Chapter Eight
Roughly two weeks later…
Sage stepped out of the SUV and stopped.
Buckshot hit the ground a second later and took off, all legs and momentum, circling wide across the gravel before snapping back toward Sage’s side like he needed to make sure he was still there.
The driver’s door opened behind him, and Law climbed out. Gravel shifted under his boots as he came around the front of the vehicle, sunlight catching the gray threaded through his dark hair. He glanced up at the house once, easy and familiar, then looked at Sage.
“We’re home.”
Sage lifted his gaze to Law.
Broad shoulders filling out a plain T-shirt, worn jeans, boots planted like he’d grown up walking this ground—which he had.
Dark hair cropped short, threaded with gray at the temples.
Jaw shadowed with matching stubble. Whiskey-colored eyes that caught everything without ever looking hurried about it.
Steady gravity.
Sage had noticed it a long time ago.
Law Steel looked like he belonged in a place like this.
Then Sage’s attention drifted past him.
The house rose out of the Tennessee hillside like it had been there longer than the road leading up to it.
Wide porch stretching the length of the front, tall white columns holding the roofline steady against the heavy summer sky.
The place carried the quiet weight of age—high windows, deep shadows tucked under the eaves, wood darkened by decades of sun and rain.
Not flashy.
Just solid.
The kind of house that didn’t get built anymore.
Gravel crunched under his boots as he took a few slow steps forward, gaze lifting across the property. The yard spread out wide and green, acres of it rolling gently away from the house. Old trees framed the edges of the land, their branches stirring lazily in the humid July air.
A weathered swing set stood off to one side of the yard, the chains creaking in the breeze. Farther back, tucked into the branches of a massive oak, a rough-built tree house leaned against the trunk like it had been there since someone’s childhood.
Buckshot trotted over to a nearby bush and lifted his leg, tail wagging like he’d just claimed the whole place.
Somewhere around the side of the house, people were moving—voices drifting through the trees, a door shutting, someone laughing.
Family noise.
The kind that never really stopped.
The SUV doors opened behind him.
Micah climbed out first, stretching his arms over his head like the drive had personally offended him. He took one look at the house and let out a laugh.
“Man grew up in a mansion and never mentioned it.”
Black followed, shutting his door with a click before stepping around the vehicle. Winter came out last, tall and silent, his gaze sweeping across the property once before settling on the house.
The front door suddenly burst open.
Two kids came tearing out onto the porch like they’d been launched from inside, sneakers pounding across the boards.
“Uncle Law!”
The shout carried across the yard.
A smaller one barreled after them a second later, nearly tripping over the threshold before recovering and sprinting toward the steps.
“Uncle Law’s here!”
“A puppy!”
Buckshot bounced around the kids, his whole body wiggling.
More voices answered from inside the house.
Sage blinked once, watching the chaos unfold.
Yeah.
This was a big family house.
You could feel it the second you stepped onto the property. The kind of place built to hold too many people, too many holidays, too many loud dinners around tables that probably never sat empty.
Very different from the ranch.
Very different from anything he’d ever grown up with.
Houses like this had never been part of his life.
His mother had raised him alone until she disappeared when he was young, and the foster system that followed had never looked anything like this—no loud kitchens, no siblings spilling out onto porches, no parents calling people in for dinner.
Sage stood there a second longer, taking it all in, before the sound of another engine rolling up the drive pulled his attention.
Right.
He wasn’t here alone.
Which was still mildly irritating.
He hadn’t actually planned on coming at all.
When Law first mentioned the trip—Fourth of July, family barbecue, something about too much food and too many people—Sage had declined without hesitation.
Crowds. Families. Loud holidays.
None of that ranked high on his list of favorite environments.
He’d been perfectly content to stay at the ranch and let everyone else go play normal human for a few days.
Unfortunately, the rest of the team had opinions about that.
Micah had started it.
“You can’t sit at the ranch alone on the Fourth of July like some kind of tragic ghost.”
Black had leaned against the doorframe during that conversation, arms crossed, expression calm but clearly entertained by Sage’s growing irritation.
Winter hadn’t said much, but the look he gave Sage had been enough.
Go.
In the end, between Micah’s relentless guilt trips and the quiet pressure from the other two, Sage had caved.
Now he was standing in Tennessee, staring at Law’s childhood home like he’d somehow wandered into a completely different world.
