Chapter 39
thirty-nine
“Why are you acting so weird?”
At Logan’s question from the backseat, Greta glanced sideways at Bear behind the wheel.
Ever since they turned off the highway at the Solace exit, he’d been unusually quiet, even for him.
By the time they turned onto Ridge Road, he was white-knuckling the wheel.
He should be relieved the hearing was over, and Logan was officially his, but, if anything, he was more keyed up now than he’d been on the drive to Missoula.
She shifted in her seat to fully face him. “Yeah, why are you acting weird?”
“I’m not.”
She studied his profile. The granite jaw. The steel-hard set of his shoulders. The way his thumb was moving against the steering wheel in a small, rhythmic circle that he probably didn’t know he was doing.
She’d seen Bear face down a flooded river without blinking. She’d watched him take down Daniel Goodwin without breaking a sweat. She’d seen him hold his son together while his whole body shook. She’d seen him calmly hold her together when her whole world crumbled.
She had never seen him like this.
“Bear.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re really not.”
“Can we just—” He exhaled through his nose, a long controlled breath, and turned down Ridge Road. “Can we just get there?”
Logan caught Greta’s eye in the visor mirror and mouthed, “What’s wrong with him?”
She shrugged.
He slumped back against the seat and glowered at the back of Bear’s head with an expression that was so Bear-like she had to smile.
The ranch came into view through the tree line, the metal roof of the main house catching the late afternoon sun. Bear turned through the gate and took the long way around the side of the main house instead of parking in front like he usually did, and Greta opened her mouth to ask why—
“Oh my God,” Logan said.
The banner stretched between two pines at the edge of the yard, hand-painted in three different colors of paint that someone had clearly raided from the barn storage.
WELCOME HOME, LOGAN!
And beneath it, the entire ranch.
Walker stood at the grill with a spatula, gesturing with it while he argued something with Boone, who’d crossed his arms and was clearly losing. Johanna swatted Walker’s shoulder and stole the spatula out of his hand. Hatch laughed and said something that made Boone scowl harder.
Echo tore across the yard at a dead sprint, ears flying, with Goose hot on her heels in pure Golden Retriever delight, and Kavik right in the thick of it, howling the song of his people.
Cinder watched the whole production from the shade of the porch, unimpressed.
Oliver and Tate chased all three of the running dogs in shrieking loops, Nessie calling after them to slow down while Jax just watched, grinning, doing absolutely nothing to help.
Cowboy had stationed himself near Walker’s boots, too old and too smart to involve himself in any of it.
Anson had Maggie tucked against his side near the picnic table, his big hand splayed across her hip, Bramble the wolfhound standing beside them like a small gray horse. Maggie held up two water bottles, asking somebody something across the yard.
Ghost stood at the edge of it all, arms crossed, watching the chaos with the faintly tolerant expression of a man who would rather be anywhere quieter. Naomi walked over to him and tucked herself under his arm, leaning into his side, saying something low that made the corner of his mouth twitch.
X had cornered Mariah at the picnic table again, leaning in with that slow grin, and Mariah was very deliberately not looking at him while she arranged a platter of buns. The tips of her ears had gone pink.
River came around the side of the house, wiping paint-smeared hands down the front of his shirt, grinning like he’d accomplished something genuinely impressive.
Figured he was responsible for that atrocious banner.
Alice was there, too, watching the chaos with wide eyes, the puppy Jonah had given her two days ago squirming in her arms. Jonah hovered close by, as usual. He’d hardly left her side since he and Evander found her.
Evander.
Greta scanned for him, but wasn’t entirely surprised he wasn’t there. He’d hung around on the outskirts of the ranch for a couple of weeks, but as soon as he’d finished rebuilding his cabin, he’d disappeared back into the wilderness.
She should go check on him soon. He’d hate to know she was worried about him, but she was.
All thoughts of Evander evaporated when King and Atlas spotted the truck.
Atlas bolted off the porch like he’d been launched, and King peeled off from where he’d been standing guard by the grill, lumbering behind the quick Atlas.
Both of them hit the side of the truck at the same time, King’s paws scrabbling at Bear’s door, Atlas already up on her hind legs at Greta’s window, tail going like a metronome on overdrive.
“Okay, okay,” Greta laughed, fumbling for the door handle. “Hi. Hi. Yes, I missed you, my brave, brave boy.”
