Chapter 7
seven
So much for the breakthrough last night.
Dammit, she really thought she’d gotten through to him.
They’d been gone from the ranch for less than three hours, but apparently, that had been long enough for Boone to pack up his life.
Walker’s good mood vanished as he parked in front of the main house and cut the engine. Bishop whined softly from the back seat, his ears perking up at the tension radiating from Walker. She set a hand on his arm and waited until he looked at her.
“Go talk to him,” she said, giving his arm a light squeeze. “I’ll take Bishop inside.”
Walker nodded and shoved open his door. She watched him stalk toward Boone’s truck and thought, Oh, shit.
Maybe sending him wasn’t the best idea.
“Lead with love, not anger,” she called out the window and swore she heard his grumble from all the way across the yard.
“Oh, boy. We’d better hurry. C’mon, Bishop.” She clipped on the leash they’d bought at the shelter. The dog followed her obediently out of the truck, his nose sniffing wildly at the air as they made their way toward the house.
“This is home now,” she told him, crouching to rub his ears. Bishop leaned into her touch. “You’re going to be so good for Boone. If he lets you in. But how could he not? Look at this handsome face.” She kissed the dog between hs eyes then straightened.
Through the window, she could see Walker standing beside Boone’s truck, one hand braced on the door, his face tight with frustration.
Boone sat behind the wheel, staring straight ahead, refusing to look at Walker.
The scene reminded her of so many standoffs she’d witnessed in her career—the harder you pushed men like Boone, the more they retreated.
She unclipped Bishop’s leash and filled a bowl with water from the kitchen tap. The dog drank thirstily while she watched the confrontation outside. Walker was talking now, his free hand gesturing in the air, but Boone’s face remained impassive, carved from stone.
“This isn’t going well.”
The dog looked up at her with those intelligent eyes, then back to the window.
“You’re right. I should go help.” She gave him another quick scratch. “You stay here and be the good boy I know you are, okay?”
As she reached the front door, Boone revved the engine, and the truck lurched forward a few feet.
“Jesus, Walker,” she muttered, yanking open the door. “Don’t get yourself run over.”
Bishop stayed inside, watching through the screen door.
“Boone!” she called, hurrying down the porch steps. “Wait!”
Both men turned toward her. Walker’s face was flushed with anger, while Boone’s was a stone wall of determination.
“Dr. Perrin,” Boone said, his voice flat. “Don’t bother convincing me to stay. I’m done here.”
She stopped beside Walker. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened,” Boone replied. “I just realized there’s nothing for me here.”
“That’s bullshit,” Walker growled. “You’re running because things got real last night.”
Boone scoffed.
“I know you talked to Jo. I know you finally opened up, and now you’re spooked. Is that how you want to spend the rest of your life, son? Running every time shit gets a little bit real?”
Boone’s hands tightened on the wheel, and the engine revved again. “Move away from my truck.”
“You’ll just have to run me over, ‘cause I ain’t going anywhere.”
“Don’t tempt me.” Boone finally looked at Walker then, his blue eyes like chips of ice. “You can’t save me. Nobody can.”
Ugh. Men. They could be such bullheaded idiots sometimes, too proud and too stubborn for their own good.
She stepped between them, hands raised. “Both of you, stop. This isn’t helping.”
Walker shot her a look that could have melted steel, but he took a half-step back from the truck. Boone’s shoulders remained rigid, his eyes fixed on some point beyond the windshield.
“Boone,” she said, keeping her voice calm, “can we talk? Just you and me?”
His jaw clenched. “Nothing to talk about.”
“Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking.” She nodded toward the house. “Walker will go inside.”
Walker started to protest, but she silenced him with a look. After a long moment, he nodded curtly and stepped back, though reluctance radiated from every line of his body. “Fine. But he’s not leaving.”
“That’s not your call,” Boone snapped.
Walker’s jaw tightened, but he retreated to the porch, where he stood watching them, arms crossed over his chest.
Stubborn ass.
She stepped closer to the truck, close enough to see the muscle jumping in Boone’s jaw, the wary exhaustion in his eyes. “Where are you going to go?”
“Away from here.” Boone revved the engine slightly, as if emphasizing his point. “Missoula, maybe. Or further. Doesn’t matter.”
“It’s Christmas Eve,” she reminded him.
“So?”
“So everything will be closed, and the hotels will all be booked up. Where will you stay?”
He didn’t answer, but his eyes flickered with uncertainty before hardening again.
