Chapter 4
Jessie
Tank produces whiskey like a magic trick. One minute we’re cleaning up from dinner, the next he’s holding a bottle and two glasses, tilting his head toward the porch.
I’m learning his language: the grunts, the gestures, the way a raised eyebrow from him says more than most men manage with a hundred words.
I follow him outside.
The evening air hits my skin, cool and pine-sharp, carrying a silence that only exists this far from civilization. No traffic. No neighbors. Just the creak of the porch steps and the distant call of something wild in the trees. It settles something in me I didn’t realize was wound tight.
Tank settles on the top step, leaving space beside him—an invitation, not an expectation. I take it, sitting close enough that our shoulders almost touch. He pours two fingers of whiskey into each glass and hands me one without asking.
“This a nightly ritual?” I ask, taking a sip. The whiskey burns going down, then spreads warmth through my chest. Good stuff. Better than I’d expect from a man who lives like he’s allergic to luxury.
“When I’ve got company worth sharing it with.”
“Smooth, Mountain Man.”
“I try.” He’s not looking at me. His eyes are fixed on the tree line where the last light is bleeding out of the sky. But a hint of a smile plays at the corner of his mouth.
We sit in comfortable silence for a while. The kind of quiet that doesn’t need filling. I’ve never been good at silence. Always felt the urge to talk, to perform, to fill the empty space before someone else decided I wasn’t worth the effort.
With Tank, silence feels like a gift.
“Can I ask you something?” The words are out before I think better of them.
“You just did.”
“Hilarious.” I bump his shoulder with mine. “I mean a real question.”
He takes a slow sip of whiskey. “Shoot.”
“Why do you live all the way up here, separate from the main ranch?”
A slight tension appears in his jaw. I’ve touched something. I’m about to backtrack when he answers.
“I told you about the veterans’ program at Havenridge. Guys who need space to figure out how to be human again after—” He stops. Starts over. “The ranch gives us land, work, community. Most of the guys live closer to the main house. Easier access to everything.”
“But not you.”
“Not me.”
“The scars?” I ask softly.
He doesn’t reply straight away. I wait. The silence stretches, but I don’t fill it. I’m learning that Tank talks when he’s ready, and pushing only makes him clam up harder.
“Roadside IED.”
Those two words could be a hundred for what they convey. Pain. Fear. Anger. Gratitude because he’s still here, but it came with a cost.
“But to answer your question is… I’m too much,” he finally says.
The words come out rough, almost reluctant.
“Too loud. Too intense. My nightmares used to wake the others. I’d be up at three a.m., making noise, pacing, and the guys on either side of me were losing sleep trying to pretend they didn’t hear. ”
My chest tightens. “So you exiled yourself to protect them from… what? Your personality?”
“Something like that.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
He turns to look at me, eyebrows raised. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” I set my glass down, shifting to face him fully. “You’re telling me you built yourself a cabin in the middle of nowhere because you were worried about being too much for the people who love you?”
“It’s more complicated than—”
“It’s not complicated at all. It’s self-imposed solitary confinement disguised as consideration.
” I poke his chest, which is as solid as a brick wall under my finger, and electricity shoots up my arm.
I ignore it. “News flash, Mountain Man: the people who actually care about you would rather lose a little sleep than lose you.”
He stares at me for a long moment. “You always this bossy?”
“Only when people are being idiots.”
“Good to know where I stand.”
“Rock bottom. Absolute moron.” I pick up my glass and take a sip. “For the record? You don’t overwhelm me. You take up exactly the right amount of space.”
Something flickers across his face—surprise, maybe. Or hope.
“Now tell me about these brothers of yours. The ones you’re apparently protecting from your overwhelming presence.”
His laugh pops up out of nowhere. Deep and genuine. It transforms his whole face, crinkling the corners of his eyes, splitting his beard with a grin that makes my stomach flip.
Oh. Oh, no.
“You really want to know?”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
He leans back, bracing himself on one hand. The movement brings him closer, and his shoulder presses against mine, but I don’t pull away.
“There’s Forge. He’s the oldest—runs the metalwork shop on the property. Built half the fixtures in this cabin. Grumpier than me, if you can believe it.”
“Impossible.”
“Ask anyone.” His grin widens. “Then there’s Wyatt. Got the nickname ‘Saint’ because he’s—well, he’s Saint. Philosophical. Patient. The kind of guy who quotes Marcus Aurelius at you when you’re trying to have a crisis.”
“Sounds insufferable.”
“He’s the best man I know.” The warmth in his voice makes my chest ache. “Jackson—Tex—is the youngest of us. He was chaos personified. Laughed at everything before our last deployment. Now he laughs at everything because it hides what’s underneath.”
He takes a sip of whiskey. “You’d like him. You’re both menaces.”
“And you’re the—”
“The loud one. The one who takes up too much space.” He says it matter-of-factly, like it’s just data. “Tex calls me ‘emotionally constipated.’ Saint says I have the subtlety of a freight train. They’re not wrong.”
“They sound like a lot.”
“They are.” His voice softens. “Worth it, though.”
The stars are coming out now, scattered across the darkening sky like someone spilled diamonds on velvet.
I tip my head back to watch them, hyperaware of Tank’s warmth beside me.
