Chapter 35 #2
The main house kitchen held the warmth of the wood stove and the particular chaos of too many people in too small a space.
Johanna had cooked—roast beef, potatoes, green beans from the summer garden she’d put up in jars, bread that smelled like it had been baked that morning.
Nothing fancy. Nothing needed to be. The table stretched from the kitchen into the living room, mismatched chairs pulled from every corner of the house, plates that didn’t match, forks that had seen better decades.
Evander sat beside Rainey. His thigh pressed against hers under the table, a point of contact he maintained without thinking about it.
Across from them, River leaned back in his chair, one arm slung over the empty space where Boone should have been, his plate half-cleared already.
He looked—different. Lighter. The devastation Evander had witnessed on the porch steps had compressed into something quieter, something that lived in the lines around his eyes rather than the set of his jaw.
Walker took the head of the table. Johanna beside him, her hand resting on his forearm when she wasn’t serving.
X occupied the chair nearest the stove, presumably for the heat, his plate loaded with a portion size that defied his frame.
Jax sat across from him, eating with the focused efficiency of a man who treated meals as fuel.
Bear and Jonah filled the remaining seats.
Brandt had positioned himself at the far end, closer to the door than the stove, his suit jacket off, his sleeves rolled, looking for all the world like a federal marshal who had forgotten he wasn’t on duty.
General Mayhem strutted through the kitchen halfway through the meal. The rooster paused beneath the table, fixed River with a stare that conveyed absolute disdain, and continued his patrol without deigning to acknowledge anyone else.
“Boone eating?” Walker asked.
“Took a plate to him,” Bear said. “He complained about the potatoes. Said they were undercooked.”
“They were perfect,” Johanna said.
“Tell him that. I value my remaining fingers.”
The table laughed. A real laugh. The kind that came from the chest and didn’t worry about what it sounded like.
Evander watched it happen. He’d spent eight years orbiting this house, watching these men through binoculars from ridge lines, learning their routines without joining them.
Sitting at the table felt like crossing a boundary he’d drawn around himself so many times he’d forgotten it was his to erase.
X reached for the bread. “So the woman. Gemma.” He tore a piece. Didn’t look up. “She really played River for six weeks?”
The name landed. Evander’s hand found Rainey’s under the table. His fingers closed around hers. He watched River’s face, braced for whatever came next—the collapse, the rage, the particular broken silence of a man whose trust had been weaponized against his sister.
River laughed.
The sound startled everyone. He tipped his head back, his wild curls falling across his forehead, and he laughed like someone had told the best joke of his life. Not performative. Not defensive. Genuine.
“Played me?” River wiped his eyes. “She didn’t play me, man.
I handed her the playbook. Showed her the security cameras.
Walked her through every blind spot on the property.
Taught her how to hot-wire the side-by-side, for Christ’s sake.
” He reached for his water glass. “I’m swearing off dating.
Effective immediately. One-night stands only from here on out. It’s safer for everyone.”
The table absorbed this. Then X grinned.
“One-night stands require game, compa. You got game?”
“I’ve got devastating charm.”
“You’ve got a horse named Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,” Jax said. Dry. Deadpan. “That’s not charm. That’s a cry for help.”
River threw a dinner roll at him. Jax caught it without looking.
“At least my horse doesn’t stare at me like he’s calculating how much I’d fetch at auction,” River said.
“Rook doesn’t stare. He contemplates.”
“He contemplates which part of you to bite first.”
Walker cleared his throat. The table quieted. Not from fear—from respect. The older man looked at River, really looked at him, and something passed between them that Evander couldn’t name but recognized anyway. The particular exchange of a mentor watching his charge find his footing after a fall.
“Eat your potatoes,” Walker said.
River ate his potatoes.
Brandt set his fork down. The movement was deliberate. The table shifted—not dramatically, but the air changed. Federal presence. Official business.
“Mal Granger and Gemma Robinett remain at large,” Brandt said.
His voice had that measured quality again, the one that didn’t waste syllables.
“Highway patrol has the motorcycle description. Gemma’s injuries are significant—facial trauma, possible eye damage.
They’ll need medical attention soon. Mal won’t take her to a hospital. He’ll find someone off-book.”
Rainey’s hand tightened in Evander’s. Her fingers were warm. Steady.
“There’s another witness,” Brandt continued. “Sylvie Granger. Mal’s sister. Rainey helped her escape the clubhouse the night everything went sideways. She’s been off-grid since. The feds are looking for her. I intend to find her first.”
The kitchen went quiet. The wood stove popped. General Mayhem strutted past the doorway, his comb swinging, apparently unimpressed by federal manhunts.
Rainey spoke. Her voice came out clear. Level. The voice of a woman who had survived worse than dinner table conversations about motorcycle clubs.
“I hope you find her,” she said. “I’m afraid for her. Mal won’t stop. Not now. Not after what happened at the turnout.”
Brandt held her gaze. Something moved behind his eyes—not warmth, exactly. Something closer to recognition. The look of a man who had spent his career standing between witnesses and the people who wanted them dead, and who understood, on a level deeper than procedure, what that cost.
“I’ll find her,” he said.
The meal continued. Noise returned. X told a story about Troubadour that involved a water trough, three tourists, and a moment of equine performance art that had somehow gone viral.
Jonah countered with a story about King herding goats into the bunkhouse.
Bear rolled his eyes. Johanna smiled. Walker listened, his weathered face relaxed in a way Evander had rarely seen it, his hand resting on Johanna’s where it lay on the tablecloth.
Evander watched Rainey. The bruise at her temple had darkened to a deep purple that spread toward her hairline.
The zip tie marks stood out red against her skin.
She laughed at X’s story, her head tipped back, her throat working, and the sound of it did something to Evander’s chest that his cracked ribs were in no condition to handle.
She caught him looking. Her eyes met his. Held. Something passed between them that required no words and tolerated none.
They needed air.
She squeezed his hand under the table. Once. He nodded.
They slipped away while X was mid-story, his hands flying, his Spanish thickening with each embellishment.
Nobody stopped them. Nobody needed to. The door closed behind them, and the cold Montana night wrapped around them like a blanket, and the mountains stood black against a sky so full of stars it hurt to look at.
The cold bit. Evander’s breath plumed white and hung in the still air.
Rainey walked beside him, her hand in his, the guitar case bumping against her leg with each step.
Tilly ranged ahead, her dark shape moving through the frosted grass, pausing occasionally to look back as if confirming they were still following.
They reached the eastern fence line where the pasture gave way to timber.
The land dropped away toward the creek, then rose again toward the mountains—black masses against a sky so crowded with stars it looked false.
Behind them, Valor Ridge glowed. Warm yellow light from the main house windows.
The security lamps along the barn. The bunkhouse where X was probably still talking, his voice carrying across the yard in fragments too distant to parse.
Rainey set the guitar case down in the grass. Opened it. The instrument caught starlight on its polished surface—a dull gleam, amber and warm. She lifted it out, settled it across her lap, and adjusted the strings with the casual competence of someone who had done it ten thousand times.
“You’re not allowed to complain,” she said. Her fingers found the frets. “I warned you. Musicians are terrible people. We steal everything.”
Evander sat beside her. The ground was cold. His ribs protested. He ignored them.
She played.
The first notes hung in the air. Clean. Quiet.
Something in a minor key that felt like the mountains felt—vast, patient, holding secrets in its folds.
Her fingers moved. The melody built. Not rushed.
Not performative. The way she played when she thought nobody was listening, the way he’d heard her through cabin walls on the mountain when the fever had broken and she’d reached for the guitar before she’d reached for water.
He listened.