CHAPTER THREE
SARAH
Living off the ranch means you’ve got to stay alert all the time. So when I wake up in the middle of the night, I reach for James’s side of the bed, but it’s cold and empty.
Looking for him, I squint into the dark until my eyes adjust to the faint light slipping through the old curtains.
The silence is thick. No footsteps, no voices, not even a breeze whispering through the cracked walls.
Finally, I spot him shirtless, standing in front of the back window, filling the whole frame.
Usually, it’s his strength that draws me in, but tonight, it’s his skin.
He’s covered in burns, cuts, and deep ridges—scars running across his back, chest, shoulders, even down his arms. A roadmap of pain, and I’ve memorized every line.
God knows I’ve tried every trick in my stubborn book to get him to tell me about those scars, but he won’t say a word.
Not one. He doesn’t talk about his past, at least not with me.
I slip quietly out of bed, the floor cool beneath my bare feet, and walk over to him.
I wrap my arms around his waist and press a soft kiss between his shoulder blades, right where one of the scars begins.
James lets out a deep sigh, and I feel him ease back into me.
He’s a fortress, but even fortresses need care sometimes.
“Can’t sleep?” I ask. “You’ve still got time before your shift, right?”
We’ve worked out this system for keeping watch at night. Michael starts, James takes over halfway through, and I do the last shift, up before the sun. It’s not perfect, but it keeps us from waking up to some nightmare ambush.
James turns around and pulls me into a tight hug.
“I…” he starts, then goes quiet.
I cup his cheek. “Tell me.”
“I’m worried,” he says, his gaze drifting up to the fireflies outside, lighting up the garden like tiny lanterns. “We’re surrounded by raiders, Sarah. What if something happens on the next scavenging run? I can’t stand the thought of you getting hurt.”
“Me? Hurt?” I snort, trying to lighten the mood. “I don’t break. Well… except for the wrist. And, okay, the arm. Oh, and that one time I wrecked my foot…”
I laugh, but he doesn’t join in. He’s more worried than usual.
He leans his forehead against mine, eyes locked on me. He’s still tense, every line in his face says so.
“What if you need me, and I can’t get to you in time?” he asks.
Oh, James… even Superman needs a nap sometimes. But good luck explaining that to Mr. I-Can-Lift-A-Truck-With-One-Hand.
Instead of arguing, I get on my tiptoes and press a kiss to his chin.
“James… don’t be scared.”
I’m echoing his words from that night a year ago, when we fled the ranch, when everything around us was chaos and fear and smoke, and his strength was all I had to hold onto.
The tension in James’s forehead eases, and he slides his hands down my back in the most delicious way.
“No matter what corner of the earth I have to go to, I’ll find some chocolate for you, Sarah Williams.”
He kisses my forehead, and I can’t help but smile. He smells like pine trees, my absolute favorite scent.
I poke him in the ribs. “You really know how to woo a girl.”
He grins. “What can I say? I’ve got skills.”
“James Hill, if you find any chocolate at all, you’re my hero.”
I’m half-joking because he already is, though I’d never let him get too smug about it.
I trace a scar on his chest with my fingertips, a deep line etched right over his heart. He has so many scars, some older and faded, others still vivid, but this one looks like it hurt the most. I don’t know how it happened, but the shape of it… it has to be a knife wound.
Sometimes I wonder if I almost lost him before I ever really had him, all because of that one scar. And every time I look at it, my chest aches. It says he came way too close to dying, maybe in a fight, and the thought of it unsettles me more than I’ll ever admit.
I shake it off with a smile and ask, “We’ve been on the road for months. Aren’t you tired of me yet?”
“That’s impossible, you’re the reason my heart’s still beating.”
Wow, he sure knows how to say the right thing.
I reach up, brushing a strand of hair from his face. “If you hadn’t shown up at that barn that night… I don’t know where I’d be. Michael and I might’ve never made it out. But you came. You saved me.”
James shakes his head. “Leaving you behind on that ranch was never an option. I was always gonna take you with me, no matter what.”
I raise an eyebrow. “And how did you know I’d go with you?”
His hand cups the back of my neck, strong enough to guide my gaze to him, and the intensity in his eyes makes me sigh.
“Because you were mine long before I ever spoke it aloud.”
I should disagree, but we both know that’d be a lie.