Johanna changed tactics. “Tell me what happened this morning. What changed?”
Boone’s laugh was bitter and sharp. “Nothing changed. I just woke up. Realized I was kidding myself, thinking I could start over here.”
She studied him, noticing the way his gaze kept darting toward the road, toward escape. There was something more he wasn’t saying. “Did something happen with your mother? Or your uncle?”
His hands tightened on the wheel until the leather creaked.
Bullseye.
“Hank came by the bunkhouse this morning,” he admitted finally. His jaw worked for a moment before he continued. “Mom was wandering down Main Street last night. In her nightgown. Looking for me. Saying I was kidnapped and she needed to find me.”
Johanna’s chest tightened. “Oh, Boone.”
“Someone called Hank, so he couldn’t resist coming to remind me of what a failure I am as a son, as a man.” His voice went flat, detached. “He said I was a fool if I thought Walker Nash could save me from the bad half of my DNA. Said Mom’s getting worse because of the stress I’m causing her.”
“That’s not how dementia works,” she said gently, though she was starting to suspect dementia wasn’t the mental illness Leonora Goodwin-Callahan suffered from.
She couldn’t be sure without a thorough examination of the woman, but what Boone described sounded a lot more like schizophrenia. “You know that.”
“Do I?” He finally looked at her, and the guilt in his eyes was crushing.
“She raised me alone after Dad died. Worked herself to the bone to keep me fed and clothed. And what did I do? Got sent to prison. Now she’s wandering the streets in the middle of winter because her brain’s so fucked up she can’t remember where she is. ”
“Those two things aren’t connected.”
“Hank seems to think they are.”
“Hank is using your mother’s illness to manipulate you. And it’s working.”
“But he’s not wrong. I’m a drowning man, dragging everyone around me down.” His gaze shifted over to where Walker still waited impatiently on the porch. “If I stay, I’ll drag Walker down, too.”
“Walker’s a grown man,” Johanna said. “He makes his own choices. And he chose to help you.”
“Then maybe he’s a fool, too.”
She was quiet for a moment, watching the way Boone’s fingers flexed against the steering wheel. He looked so... haunted. Lost. Sad. And she was running out of time to reach him.
“Your mother’s wandering,” she said carefully. “That must have scared you.”
“I wasn’t there,” he whispered. “I should’ve been there, and I wasn’t because being around her is… hard. Having her look at me like a stranger is worse than not seeing her at all. You can’t know what that’s like.”
But she did know. She knew exactly how it felt to watch someone you loved slip away, to become a stranger to them. She’d lived it with Nick in those final months, watching depression turn him into someone she no longer recognized.
“You can’t be everywhere at once, Boone. You can’t save everyone.”
“I can’t save anyone.” The words came out harsh, bitter. “Every time I try to help somebody, it goes to shit.”
There it was. The real wound underneath everything else.
“Is that what you think? That helping people only makes things worse?”
His jaw clenched. “I know it does.”
“Because of your mother?”
“Because of everyone.” He turned to look at her then, and the pain in his eyes was raw, unguarded. “My mom. The guys I served with. That woman—” He stopped, his throat working.
Johanna waited, letting the silence stretch.
“Crystal?” she finally asked when he didn’t continue. “The woman from the bar? You were trying to help her.”
His laugh was ugly. “Yeah, and look how that turned out.”
“Do you know what happened to her?”
His head snapped around, eyes narrowing with sudden suspicion. “What?”
“Do you know what happened to her after your trial?” she repeated.
“No. And I don’t care.”
But she saw it now—the flash of pain behind the anger, the way his shoulders hunched forward as if retreating from a gut blow. He did care. He cared too much.
“You’re angry with her,” she observed. “Because she blamed you for killing her boyfriend. Because she put you in prison.”
“Wouldn’t you be?” Boone’s voice was low, dangerous. “I tried to help her. I saw what that bastard was doing to her. And she repaid me by lying on the stand.”
“She was a victim, too. You know that, right?”
“She put me in prison.” Each word was distinct, carved from ice. “Four years of my life, gone. My mother getting worse every day without me there to help her, and now she doesn’t even recognize me. And for what? So Crystal could pretend she was with a man who didn’t hit her?”
“She was broken and scared,” Johanna said softly. “Just like you are now.”
His face went completely still, the words landing with visible impact. For a moment, she could see the wall he’d built around himself crack, just a hairline fracture, but enough of an opening for her to slip through.
“What if you knew what happened to Crystal? Would it help?”