Chapter Seven
The cab of Jessa’s SUV was dark except for the dashboard glow and the faint spill of moonlight through the windshield.
Tires hummed over the empty country road as she steered toward his ranch, thirty acres of quiet land a few miles outside town.
Normally, the drive settled him. Tonight, it only grated.
Because every bump, every curve, sent a jolt of fire through the stitches in his side.
And because that damn text wouldn’t stop replaying in his head.
I’m not the one who tried to kill you and Deacon. But I know who did.
Wynn hadn’t added more. No threats. No demands. Just that cryptic, maddening message.
Deacon shifted in the passenger seat, biting back a wince. Jessa’s eyes flicked toward him, catching the movement. “You good?” she asked.
“Peachy,” he muttered.
She didn’t believe him. Smart woman.
He dragged a hand over his face, jaw locking as the message throbbed like a bruise.
Wynn had used a burner. Blocked number, no traceable trail.
Deacon had tried calling it back anyway, because stubbornness ran deeper than common sense.
No surprise, it went nowhere. But he still had the APB out on Wynn.
If the bastard so much as stopped for gas in three counties, someone would spot him. Someone would call it in.
And God help Wynn if Deacon found him first.
Jessa kept her eyes on the road, but Deacon didn’t miss the tension in her shoulders.
Or the way her grip tightened on the wheel every so often.
Or how her breath hitched slightly when the headlights swept across a dark tree line or a mailbox or anything that reminded her of how fast life could tip into violence.
He could feel her frustration bleeding through the silence. But more than that, he could feel the grief. Fresh. Raw. Bleeding just under the surface.
It hit him square in the chest.
Losing a loving parent was hell under the best circumstances. Losing them to cancer was a long, punishing ache. But learning that death wasn’t fate or biology or bad luck… learning it had been done to her? That someone had stolen Lauren’s life with poison?
That was a different beast entirely.
A vicious one. And it was eating Jessa alive.
Deacon studied her profile in the dim light. The tight jaw, the wet sheen in her eyes she wouldn’t let fall, the way she blinked too fast, as if fighting the memories clawing their way up. Jessa didn’t break easily. But this? This was tearing her open from the inside out.
“Jess,” he said quietly, careful not to press too hard. “You don’t have to hold it together for me.”
Her jaw flexed, but she didn’t respond.
He turned his gaze back out the windshield, swallowing down the anger that surged hot in his throat. Anger at whoever had done this.
Jessa and he didn’t always play on the same side of the line. Crossfire Ops and Creed Response did things he couldn’t put on a warrant. And he’d cuffed people she would’ve protected, and she’d protected people he would’ve cuffed.
But when it came down to it?
Their lives were both built around one thing. Justice. Whatever it took. Whoever it took down. And Jessa had just been told that justice had been denied to the person she loved most in the world.
She turned off the county road onto a long gravel drive lined with mesquite and old oak. The headlights swept across the familiar silhouette of the ranch, a place he’d bought right after he left the military, when he’d been young and angry and in desperate need of solid ground.
Jessa slowed the SUV as the house came into view.
A low, sprawling, single-story home with warm stone walls, a wide porch, and the glow of soft exterior lights that cast the place in a steady, comforting amber.
The barn sat behind it, two horses tucked in for the night.
The pastures stretched out beyond, dark and quiet under the Texas sky.
She’d been here plenty of times back when they were together. But tonight she looked at it like she was seeing it through different eyes.
Deacon pointed as they approached the front of the house. “I upgraded the security last year. Motion sensors on the drive. Perimeter cameras. Reinforced locks. And a silent alert to the sheriff’s office if the system gets breached.”
Jessa lifted a brow. “All that to keep bad guys out?”
He smirked. “All that to keep you out, originally.”
For half a heartbeat, she almost smiled.
The SUV rolled to a stop. She grabbed her go-bag from the back, slinging it over her shoulder with practiced ease, and they headed toward the front door. Deacon unlocked it, ushering her inside first.
