Chapter 4
Chapter four
Beau
Morning comes soft and gray, like it’s afraid of what it might find if it arrives too loudly. There’s no post-Christmas warmth blanketing the house. No merriment lingering from the perfect day we had before…
There’s only stillness and deafening silence.
Snow still drifts past the windows in slow, lazy spirals, wrapping the world in white and effectively erasing last night’s events from its memory. The ranch looks peaceful from the outside. Untouched. Innocent.
But I know better.
We all do.
Abigail is asleep in Linc’s bed.
Not curled tight or gripping the edge of the blankets for warmth.
Not shivering. Just… sleeping. Her chest rises and falls in a slow, steady rhythm that I seem to have memorized sometime in the night.
Her hair fanned across the pillow, copper against white cotton, and her mouth is parted slightly, like she’s mid-thought even in her dreams.
I’m sitting in the chair beside the bed, elbows braced on my knees, while Lucy is curled up at the end of the bed, drifting in and out of consciousness as she keeps a watchful eye on her favorite person.
I don’t remember what time I got in here.
I don’t remember if I’ve even moved from this position.
I only remember the way the muscles in my body relaxed ever-so-slightly the moment I sat down next to her.
The four of us didn’t think any of them would be stupid enough to come near the house again—not after everything that happened in the woods. However, time and time again, they’re proving brains are not their strong suit.
The alarm system was set, every lock checked twice.
And yet, it still didn’t feel like enough.
So one of us stayed downstairs anyway. We all took turns. A constant presence in the dark, eyes on the house, watching for anything that didn’t belong. Because “unlikely” wasn’t the same as impossible—and none of us were willing to risk it.
Meanwhile, upstairs, we also took turns watching her throughout the night. Terrified that if all of us slept at once, if no one was watching the rise and fall of her chest, she’d slip away quietly.
Every time her breathing hitched, someone moved.
Every time she stilled for too long, someone leaned in.
Lawson stood at the foot of the bed—when he wasn’t on guard downstairs—for hours, arms crossed, eyes locked on her face like he could will her to stay with us by sheer force.
Jasper sat on the floor, back against the bed, one hand curled around the blanket draped across his lap as if he were holding on for dear life.
Lincoln handled the practical things. Water.
Heat. Checking skin. Timing everything down to the minute.
And me?
I watched.
Even when I was supposed to be sleeping, I just stared at her.
And when I was downstairs, I was desperate to return to her.
I’ve never been good at helplessness.
But last night, there was nothing else to do.
Nothing besides watch.
She shifts in the bed, just a little, a soft sound leaving her throat, and my spine goes rigid until her breathing evens out again. Only then do I let myself exhale.
“You scared the hell out of us,” I murmur, even though I know she can’t hear me.
Or maybe she can.
There’s a vulnerability to her like this that feels almost sacred.
Without her sharp words. Without her curiosity.
Without the fire she carries so naturally.
Without her stare that sees pieces of me I keep locked so deep that even sometimes I forget they’re there.
Strip all of that away, and she’s a woman who’s survived hell, just to almost be sent back there again.
And on our watch.
My eyes trace the smoothness of her skin and the way her hand curls near her face like she always does when she’s deep in sleep, and something twists low in my chest.
Something protective.
Furious.
Reverent.
Footsteps crunch outside beneath the window.
Lincoln.
I know the rhythm of his walk. Always been able to tell which of us is moving without looking. He’s outside finishing chores. Because even though our world nearly ended last night, the animals in our care still need us. Because without some of them, Abigail wouldn’t be in this bed.
Lawson and Jasper should be back any minute from their ride out to the ridge.
They left before the sun was up, wanting to get to Ethan, then to the ridge and back as soon as possible.
My mind wanders to what they had to do out there. But I try to stop my thoughts before they wander too far. Because I know what’s done needed doing. But memories of last night only lead to memories of my past, and before I know it, they feel like they’re playing out in front of me.
Then, the door to Lincoln’s room creaks open softly.
I look up, heart jumping, to find Lawson stepping in to check on her. I was so lost in thought I didn’t even hear him come into the house. His eyes go straight to her chest, and mine instinctively follow. Both of us memorizing its slow rise and fall.
“Any change?” he asks quietly.
I shake my head. “Still sleepin’. Her breathing is steady.”
Relief flickers across his face, but it doesn’t last long. He looks tired in a way sleep won’t fix. “Jas will be a bit,” he says. “He just wanted to shower. Then we’ll rotate. I made a pot of coffee downstairs if you wouldn’t mind fixing up some breakfast.”
I nod. “Everything at the Ridge go okay?”
“It’s done. No one will find him.”
“Law…”
“Hmm.” He hums in response, eyes moving back to Abigail.
“You okay?”
“I’m okay,” he answers softly. “We did what had to be done, and I’d do it all over again to save her.
” His stare moves back to me, and I know what he’s doing before the next words even come out of his mouth.
He’s doing what he’s always done. The same thing Abigail does when she looks at me. “Are you okay?”
Those three words land heavier than they should.
I glance at Abigail again. At the proof she’s still here. “I don’t know,” I admit. “But I will be.”
He studies me for a moment longer, and I know he sees it. Because why wouldn’t he? The ghosts stirring. The old memories clawing their way back up.
“Have you told her yet?” he asks gently. I shake my head, and his jaw tightens. But there’s no judgment. Only understanding. “Only when you’re ready.”
Only when I’m ready.
Being ready would mean opening a door I’ve spent the last eleven years bracing shut.
It would mean telling her about my mom. It would mean telling her about him.
About the first seventeen years of my life, and how anger lived in that house long before fists ever flew.
About how one afternoon after school—one ordinary day in a long line of ones I desperately wished were different—everything cracked wide open.
It would mean telling her that Ethan wasn’t the first man we’ve watched Lawson kill.
Not out of spite.
Not out of cruelty.
Not because Lawson’s a bad man.
But because it was something that just happened while protecting someone who couldn’t protect themselves.
How do you tell the woman you’re falling for that sometimes, when things get quiet—when violence brushes too close—you still feel like that boy standing in the middle of his shitty apartment, realizing that no matter how hard you wish for your life to be something it’s not, it doesn’t make it so.
Abigail deserves the truth about me.
But she also deserves more than the version of it that still knots my chest and leaves me wondering if once she knows, if she’ll ever look at me the same way again.
“Will I ever be?” I ask genuinely.
He smiles at me, but it doesn’t reach his ears. “I can’t answer that for you, Beau. But just remember, just like I don’t regret what happened last night with Ethan, I don’t regret what happened all those years ago with him.”
I swallow harshly and nod. “I’m gonna go shower quick too,” he says before kissing Abigail softly on the head and heading toward his room.
She murmurs something under her breath—nonsense words really, fragments of a dream. Regardless, I lean forward instinctively, resting my forearm against the mattress, hoping she can feel me near. Feel that she’s safe. That whatever is happening in her dream is only that… a dream.
“You’re home,” I whisper.
Her brow smooths, like her body believes me even if her mind doesn’t.
Five words continue to play in my head on repeat as I wait for Jas and Lawson to finish their showers.
Abigail almost died last night.
She almost died, and we almost became men who didn’t make it to her in time.
I brush my thumb lightly over the back of her hand, barely touching.
Not a promise.
Not a claim.
Just a quiet vow that we won’t ever let it happen again.