed and soon to be confirmed.
She unfurls a bit as I set the steaming bowl in front of her, spoon up the first bite and hold it to her lips. Feeding her is almost as good as beating off with her.
Almost.
But as she relaxes, I fill my own bowl and sit across from her, matching her bite for bite, like her very nourishment is my new mission in life.
"You’re a good cook," she says, surprise coloring her voice.
"Pizza guys don't climb mountains, baby girl," I reply, something primal in me settling when she smiles.
That fucking smile. I'd do anything to keep it on her face.
I want to fucking devour her all over again. Take her on the kitchen table. Make her scream Daddy until her voice gives out.
Instead, I feed her. Watch her strength return with each bite. Watch for any hint of that smile that makes my chest ache.
"You should sleep," I tell her after, taking her empty bowl. "You've had a big day for a little girl."
"I'm not little," she counters, narrowing her eyes at me. "You keep saying that, but I'm full-grown here."
She spreads her arms wide, pointing her index fingers down at herself.
"But you are tired. And it’s my job to take care of you."
She nods, shadows under her eyes betraying her exhaustion. The river. The near-drowning. Whatever drove her to my mountain in the first place. What we did in the workshop. Too much for one delicate system to process.
But then she looks up as I drop the bowls on the counter. "I should probably figure out a plan tomorrow." A casual comment that hits like a sledgehammer. "You know, for... after here."
"After?" I echo, something cold sliding down my spine.
She shrugs, not meeting my eyes. "I can't just... stay." Then quieter, almost to herself, "This is crazy."
Three words I can't fucking unhear. Three words that make me want to tear apart anything that would take her from me. Three words that kill any chance of seeing that smile again tonight.
"I am tired," she says finally as I sit there like a fucking burl knot on a walnut tree. Words have never been my strength and her talking about leaving has set my vocal cords into cement. My mouth sags open as she stands, "I'm going to lay down. I'm sure I'll be out until morning. Adrenaline hangovers are killer. Or, so I hear... I'm not a big extreme sports participant, but I've read things, about drop. Big ups, big downs."
She's babbling, unsure, and all I want to do is grab her, tuck her into my lap and brush her fucking hair. I barely brush my own hair, but I swear on my mother's grave, I would come in my pants if she came to me and asked me to learn to braid her hair.
Instead, I show her to the guest room like a silent lug nut. Her backpack is there, her clothes dried, her rocks in a little pile denting the mattress.
"I'll get you some water," I say, cobbling together the simplest of necessities. "Adrenaline uses up a lot of hydration."
But when I return, glass in hand, I hear the soft click of the door locking. Message received. She needs space. From me. From whatever the fuck is happening between us.
I set the water outside her door, stare at the barrier between us, then retreat. My boots carry me back to the workshop without conscious thought. The scent of her still hangs in the air—sweet panic and raw need mixed with sawdust. The half-finished cradle mocks me from the workbench. Another family. Another life I have no fucking right to want.
I try to sand the cradle. Try to lose myself in the repetitive motion. Fail.
By nightfall, I'm outside her door. Back braced against the wall, knees drawn up, my boots still reaching the opposite side of the narrow hallway. My head hangs between my hands, fingers tangled in my hair, listening. Making sure she's safe. Making sure she's still there.
Hart's face keeps flashing in my mind. The trust in his eyes when he made me promise. "Keep her safe," he said. Not "make her call you Daddy while you jerk off in front of her." Jesus. He'd fucking kill me if he knew. And he'd be right to.
She's eighteen. Eighteen.
When I was her age, I was already enlisted, learning how to kill. The fucking age gap between us is old enough to drive. Old enough to vote. Old enough to have its own fucking mortgage.
Fuck.
But every time my conscience claws at me, every time I tell myself to back the fuck off, to be what her father wanted me to be—just a protector, just a guide—I remember the way she looked at me. The way she said that word. How perfectly she fits into the broken places inside me.
I don't deserve her. But I'm not strong enough to let her go.
The shadows stretch and shrink across the hallway as the moon moves across the sky. She sleeps while my old man back aches against the wall, the mountain silence broken only by the occasional soft cough or knock of the headboard against the wall when she shifts.
Until something changes.
A rustling. Different from the soft sounds of sleep. More purposeful. Then a drawer opening. Closing. The quiet zip of a bag.