Boston climbed out first, stretching like he’d been trapped in the truck for days instead of hours. Buckshot barreled over, bouncing around Boston, who ran a hand over the pup’s head.
Rip followed a moment later, big and silent as always, Memphis stepping out behind him with the slow, easy movement of someone who already expected trouble and entertainment in equal measure.
Sage watched them gather in the yard, the group spreading out naturally the way they always did when they arrived somewhere unfamiliar.
His mind flicked to his meeting at the Rusty Spur.
He shut it down immediately.
Now wasn’t the time.
The yard, the house, and the growing noise of people moving around the property pulled his attention back to the present, whether he wanted it there or not.
The kids chorused, jumping around the soldier, Buckshot adding to the commotion.
“What’s his name?” one of the smaller kids asked, patting the dog’s spotted back.
“Buckshot,” Sage said, smiling.
“He’s so cool,” another one said.
Law stepped forward just as the smallest one launched himself. He caught the boy easily, lifting him off the ground before another kid wrapped arms around his leg—the others laughing and giggling.
Law laughed quietly and steadied his stance, taking the jostling with ease.
“Hey there.”
“You said you were coming yesterday!” the older one accused immediately.
“Traffic.”
“Where?” the boy demanded.
“Turnpike.”
“That’s not real traffic.”
“Sure it is.” Law winked and placed the first kid back on his feet and ruffled his hair before glancing across the yard. The man’s gaze swept the driveway automatically—over him, the others, the tree line beyond the property.
As if by habit.
But something about him had shifted.
Sage noticed it immediately.
At the ranch, Law always carried a certain tension under the surface, the quiet readiness of someone who expected things to go wrong.
Here, that edge had softened.
The screen door slapped somewhere behind them. Someone laughed inside the house. The smell of charcoal and cut grass drifted across the yard on the warm July air. Cicadas buzzed lazily in the trees. Buckshot barked and tore after a stick one of the kids tossed across the lawn.
The house behind him. The kids hanging off his arm. The open yard stretching out around the place.
Law looked like he belonged in the middle of it.
Which, Sage supposed, he did.
Something tight and warm pulled across his chest.
“So, where’s the food?” Boston said, slapping his hands together, breaking the moment.
“Always thinking about your stomach,” Rip grumbled.
“You still pissed I had us stop at the drive-thru?”
“Three.” Rip corrected the young assassin. “Three drive-thrus.”
“And you ordered something every time,” Boston reminded Rip with a smirk.
The front door creaked open again, cutting the argument short.
And suddenly, more people started pouring out.
Two men who had to be Law’s brothers. A pair of women. A couple of teenagers who looked like they’d abandoned whatever they were doing the second they heard the shouting.
Within seconds, the porch filled with bodies and voices.
Sage blinked once.
Law had his own damn basketball team and hadn’t even needed to recruit.
He filed the information away automatically—faces, posture, height, the easy way they all moved around each other like this happened every time Law came home.
One of the men laughed and pointed toward the driveway. “Look who finally decided to show up.”
A woman beside him leaned against the rail with a grin.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
Another voice came from the doorway.
“Are you boys planning to stand out there all afternoon?”
Sage’s gaze shifted.
Law’s mother stepped onto the porch. She was smaller than the others, but the space moved around her the second she appeared.
Dark hair threaded with silver pulled loosely back, sharp eyes that looked like they missed very little.
Her voice carried a slight Tennessee drawl, warm but unmistakably used to being listened to.
“Or are you coming inside at some point?”
Beside her, an older man stepped forward. Taller. Straight-backed in a way that had nothing to do with age and everything to do with habit. Broad shoulders, gray hair cut short, expression calm but watchful. The kind of man who had probably spent a lifetime assessing rooms the same way Sage did.
Law’s father.
Another detail filed away.
“Give them a minute,” the man said easily.
Then he nodded toward the yard behind the house.
“Tents are set up out back.”
Sage glanced past the porch toward the property again.
Barbecue smoke drifting somewhere beyond the trees.
Voices.
Movement.
A full house.
Law caught Sage’s hand before he could think about it.
“Come meet my family,” he murmured, already pulling him toward the steps.
Sage let himself be dragged along, still a little too bemused to protest.
That tight warmth in his chest didn’t go away.