James’s hands wander, sliding down to my ass and gripping hard as he pulls me even closer, like there’s no such thing as close enough for him. Then he catches my mouth in a slow kiss that deepens until my knees go weak, sending a hot jolt straight between my thighs.
Who needs chocolate when you’ve got kisses like this?
I’m pretty sure there’s nothing better in the world than kissing James, except maybe… one thing.
“Hey, Outsider. Guess what? You’ve still got thirty minutes to kill.”
James’s eyes flare.
In one… two… three seconds, he scoops me up in his arms, kissing every inch of my face. And then he lays me on our bed, his hands tugging at my clothes until, well… I’m naked in record time.
◆◆◆
When I looked up at that crystal-clear sky this morning, I just knew something bad was coming. Every time a day starts out perfect, something ends up going wrong for us. But I ignored the feeling anyway and set out with a bucket in hand.
Fetching water from the nearly dried-up stream was just an excuse to wander farther than I probably should… and pick some flowers.
Who says you can’t find beauty in chaos?
These little adventures have become my quiet way of rebelling. And when I walk back to the cabin and James sees the new flower I brought in, now sitting in a vase on the windowsill, he just stares at it for a very long time before finally looking at me.
He knows exactly what I did—that I wandered off our safe path to grab it. He doesn’t say a word; his eyes do all the talking, silently scolding me for yet another risky little detour.
Have I mentioned how teasing James is my favorite hobby? Seriously, there’s nothing more fun than pushing his buttons, just enough to make him squirm. It’s an art form, really, and lucky for him, I consider myself quite the artist.
I flash him my biggest, most mischievous grin, so wide it should be illegal, then bat my lashes with fake innocence.
“You really think someone’s gonna find the cabin just ’cause I wandered off the trail a little?”
He narrows his eyes at me, his square jaw clenching. “It’s not about the cabin, Sarah. It’s about you. They might find you.”
His words wipe the smirk right off my face.
James and Michael can be so… overprotective. No, scratch that—they’re possessive! I can’t do anything alone, not even a trip to an abandoned store without them. My little scavenging trips are limited to whatever they can see from their guard post.
Don’t even get me started on talking to strangers—it’s like I’m committing some major crime. But do I let that stop me? No way. Every chance I get, I’m out there chatting with every group we run into on the road. And the angry looks they shoot my way when I do? Totally worth it.
Still, underneath all the eye rolls and snark, I get it.
James cares a lot, maybe even more than Michael, and that guy already picks on me constantly.
I know I shouldn’t be arguing with James.
He’s been surviving this world since it fell apart nineteen years ago, before I was even born.
He’s seen everything—every ugly part of trying to survive in a world where any day could be your last.
He once told me it felt like being trapped in one of those disaster movies where the credits never roll. Not that I’d know, since I’ve never actually seen a movie. Everything I know about them comes from books.
James and his dad, Andrew Hill, spent years wandering from one ghost town to the next. Their life was basically one long, gritty road trip. But just a few months before Michael stumbled across James, his world broke in half when Andrew died, leaving him completely alone.
You can still see the sadness in his eyes sometimes. It’s part of why he always seems to be searching for more than just a safe place to crash.
He’s looking for a place to call home.
As night falls, the crackle of the fireplace fills the room. The air smells like burning wood and stew from dinner. I’m curled up on the couch, wrapped in a blanket with a book in hand. Sure, it might be almost summer, but the nights out here still get pretty cold.
I look over at the dining table, where the boys are deep into another poker game. Michael’s locked in, brow furrowed like this is the most important hand of his life. James, meanwhile, is barely hiding a smug smile behind his cards.
I have so many memories of them playing around, especially on our last day at the ranch.
That was the first time I saw James totally relax, like he didn’t have a care in the world.
After their card game, he found me in the garden.
I was lying on the grass, scanning the sky for shooting stars, and he just stood there watching me.
Neither of us said a single word. Then Michael showed up, as always, with his perfect timing.
He and James started joking around, hoping a meteor would smack the other on the head.
Classic boys will be boys, I’m used to it by now.
But in that moment, I could see it clear as day: James felt at home.
And just like that night, his eyes find mine again.
“Penny for your thoughts?” he asks.
His timing makes me smile. He always knows when I start to daydream. “Just memories.”
“Memories with me?”