Chapter Fifty-Six
MORNING HAD COME and gone before I even thought about getting out of bed.
I’d woken up sore and half-dreaming, body aching like it had been dragged behind something mean and fast, and for a second, I thought maybe Chain had never found me.
That maybe it had all been a fever dream cooked up by my own desperation.
But I’d blinked, and the room had stayed solid. The clothes I wore weren’t mine, the bruises were real, and the bed was warm—but empty.
Chain hadn’t been there when I woke.
And even as I missed him, even as I’d stared at the spot where his body should’ve been, I couldn’t ignore the twist in my chest. The ache wasn’t just physical. It was the weight of everything we’d left unsaid.
Now, hours later, the porch swing creaked beneath me, moving in a slow, easy rhythm like it had all the time in the world and nowhere it needed to be.
The evening air wrapped around my skin, warm and heavy, carrying the scent of pine, oil, and the faintest thread of smoke drifting from somewhere behind the clubhouse.
My muscles still throbbed from fear and flight and survival, and bruises bloomed beneath borrowed clothes in colors I hadn’t seen on my skin in years.
But I was upright. Breathing. Alive.
That alone felt like a victory I hadn’t been promised.
I pushed my bare foot against the porch post, setting the swing into another gentle arc. The chains rattled softly, a familiar sound, grounding in a way nothing else had been since the bunker.
Footsteps sounded behind me.
I didn’t turn. I knew who it was before the boards even creaked beneath his boots.
Chain stopped a few feet back, close enough that I could feel him without seeing him. Careful enough that it felt deliberate. He always did that with me now, like he was afraid one wrong move might send me running.
The silence stretched between us, not awkward, just heavy. Full.
Finally, he cleared his throat. “You mind if I sit, darlin’?”
I shrugged, my gaze fixed on the dark yard ahead. “It’s a free porch.”
He took the invitation and lowered himself onto the swing beside me, careful not to jostle it. His weight shifted the balance, changed the rhythm, steadied it. That felt like him in a nutshell. He didn’t try to take control. He just anchored.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
His knee hovered close to mine without touching, like he didn’t trust himself with even that.
“I been wantin’ to say this since the bunker,” he said finally, his voice rough with exhaustion and that familiar Southern drawl. “But I figured you needed space. Time. Hell, I probably don’t deserve either.”
I glanced at him then, just long enough to see the deep lines carved around his eyes, the tension sitting heavy in his shoulders like he’d been carrying it for days without setting it down.
“I’m sorry, Lark,” he said. No excuses. No justifications. “For not gettin’ to you faster. For lettin’ my head get so damn twisted I couldn’t see straight. For every second you thought you were alone down there.”
My fingers tightened around the chain of the swing.
“You saved me,” I said quietly. “Again.”
His jaw worked like that word landed somewhere painful. “That don’t erase the rest.”
“No,” I agreed. “It doesn’t.”
I turned fully toward him. The porch light caught the scars I never bothered hiding. He looked at me the way he always did, clear-eyed and unflinching, like they weren’t even there.
“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. “For coming for me. For not giving up.”
“I never would’ve,” he said immediately. “Never.”
“I know.” And I did. That was the cruel part. “But that doesn’t change what I saw.”
The swing slowed until it was nearly still.
His shoulders stiffened. “Lark—”
“I saw you with Sugar,” I said calmly, even though my chest felt like it was breaking in two “And now is the part where you tell me it didn’t mean anything. It was only sex.”
His breath left him hard. “I didn’t fuck her.”
I studied his face, searching for cracks. Lies. Anything. I found none, but that didn’t mean he didn’t do other things with her.
“That isn’t the same thing as not cheating,” I said softly.
He swallowed. “I was hurt. I thought—”
“I know what you thought,” I cut in. “I also know I wasn’t worth waiting on.”
That one landed. I saw it in the way his eyes darkened, the way his hands curled slowly against his thighs like he was holding himself still.
“I hate myself for that,” he admitted. “For lettin’ my anger touch you at all. You didn’t deserve it. Not from me.”
The swing creaked as I leaned back, staring up at the stars beginning to break through the clouds.
“I’m not saying you didn’t save me,” I said. “I’m not saying you don’t matter to me. You do. God help me, you do.” My voice caught, but I didn’t stop. “I love you.”
His head lifted, hope flashing across his face before he could stop it.
“But I can’t overlook it,” I continued. “I spent my whole life being told love came with conditions. That I had to accept whatever a man gave me because I owed him for keeping me alive.”
I turned back to him, my voice firm now. “I won’t do that again. Not even for you. You didn’t look for me. You didn’t doubt what you saw. You ran to the first available woman to ease your pain.”
“This isn’t all on me,” he said quietly.
“You weren’t honest with me about your meetings with Zach.
What was I supposed to think?” He paused, then added, “And I didn’t have Sugar take care of my pain.
I went out into the woods with her with the meanest intentions I’ve ever had, but I couldn’t go through with it.
You can hold the thought against me, but not the deed. ”
“You really didn’t sleep with her?” I asked, my voice smaller than I wanted.
“Couldn’t,” he said. “Even mad as hell, I love you too damn much. You own every part of me.”
The words cracked something open in my chest.
“Do you know how hurt I was when you didn’t come looking for me?” I murmured.
“Lark.” He reached out, cupping my face gently.
“I didn’t do a damn thing but sit in this clubhouse drinkin’.
I was a fool, and I know it.” He hesitated, then said the next part like it scared him.
“But you hid from me. If you’d come back here, I don’t doubt for a second we’d have fought it out and worked through it.
I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself. ”
I sighed heavily. “I know you’re right,” I admitted. “But I could have clawed your eyes out when I saw you with Sugar.”
He huffed out a rough sound. “No different than the feelin’ I had when I saw you with that bastard.”
“Did you find Zach?” I asked.
“No,” he snarled. “Place was deserted. But I’m not givin’ up. He hurt you, and I don’t plan on lettin’ that slide.”
“I don’t want to live there anymore,” I said, leaning into him. “In the past. In the hurt. I just want to forget it all and start a life with you.”
He froze. “You mean that?” His voice dropped. “Don’t go playin’ with me, darlin’. My heart can’t take it.”
I looked at him, really looked at him, at the man who came for me when it mattered most and the man who’d made mistakes and owned them.
“Yes,” I said. “I love you, Chain.”
His forehead came to rest against mine. “I love you too.”
The swing creaked again, slow and steady, and for the first time in my life, I knew everything was going to be alright.