I press my face to the door where it doesn't quite meet the frame, peering through a gap barely wide enough to carry a whisper of the breeze. Moonlight spills across the floor of her room, illuminating her small form as she moves around, her fingers on her cheeks.
She looks at the ceiling like she's asking it the meaning of life, then shakes her head, then nods, then moves back to the bed where I focus one eye to the crack, watching.
Fuck. She's folding my shirt she was wearing earlier, even as the one she borrowed for a nightdress flutters around her thighs. I watch her stuff those little socks I dried on the porch rail into the corners of her bag. The toothbrush I put in the bathroom for her. Each item going into that backpack is a fucking knife between my ribs.
She's planning to leave. To leave me.
My pulse hammers in my ears, drowning out reason. The thought of her disappearing into the night, vanishing like she'd never existed—like the workshop, the river, my fucking hands on her body had never happened—rips through me like shrapnel.
No.
If she's leaving, she's not going alone.
Something red and violent floods my vision. I push away from the wall, ignoring the pins and needles in my ass, and stomp down the hall. Two can play this game. If she thinks she's sneaking away in the night, she's got another fucking thing coming.
Two minutes later, I'm back outside her door with my own hastily-packed duffel. Not much—just enough to make my point. My boots deliberately heavy on the wooden floor. I want her to hear me. Want her to know I'm here.
I knock once, hard, then push the door open without waiting for an answer.
Her soft gasp when she sees my ready bag tells me she understands.
"You think I'd let you go anywhere without me?" I murmur, crossing to her. "Baby girl, if you’re going somewhere, I’m fucking going with you."
She looks up at me, those big eyes shining with something between fear and relief. The ghost of a smile touches her lips, and I feel like I can breathe again. And I know in that moment that I'd burn down the whole fucking world before I'd let her walk away from me.
“This is just... I woke up, and the whole day just washed over me like a crazy train. I don’t know what I was thinking coming here... And what we did back there?” She motions out the door. “That wasn’t me. I’m not that girl.”
Her voice cracks, and if she starts crying, I swear to God I think I might have a stroke.
“Baby, that wasn’t just me playing with you.” She gives me an ‘oh really’ sort of smirk, and I put my hands up in a little surrender. “Okay, yes, playing, but not, playing . There’s a big difference.”
“Playing, but not playing? Your vocabulary is stellar. It’s all so clear now, I just needed to hear it put into such eloquent words.”
“Fucking brat. No, I’m not fucking Shakespeare or Hank Williams—”
Hank Williams? Jesus, this girl has me ass over teakettle, and I hit my head hard.
We stand like that. Just breathing. The quiet between us full of everything we're both too scared to say.
On a sigh, I drop onto the bed, sitting on the edge. All I want is for her to smile. I can see the rest of my life unfurling. Everything I do will be designed to make her happy from now on. “What can I do right now to make you happy?” I make a sound that is as close to begging as I’ve ever come. “I need to know so you’ll unpack that backpack and I can go burn it so you can never think of leaving again.”
She does this little giggle chirp, her fingers pressing her lips then opening like a flower. “You think if you get rid of my backpack I won’t ever leave?”
I shrug on a frown. “It might slow you down. I’m fast though, I love a good chase. Could be fun.”
“I’m happy here,” she finally says and all the lights come back on inside me. “I’m happier than I’ve been in so long, it’s just… It’s all so overwhelming. I had a weird dream, woke up, and I didn’t recognize where I was. Then I just felt like maybe it was just a game. I mean, look at you. You’re mountain man porn. I’m just a girl with crazy red hair and no idea what I’m doing with my life. I landed here like a frozen turkey out of an airplane.”
I squint. “A what?”
“Like on that old show. They threw all these frozen turkeys out of an airplane. Never mind.” She shakes her head and I do the same, trying to get the image of her as a frozen turkey out of my head.
“Come here,” I finally say, and the command seems to break her free from the doubts of the night.
She moves—crawls into my lap like she's done it before, like this is her place and always has been. Her thighs bracket mine, and she tucks her face against my neck with a long sigh. She's so small against me, barely covering half my chest, like she was made to fit against me.
“Now, no more fucking packing, got it?” She nods, and I grab her little ass with both hands. “You should know, I haven’t left this place in over ten years. But I was ready to follow you. Go with you. Anywhere. I don’t even know who I am anymore, Delaney Hart, since you swung into my life this morning, but I’ll tell you this—I’m gonna find out, and you’re coming with me all the way.”