Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Jude
I settled Bones into his bed on the corner of the cabin’s living room couch. He kneaded the padding, then curled around himself, tail flicking, before giving me his vengeful eye.
“I know. How dare I disturb your slumber.” I patted his head, which he shrank from, and I let him be despite the niggling desire to pester him just to teach him a lesson.
Sometimes, cats needed to be bothered. That was why they adopted people. That’s what Omi used to say, and I’d taken it to heart.
A pang sliced through me. Familiar, and maybe slightly less jagged than they’d been since?—
Since Omi passed.
A month ago.
Had it only been a month?
Had it already been a month?
I’d known it was coming. Her decline was steady and predictable. The team had done everything they could. She’d given up her fight and I couldn’t fault her for it.
“I love you so much, my Jude boy. Please don’t hide away. Open that big heart wide.”
Gravity pulled me to sitting and I slumped forward, resting my elbows on my knees and holding my head in my hands. For all the years I’d spent in kit with body armor and gear weighing me down, nothing had ever felt heavier than grief.
First, losing the little bit of Jess I’d had when we were friends and the total destruction of my relationship with Kurt—it’d been on a ticking clock for years, but the end of it still hurt. Then losing the man who raised me, the best man I knew, and someone who’d been more father than grandfather. And now, the woman who’d been with me my whole life. The only other person who’d chosen to stay by me, even after her husband couldn’t when he passed.
A soft trill of a meow made me look down. Bones butted his fluffy brown and black mottled head against my knee, then jumped up. In two swift leaps, he landed on my shoulder, his claws notching into my trap muscle with what I imagined was his version of gentleness, and then he settled into his spot. Front white-socked paws rested on one shoulder, face tucked into them, soft white-furred belly wrapping across my neck and his rear end and hind paws bunched up on the opposite shoulder.
The older he got, the more space he covered, and as a mutty cousin of a Maine Coon, he was a very large kitty. Lucky for him, he’d adopted a rather large man for his human.
And lucky for me, I’d found myself a curmudgeonly and yet surprisingly sweet little beast who had a keen sense for human emotion and seemed to need to comfort me when he felt my mood darken. Not quite the certified anxiety support dog Bear was for Stone, but I’d take this from him whenever he gave it.
Something about a cat’s weight made the drag of sadness feel a little lighter. The physics might not make sense, but the easing of the tightness in my chest and throat was proof enough.
I tipped my head to one side, lightly knocking my head against the fluffy tufts of his ear. Another little meow emerged.
“Love you, too, Buddy.”
The words came out rough, like so many had lately. It was why I’d come here to the cabin.
Actually, my bosses sent me here, so I wouldn’t pretend I’d come of my own volition. When I’d gone inside to dump the tech and weapons Pop and I had used for the mission, Wilder, Bruce, Adam, and Tristan had all been there. Kenny came in behind me as though they needed a sweeper to make sure I complied with their ambush.
“You’re going to the cabin. You need some rest,” Bruce said, setting his hand on my shoulder and squeezing.
After having Pop tear into me and shred me in the parking lot, and being fully aware they’d quite possibly overheard the whole thing, I was about as raw as I had been since the day I’d lost Omi.
Words, as they so often did, failed me, so I’d made a sound of assent. I didn’t have any fight in me after the last forty-eight hours. Jess’s barrage of honesty—however much I might’ve wanted to believe she was exaggerating her anger for effect, I knew it all came from her genuine belief in what she’d said—had sideswiped me.
I’d awakened on that trip, but by the time we got back and things split down the middle, jagged edges between us cutting up any energy I’d won from butting heads against her, I’d lost all ability to explain or defend or do anything other than take her brutal honesty.
“You and Bones head up there and find some quiet. Read, roast marshmallows, breathe in the mountain air. Get some space, not on a mission, and come back when you’re ready,” Doc encouraged, and I suspected, demanded.
Though couched in a suggestion, I could safely guess he had instigated this.
These men had comforted me while I wept for the loss of the last person who knew me my whole life. They stood with me at the funeral—served as pallbearers and helped fill the pews of the church along with the residents of Silverton Springs Retirement Community.
My jaw ached as emotion flooded in, their tenderness and care for me so at odds with how I blustered around seemingly without care for anyone else. Pop had said it, and she wasn’t wrong. I’d been so focused on myself for so long—on surviving and making sure Omi was okay, and now…
Now, what?
Wilder spoke quietly but with his usual no nonsense. “Go. Rest. Grieve. Come back when you’re ready.”
An order, then. No hiding it.
“Well, honestly, I’m going to need you to come back before the film fest because we do not have the bodies without you, especially if anyone else gets sick like Cookie did. If that crap rolls through all of us, we’re going to need you.” Kenny shoved my shoulder and gave me a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Sweet kid. He was trying hard to be light for me, and I loved him for it, but I could see how this month had strained him. Any confrontation with death or grief took the wind out of his breezy sails and reminded him too much of his own life. He’d been as present as he could, and every one of these men had stepped up to help me.
So now I sat in my cabin with my giant cat draped over my shoulders like a fur stole and waited. What realizations could I have in this brutal silence? What healing in the isolation I’d only just learned to step out of?
In the past, I might’ve tried to avoid these crashing waves of grief hitting when I least expected them. I might’ve seen them as weakness and pushed myself harder. I’d fallen into the trap this last week when I said I’d take the job at Snowberry with Pop. I’d thought maybe being forced to work with her would be good for me—it would help kick me out of the sadness and help me battle a more palatable foe.