The solid weight of his shoulder against mine.
The way his breathing has slowed, steadied, like he’s settling into something.
“When can I meet them?”
The question escapes before I can second-guess it.
Tank goes still, as though I’ve said something he needs to process.
“You want to?”
“I’m curious about the people who matter to you.” I shrug, trying to keep my voice casual as if this isn’t a bigger ask than it sounds. “If I’m crashing in your space, it seems like I should know who might show up unannounced.”
“They don’t show up unannounced. I’d kill them.”
“But you’d let me meet them? Officially?”
He turns his head, and suddenly we’re close. Closer than I realized. His face is inches from mine.
“Yeah,” he says, his dark eyes searching mine. “I’d let you meet them. When the time’s right.”
“Okay, then.”
“Okay.”
Neither of us moves. The air between us is electric, like the moment before a storm breaks. I can see the silver threading through his beard, the small scar above his left eyebrow, the way his pupils have blown wide in the low light.
“Jessie.”
“Tank.”
“You’re making it real hard to be a gentleman right now.”
My heart stutters. “Who asked you to be?”
Something shifts in his expression. A crack in the careful control he’s kept since I met him. I see the exact moment he stops holding back.
“Fair warning,” he murmurs, leaning closer. “I’m about to do something I’ve been thinking about since the auction.”
He closes the distance.
The first brush of his lips is gentle. Testing and questioning, as if he’s giving me one last chance to pull away. I answer by fisting my hand in his flannel and dragging him closer.
Finally.
He groans against my mouth, a low, rough sound that vibrates through my whole body. Then he’s kissing me for real. Deep and slow and devastating, one hand coming up to cup the back of my head, tilting me exactly where he wants me.
He kisses like he does everything else: deliberate, thorough, and completely overwhelming. I feel it in my toes. In my spine. In places I haven’t let myself think about since I got in his truck and came up this mountain.
When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard.
“Well.” My voice comes out embarrassingly unsteady. “That was—”
“Yeah.”
“I mean—”
“I know.”
Silence. But not awkward. Just… full. Like something’s shifted and we’re both learning the ground under our feet.
Tank’s thumb traces my cheekbone, achingly gentle for a man with hands that could break someone in half. “I’ve been wanting to do that since I outbid Mr. Rolex at the auction.”
“Outbidding a wealthy suit got you all hot under the collar, huh?”
“No, I wanted to kiss you to see if you still look incredible when you’re…flustered. ”
“I look incredible all the time.”
“True.” He leans in and presses a softer kiss to the corner of my mouth. “Stay.”
The word lands in my chest like a stone in still water.
“Tank—”
“Not forever. Not anything you’re not ready for.” He pulls back to meet my eyes. “Just… don’t run tonight. Let this be whatever it is without overthinking it.”
I should remind him that I don’t stay, or settle, or let myself want things that might disappear. That I’ve got a commission in New York and a life that doesn’t have room for mountain men with devastating kisses and couches that are too small.
Instead, I say: “Okay.”
His smile is slow and satisfied and does terrible things to my self-control.
“Okay.” He stands, offering me his hand. “Bed.”
“Presumptuous.”
“Sleep, Smudge.” But his eyes are dark with promise. “For now.”
I blink at the nickname. “Smudge?”
He glances down at the smear of charcoal on my thumb from earlier, graphite dust caught in the creases of my palm. Evidence of the sketches I’ve been pretending not to make. The ones that might be of him.
“I’m not that messy.” I try to sound indignant, but I’m smiling. “I wash my hands. Eventually.”
Something flickers across his expression. A secret he’s not ready to share. His mouth curves into a smile that promises things I’m not sure I’m ready for.
“Sure, Smudge.” His voice drops to something rougher. “That’s definitely why.”
Before I can ask what that means, he’s heading inside.
Cryptic mountain man.
The cabin feels different now. Smaller and warmer and charged with possibility.
He stops by the couch, and I see him brace himself for another night of folding his massive frame into that too-small space.
“Tank.”
“Yeah?”
“The couch is going to ruin your back.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re a terrible liar.” I hesitate, then push forward before I lose my nerve. “The bed’s big enough for two. And I promise not to compromise your virtue. Much.”
His laugh rumbles through the small space, low and warm. But he doesn’t move toward the bedroom.
“Jessie.” He says my name like it costs him something. “If I get in that bed with you tonight, I’m not going to want to leave it.”
Oh.
Oh.
“And when I do this right”—his eyes drop to my mouth, then back up, dark and deliberate—“it’s not going to be because you're grateful, or overwhelmed, or running on adrenaline.”
“That’s very… chivalrous of you.” My voice comes out breathier than I’d like.
He steps closer, and the room suddenly feels very small. “When you end up in my bed, Smudge, I want you to choose it. Clear-headed. No excuses. No take-backs.”
When. Not if, but when.
“You’re very confident.”
A slow smile spreads across his face, doing dangerous things to my resolve. “Goodnight, Jessie.”
He settles onto the couch, which creaks in protest, and I retreat to the bed on unsteady legs.
I lie there in the dark, listening to him shift and resettle, and realize I’m not offended.
I’m counting down.
And I’m starting to be okay with that.