The interior was clean and simple, efficient lines, cool tones, a mix of rustic and modern. Hardwood floors. Dark leather furniture. A stone fireplace. Everything in its place. No clutter. No chaos. A space built for someone who needed order after years of living by the gun.
He hit the keypad beside the door, resetting the security system with a quick series of taps.
A soft whine came from the hallway. Then a rush of paws. A black-and-tan mutt barreled toward them, ears flopping, tail whipping like a helicopter. Deacon crouched, bracing his ribs as the dog skidded to a stop in front of him.
“Easy, Ranger,” he murmured, rubbing the dog’s head.
Ranger, a rescue he’d taken in four years ago, immediately leaned into his side, nuzzling him as if he’d been gone for days.
Jessa knelt too, scratching behind the mutt’s ears. “Hey, buddy. Miss me?”
Ranger’s joyous yip said yes.
Deacon stood, grimacing at the pull in his stitches. “I’ve got someone who comes by a couple times a day to check on him if I’m tied up at work.”
Jessa’s eyes softened as Ranger pressed his side against her leg. The house felt different with her in it again. Warmer, fuller, sharper at the edges. But Deacon pushed that thought down.
Or rather he tried to do that. As usual, he failed big time.
Ranger finally trotted off toward his water bowl, leaving the house quiet again. Too quiet, considering the night they’d just had.
“You want something to eat?” he asked. “I can throw together a sandwich. Or heat up something.”
Jessa shook her head immediately. “No. I’m exhausted. And I need a shower before I fall over.”
He nodded, not the least bit surprised. “Guest room’s this way.”
Even though she knew the way, he motioned down the hall, and she followed him, her boots whispering across the hardwood. The hallway lights glowed low. Warm, steady, familiar. He bypassed his own bedroom, stopped at the next one across from it and pushed the door open.
The guest room was simple, clean, functional.
Queen bed, dark wooden dresser, a soft gray comforter, and a small lamp that cast a dim pool of light across the neatly made bed.
He’d never had many guests. The room saw more dust than people.
But Jessa had slept here before, back when they’d needed space from each other after a fight, back when space hadn’t really fixed anything.
He caught himself staring at her and looked away when his phone vibrated in his pocket. Deacon pulled it out, half hoping, half bracing, that it was Wynn. It wasn’t.
It was a text from Sheriff Chase.
Shade lawyered up. Interview’s postponed till morning. I’ll keep you updated.
Deacon felt his jaw go tight. Perfect. Just perfect.
Jessa was watching him, reading the shift in his expression. “What now?” He held the phone out so she could see. She skimmed it and groaned. “Of course he lawyered up. Coward.”
“Yep,” Deacon muttered, pocketing his phone.
Shade wasn’t going to be any help tonight. Wynn had disappeared into thin air. And somewhere out there, someone who maybe wasn’t even Wynn had tried to put a bullet through both their skulls.
She lingered in the guest room doorway, her go-bag hanging from one hand, exhaustion written in every line of her body. Deacon should’ve let her settle, should’ve backed off, should’ve given her the space she clearly needed.
Instead, he heard himself say quietly, “You okay?”
Jessa lifted her gaze, and something flickered there. Tired, raw, but edged with a heat he remembered far too well. “I don’t want to kiss you, Deacon,” she murmured.
The hell she didn’t.
“Are you sure about that?” he asked, voice low.
A beat. A breath. A faint tremor in her throat. “No,” she whispered.
That one word hit him like a fist.
He stepped closer, slowly, giving her room to back away. She didn’t. She held his eyes as if she was daring him. Or maybe daring herself. He knew he was playing with the exact fire that had burned them to the ground once already. Too bad the fire was still there. Too bright, too hot, too dangerous.
Too damn familiar.
“Jess…” he warned, because he had to, because if he didn’t, this was going to go places they weren’t ready for tonight.
But she didn’t move.
So he leaned in, close enough to feel her breath catch, and he brushed his mouth over hers. A ghost of a kiss. Barely a touch. But it punched straight through him.