Logan opened his door, and King abandoned Bear entirely the second he saw the boy, bowling into him hard enough that Logan staggered back a step, laughing, and went down to one knee in the grass with both arms around the dog’s neck.
Bear hadn’t moved.
He sat there with both hands still on the wheel, watching his son get tackled by his dog under a crooked banner painted by a man with no artistic ability whatsoever, surrounded by every person who’d ever pulled him out of the dark.
Greta went around the front of the truck and pulled open his door.
“Hey,” she said softly and tipped her head to the banner. “Is that why you were nervous?”
He looked at her for several heartbeats, and the tension leaked out of him. “Yeah. That’s it. Worried it’d scare him into shutting down again.”
She glanced over to where Logan wrestled with their dogs, watched X wade into the fray, help the laughing boy up, then steer him toward the picnic tables. “I don’t think you have to worry about that anymore, Grizzly.”
Bear let out a long breath and climbed down from the truck. She tucked herself against his side, and he put an arm around her shoulders as they walked toward the picnic tables.
Around them, the yard erupted back into motion—someone had brought out water guns.
Tate ran by, squealing, as Oliver chased him with two water guns and a bandolier of water balloons.
X grabbed two guns, passed one to Logan, and then the two of them joined the kids and Jax in what was rapidly becoming a full-scale engagement.
Mariah watched him go with her arms crossed and her expression carefully neutral, which meant absolutely nothing.
Bear bent down to murmur in her ear, “Your six weeks are almost up, and she’s showing no signs of thaw.”
Oh, how wrong he was.
X crouched low in the grass and let Tate clamber up his back before rising to his full height with Tate’s arms around his neck and a water gun in each hand, already aimed.
He let out a chest-deep bellow and unleashed two streams of water that sent Jax and Oliver stumbling back, laughing and soaked, while Tate shrieked in triumph from his perch.
Mariah’s carefully neutral expression cracked, just slightly, at the corners.
The pink in her ears traveled to her cheeks.
She pressed her lips together like she was fighting something, and her arms uncrossed just long enough for her to press one hand flat against her sternum before she caught herself and crossed them again.
There it was.
“Oh, she’s thawing,” Greta said.
Bear made a skeptical noise as Mariah turned away from the water gun battle and went back to arranging the food platters with great focused dignity.
“Bear. I’m telling you. She’s already halfway there. She just doesn’t know it yet.”
“When I win, I don’t want the money,” Bear rumbled against the side of her head, and a shiver raced down her spine. “I want you gasping under me—”
“You get that every night.” She thumped his chest. “And there are children present.”
River materialized beside them, paint still on his shirt, grinning. “Yeah, according to Walker, I’m one of them, so keep it in your pants, big guy.”
Bear growled at him in typical bear fashion.
Greta smothered a laugh and turned to River. “You painted that awful banner?”
“I did,” River said, completely unashamed.
“It’s crooked,” Bear grumbled.
“Art isn’t supposed to be perfect, Honey Bear. It’s supposed to be felt.” River pressed a fist to his paint-smeared chest and looked genuinely moved by his own statement.
Bear’s expression darkened by about three degrees. The muscle in his jaw ticked once.
“Call me that again,” he said, low and even, “and I will break every bone in your body.”
River didn’t even blink. “Then you can ask Ghost to help you hide what’s left of me.” He jerked his chin toward where Ghost stood at the edge of the yard, Naomi still tucked under his arm. “He’s got an alphabetized list for body disposal. Right, Ghost?”
Ghost didn’t look up from where he stood across the yard. But the corner of his mouth moved. “Got a new one and it involves that ugly-ass banner.”
“It’s only ugly because you have no joy in your soul.” River glanced over as Naomi tucked herself against Ghost’s side and said something to put that fractional twitch at the corner of his mouth again.
River watched this for a beat. “Okay, maybe a little joy,” he added softly. “Recently acquired.”
And if Greta wasn’t mistaken, there was a note of—what was that, sadness? Loneliness?—in the words.
Then River shrugged, and the moment was gone. “Ah, well. My sister Rainey got all the artistic talent in the family. I got all the good looks and charm.” He winked and wandered off toward the grill.
“What the hell was that?” Bear muttered. “You saw that, right?”
“Yeah,” Greta said. “His shine wore off for a moment.”
River clapped Boone on the shoulder and stole a hot dog off the grill. Boone swatted his hand away without looking up from flipping the burgers.