I’d heard the voice whispering I was doing it for myself—not to recover, not to fill a gap Saint needed my help with, not to feel useful again after losing the person I spent the most time with—but to be near her in a way we couldn’t avoid.
She was a piece of the past I could reach for, a way to remember who I’d been before I’d lost my grandparents and the only family I’d ever had. The only family by blood, because I did have family still, but this ache came from that cellular isolation I faced now. Everyone else was gone, and some straw-grasping instinct in me had thought being around Pop would let me escape the reality.
There was nothing left of it now, though. No part of the friendship we’d had, no part of anything good left. I knew it well enough in my head, but I’d hoped, knowing that voice might be right.
I’d heard it, and I’d ignored it.
And I’d successfully hurt us both.
Because on some level, my plan had worked. Being near her was like stepping up to an open flame—not one blazing with grief, but with something else entirely. It was warm, then so much faster than I’d prepared for, too hot. Searing. The numbness that’d padded the walls of my mind and let me move about like a wraith the last while had been ripped away, and touching her hand, looking directly into her eyes, exchanging words with her… it’d burned me back into consciousness.
I couldn’t take it, hearing her say I’d ruined her life. Did she really still see it that way?
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but some part of me had slipped into the comfortable, lukewarm pot of believing she’d maybe not forgiven but at least moved on and simply hated me because I was an ass. And I was.
Instead, the water had turned up and up, and by the end of the ride home, I was cooked. She still boiled over with hurt and rage and I’d failed completely at making it better. I’d refused to accept the title of villain, but when I’d finally gotten the wherewithal to explain myself, it’d been too long. And she’d let loose.
She threw nothing but irritability and suspicion my way, always assuming I was trying to piss her off or get under her skin. I’d long ago surrendered to the fact that she wouldn’t engage with me on any level beyond simply tolerating me publicly and hating me privately. I’d avoided her, kept my mouth shut as much as possible, and wouldn’t force myself to beg her to give me the benefit of the doubt. If she wanted to hate me, then she could go right ahead. I wasn’t going to stop her.
At some point, I should probably apologize to her, but what would it gain?
She’d made clear what she thought of me. Why would I work to change that? Even if she was the only thing to make me feel alive lately, why would I submit myself to her wrath when she would never see the truth? She’d told me as much.
And I’d never apologize because what I’d done was right and had saved her from something she couldn’t accept—she hadn’t married Kurt, who was a predator. Who knew what else he’d done I hadn’t been witness to. Who knew how many times he’d betrayed her.
I must’ve loosed a grumble because Bones’ purr stuttered and his front claws extended, pressing into my collar bone.
“About time for a trim,” I said, because if I didn’t say something and get out of my own head, I’d drown.
What I didn’t expect was a knock on my door—a little frantic-sounding. The cabin was basic on the outside, so I had no doorbell, though fortunately it had plumbing and all the necessities. The sun had set, and the driveway was dim enough I couldn’t see any cars, and with no porch light, whoever stood outside was a mystery.
Worse, I hadn’t heard the crunch of gravel or heard approaching footsteps, which meant I’d been way too far into my own head.
Never in my wildest nightmares or fantasies would I have expected to see Pop on the other side of the door when I swung it open.
I’d had more than one dream that started like this—they could go either way. But she never looked so subdued and wary. She usually showed up with eyes blazing and blades in words on her lips. In my dreams she usually came to fight or, a few times I loved and hated to remember, very much not .
Here in reality, her dark gaze was cagey, hair pulled back, arms already wrapped around herself and the sleeves of her dark green sweater almost completely covering her hands, shoulders hunched against the chilly fall evening. Shadows shaded her eyes and she had less color on her cheeks than usual, even in the dull light. Small snowflakes stuck to her shoulders and arms, and behind her the gravel drive and my truck were already coated in white.
My stomach dropped low.
I needed to talk to her, but not now. Not while I’d been scraped head to toe with large-grain sandpaper and was teetering on bawling my eyes out at any moment.
She didn’t belong here—she couldn’t be here.
I couldn’t handle her on some of my best days, and I certainly couldn’t right now. Grief had flayed me but I’d been working to heal, hoping maybe the work trip would aid it. Instead, it tore me open, dragging out too many longings and pains, and it’d all piled on top of me. I needed to stay buried here in solitude, to sip whiskey and talk to my cat and breathe air no one else shared. I couldn’t have her here, shoving all my wrongs, all I’d lost, all I’d wanted so much it’d gutted me for a time, into my face. It would end me.
My mind tunneled back to her standing on my doorstep so many years ago, eyes bloodshot and heart practically bleeding out from the injuries she’d convinced herself I’d caused. Any attempts I’d made to repair had only torn her open—torn me open—further.
So, no. I couldn’t do this now, not with her. Not today or any time soon.
“What are you doing here?”
Her big brown eyes shuttered and her brow pinched, gaze dropping to one side of my head, then the other—registering Bones, no doubt.
“I’m sorry to interrupt.”
What was she doing here? How did she even know where here was? Barbie and Stone were the only two people who’d ever been to the cabin before. The others knew of it, but didn’t have the address. Pop definitely didn’t have the information, which meant Barbie had talked.
Impatience and the flash-flood rise of panic clipped at my heels. “Again, why are you here?”
She exhaled slowly, lips thinning and jaw tight. Clasping her hands in front of her, she leveled her gaze at me.
“I’d like to talk to you. May I come in?”