Heat, memory, want, regret, all tangled up and razor-sharp.
She sucked in a shaky breath. “This is exactly why Roman didn’t want me coming here,” she muttered. “He knows you and I are stupid around each other.”
Deacon couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his mouth. “He’s not wrong.”
There was chemistry, and then there was whatever the hell burned between him and Jessa. Always scalding. Always reckless. Always ready to consume them both.
And tonight, standing three feet from his bedroom door, it felt dangerously close to catching fire again.
Jessa pulled back first, breath unsteady, eyes still warm from the spark they’d just lit. Then she dragged in a long breath, shuttering it all away.
“This,” she said, motioning between them, “is exactly why a reunion is a terrible idea.”
Deacon arched a brow. “Because you don’t trust yourself?”
“Because we don’t focus.” She groaned softly. “Someone wants us dead. We don’t know who. We don’t know why. And now we have my mother’s murder to solve.”
That last part hit like a bucket of ice water, extinguishing whatever flicker of heat had dared crawl into the room.
Her shoulders tightened. “And besides,” she added, stepping back, “you’re in pain. And our kisses? They don’t stay tame. They never have.”
He huffed out something that might’ve been a laugh if the situation weren’t so damn bleak. “That’s fair.”
She pointed toward his room like she was sending a misbehaving kid to bed. “Take some pain meds. Sleep. We’ll regroup in the morning.”
Ranger padded up beside him, tail sweeping low across the floor as if herding him toward the bedroom. Traitorous dog.
“All right,” Deacon said, backing toward his room. “But if you so much as hear a twig snap outside—”
“I’ll wake you,” she promised.
He nodded and turned away, Ranger trotting at his heels. Deacon was already outside his bedroom door when her phone suddenly rang, loud in the quiet house, sharp enough to cut straight through his ribs.
He stopped dead.
Jessa took out her phone and looked at the screen. “Unknown number,” she let him know.
Jessa’s jaw tightened, but she hit answer and put the phone on speaker, holding it between them like it might bite.
“Wynn?” she asked.
Static crackled.
Then a low, ragged voice slid through the speaker. “Jessa.” Yeah, it was Wynn all right.
Deacon felt Ranger press against his leg, sensing the shift in the air.
“Where are you?” Jessa demanded. “And who tried to kill Deacon and me tonight?”
“Noah killed your mother,” Wynn blurted, obviously dodging Jessa’s questions.
Well, shit.
Deacon rolled his eyes but held back from saying no way in hell had Noah killed Lauren.
“They’re all covering it up for Noah,” Wynn went on. “You hear me? Crossfire Ops. Creed Response. All of them. Protecting him. Protecting the killer.” His voice cracked at the last word. Grief and fury twisted into something jagged.
Deacon felt his pulse spike. Wynn had always been intense, but this was something else. This was a man gone off the rails.
Jessa kept her voice steady, but he could hear the strain. “Wynn, listen to me. Noah didn’t do this.”
“He did.” Wynn hissed. “Noah… Noah let it happen.”
Deacon moved closer. “Wynn,” he said, going all cop with his tone, “if you have evidence, then tell us. And then you can spill who tried to kill Jessa and me tonight.”
There was a harsh inhale. A shuffle. As if he’d jerked the phone away from his mouth or turned his head.
“I have it,” Wynn whispered. “All of it. Proof. And the same person who killed Lauren… they’re the one trying to kill you.”
Jessa huffed. “Do you really believe Noah is behind this?” she asked quietly, and she sounded just as skeptical as Deacon felt.
Silence.
Wynn didn’t answer.
Instead, they heard something in the background—a faint click. A creak. A door, maybe.
Wynn sucked in a sharp breath. “Can’t talk now,” he whispered. “Not safe. I’ll call you tomorrow,” he cut in, voice suddenly panicked. “We’ll meet. I’ll tell you where. Just… be ready.”
The line went dead.