Chapter 45 #2
“Walker didn’t just save my life when he brought me here,” he continued, looking back at the embers.
“He saved my soul. I was...” He shook his head.
“I was nothing. Less than nothing. Animal running on instinct. Violence and rage.” His fingers tightened around the stick until it snapped in his hand.
“But Walker loved me anyway, gave me the dad I never had. I fought it like hell. Told myself that I didn’t deserve it.
That I’d only destroy him in the end.” He tossed the broken pieces of the stick into the fire pit.
“Almost worked, too. Almost convinced myself to walk away.”
“What changed your mind?”
Boone snorted softly. “Wasn’t my mind that needed changing. Was my heart.”
Ghost swallowed, uncomfortably aware of where this was heading. “That’s not the same as Naomi and me.”
“Bullshit,” Boone growled. “Love is love, whether it’s between father and son, brothers-by-choice, or lovers.
You’re making it complicated because you’re scared.
That’s what we do—men like us. We build walls and call them boundaries.
We push people away and call it protection.
” He stood, looming over Ghost in the darkness.
“You’re an idiot if you let her slip away. ”
Ghost stared up at him, momentarily speechless. In all the years they’d worked together, he’d never heard Boone string so many words together at once. At least not since that night he had tried to leave the Ridge, and Boone had talked him into staying.
“Look,” Boone said, and his voice softened. “I’m not saying it’s easy. Being with someone when you’ve got the kind of darkness we carry... it’s the hardest damn thing there is. But letting her walk away because you’re afraid?” He shook his head. “That’s cowardice. And cowards don’t take bullets.”
He reached out again, his hand on Ghost’s shoulder heavier this time, more deliberate. “You’re many things, Ghost. But you’ve never been a coward. So don’t be one now.”
With that, he turned and walked away, his silhouette fading into the darkness as he headed toward his cabin alone. Despite his impassioned words about connection, the man was always alone. He didn’t even have a dog like the rest of them.
You’ve never been a coward.
The brutal simplicity of it stripped away all of Ghost’s careful justifications, all the reasons he’d constructed for keeping his distance, for letting her go.
Because the truth was, he didn’t want to let her go. He wanted her to stay, wanted her in his life, in his bed, in his future.
So don’t be one now.
He lurched to his feet, nearly toppling over as the sudden movement pulled at his healing wound. Cinder rose beside him, alert to the change in his energy.
“Come on, girl,” he said, already moving toward the path that led to the Hub. “We’ve got somewhere to be.”
He moved as quickly as his body would allow, each step sending a sharp reminder of the bullet wound that had nearly ended him.
The path to the Hub was familiar enough that he could navigate it in complete darkness, guided by muscle memory and the distant glow of the security light he’d installed over the door.
Pain flared along his side with each hurried stride, but he pushed through it, driven by something stronger than physical discomfort—the fear that if he didn’t reach her now, he might lose her forever.
Cinder kept pace beside him, her head occasionally brushing against his leg as if offering support. The night air burned in his lungs, cold and clean, each breath visible in puffs of vapor.
The Hub’s outline emerged from the darkness, its weathered pine siding and metal roof familiar as his own reflection. A soft light glowed from the window—she was still there.
The relief that washed through him was so intense it nearly buckled his knees.
He reached the door and paused, hand on the knob, suddenly uncertain.
What if he was too late? What if she’d already decided to move on, to find someone who could give her what she deserved without years of baggage weighing them down?
Cinder nudged his leg, impatient with his hesitation.
Ghost took a steadying breath and pushed the door open, striding past his computers and down the short hall to his bedroom.
The scene that greeted him stopped his heart.
Naomi sat on the edge of his bed, her back to the door, shoulders curved inward in defeat.
In her hands, clutched against her chest, was one of his shirts—the black Henley he’d worn the first time they’d been together.
Her body shook with silent sobs that tore at something fundamental inside him.
“Naomi,” he said, her name a prayer and a plea.
She startled, turning toward him with wide, wet eyes.
“Ghost,” she managed, hastily wiping her face with the back of her hand. “I was just—I didn’t think you’d—”
He crossed the room without conscious thought, ignoring the protest from his healing wound, and dropped to his knees in front of her.
The movement cost him, pain shooting up his side in white-hot tendrils, but he barely registered it.
All he could see was her tear-stained cheeks, red-rimmed eyes, and the vulnerability she so rarely allowed anyone to witness.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice rough with emotion he couldn’t hide. He wanted to reach for her but held back, uncertain if his touch would be welcome after these weeks of growing distance.
Fresh tears welled in her eyes. “Everything,” she whispered, the single word breaking on a sob.
“I don’t want to lose you, but I’ve been so busy with Brandt, and you’ve been healing, and every day it feels like the gap between us just gets wider and wider…
and I don’t know how to bridge it anymore. ”
Her hands twisted the fabric of his shirt, knuckles white with tension.
“I told myself it made sense to give you space, that you needed time to recover without me complicating things. But the truth is, I was scared. After what happened with Julius, after everything...” She shook her head, dark hair falling across her face.
“I’m scared all the time now. Of losing people. Of losing you.”
Ghost’s chest constricted painfully. All this time, he’d been holding back to protect her, and she’d been doing the same, each of them retreating from the very thing they both wanted most.
“I’m right here,” he said, finally reaching out to take her hands in his. They were cold, trembling slightly, and he enfolded them in his larger ones, trying to transfer his warmth into her skin. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She looked down at their joined hands. “But you will,” she said softly. “That’s who you are. The man who disappears when things get too close, too real. And I can’t blame you for that. After what you’ve been through, what you’ve seen... I understand why you hold yourself apart.”
The accuracy of her assessment hit him like another bullet, clean through the heart this time.
“You want promises, Naomi?” His voice roughened, every word scraped its way out from deep in his chest. “I can’t give you clean ones.
Not after the life I’ve lived. But I can give you this—every damn day I wake up, I’m going to earn your trust. I’ll show up when you expect me to disappear.
I’ll tell you the truth even when it makes you hate me.
I’ll stand in front of you when you need cover and beside you when you don’t. ”
He shifted, taking her face in his hands. “I’ll spend whatever life I’ve got left proving I’m not the man I was. Every sunrise, every breath, I’ll live it earning you. Earning this. Because you’re the first thing in my whole goddamn life that has ever felt real. I love you.”
Tears spilled over her lashes, tracking silent paths down her cheeks and onto his fingers. But she was smiling now through the tears, a tremulous curve of her lips that made his heart stutter.
“I meant it,” she whispered. “What I said when you were shot. I wasn’t just saying crazy things to keep you awake.
I love you, too, Owen Booker. Not Ghost, not the operative, not the legend.
You. The man who saved me, who fights for justice even when it costs him everything, who loves a dog he’s afraid to touch and a woman he’s afraid to keep. ”
She leaned forward until her forehead rested against his.
“I love your stubborn silences and your rare smiles and the way you look at me like I’m precious when you think I won’t notice.
I love how you make me feel safe without making me feel small.
I love that you see the darkness in the world and still choose, every day, to stand against it. ”
Her hands came up to cradle his face, mirroring his hold on her. “I don’t need promises of forever. I just need you to try. To stay. To fight for this as hard as you’ve fought for everything else that matters.”
Something broke open inside him—a dam that had held back years of denied emotion, of forced detachment, of calculated isolation. In its wake rushed something warm and bright and terrifying in its intensity. He surged forward, closing the last distance between them, and captured her lips with his.
The kiss was desperation and tenderness, apology and promise, all the words he couldn’t say poured into the press of his mouth against hers.
Her arms wound around his neck, pulling him closer despite the awkward angle of his kneeling position.
He tasted the salt of her tears, the coffee she must have had earlier, the essence that was uniquely Naomi.
When they finally broke apart, both breathless, she smiled against his lips. “Is that a yes, then? You’re willing to try?”
“Yes,” he murmured, the single syllable heavy with commitment. “For you. With you. Yes.”
He moved to kiss her again, to seal the promise with action rather than words, but she pulled back slightly, her expression shifting to something more serious.
“But if you’re going to be in my life,” she said, fingers tracing the line of his jaw, “there’s one other thing you should know...”