Chapter Ten
Rafe
Briar stands by the door while I pack the last of the dried meat into my bag.
The morning light catches her hair, loose and soft from Mercy’s braiding yesterday.
She’s calmer now. The tremors that once lived under her skin have eased.
But leaving her still knots tightly in my chest. Like I’m doing something wrong just walking out the door.
“I need to go into town.” I brush my thumb along her cheekbone. “Only for a little while.”
Her throat works. Like she’s trying to hold me in place. She lifts the pencil from the table, hand shaking, and writes one word on the paper:
BACK?
The question punches breath out of me.
“Always.” I cup her chin so she can feel the truth in my hand. “I’ll always come back to you.”
Her eyes lower, lashes trembling. She presses her forehead to my sternum and breathes me in like she’s storing my scent for later. My heart pulls hard enough that I wrap both arms around her, lifting her slightly off the ground just to feel her hold onto me.
Mercy steps into the doorway then, Ivy behind her. “We’ll stay with her,” Mercy says, voice soft. “Promise.”
Briar looks over at them, unsure, fingers twining together. Ivy offers a gentle smile. “We’ll keep her safe, Rafe. Go do what you need to do.”
Briar’s shoulders hunch. She leans into me again, her cheek against my chest. I stroke her back slowly, hoping it anchors her. Hoping it anchors me too.
“You’re safe with them,” I whisper. “Safer than alone. And I’ll come home before the sun’s low.”
She hesitates, then nods once, trusting me more than her fear.
That trust settles heavy in my ribs.
I try to step away, but she catches my wrist. Her fingers wrap around it, small and certain. She looks up at me with eyes that ask without words.
I kiss her forehead. “Sweet girl… you’re okay. I’m not leaving you. Just stepping out.”
She releases me slowly. Her hand lingers on my forearm, sliding down until only her fingertips touch. The loss of her heat feels sharper than it should.
Mercy touches her shoulder. “Come help me with the herbs,” she says gently. “You can sit beside me.”
Briar goes with her, but keeps her eyes on me until I’m out the door.
The ride to town feels wrong. Every rut. Every noise my old pick-up makes. Every mile is too far from her. Every sound in the woods makes me think of her flinching. Every gust of wind reminds me that when she sleeps now, she reaches for me without looking.
I didn’t expect to grow roots this fast. Didn’t expect her to bloom in my hands. Didn’t expect her to become the thing I think about when I’m not with her.
When the town comes into view, I roll my shoulders back, forcing my mind to settle. Supplies. Tools repaired. A quick stop.
Then home.
Home.
The word hits deeper than I want to admit.
The door to the post office swings shut behind me, the bell clattering overhead. I’m barely inside before a tingle pricks the back of my neck. A shift in the air. A wrongness I can’t name yet.
I take three steps toward the counter.
Then I see it.
Not the stacks of mail. Not the clerk. Not the old calendar still stuck on last month.
The board by the door.
A tacked-up sheet of paper, corners curled, edges sun-bleached.
MISSING
My stomach drops.
I move toward it without choosing to. My boots are loud on the floor, but the world goes quiet. The closer I get, the worse the feeling builds in my ribs. When I reach the flyer, the air stalls in my lungs.
It’s her.
Not mine. Not yet.
Not the feral girl I found in the woods, or the trembling woman hiding under my bed, or the fierce tracker with fire behind her eyes.
A different Briar.
Clean clothes. Hair brushed smooth. A soft smile that doesn’t know pain yet.
The photo hits harder than any blow. My fingers hover above her face on the page, afraid to touch it, afraid it will disappear.
The girl in the picture doesn’t know how her hair smells after a fire burns low.
Doesn’t know the specific weight of her head on my shoulder when the trembling finally stops.
Doesn’t know the way she presses her palm flat against my chest in the dark, checking that I’m still there.
That girl doesn’t know any of it yet. But mine does. And the thought of losing the woman she became—the one who tracked a bear by instinct, who wrote HOME on a scrap of paper and handed it to me like a gift, who crawls into my arms not from fear but from want—closes around my throat and squeezes.
The words underneath the photo swim in front of my eyes.
brIAR ROSE ELLIS — AGE 21
LAST SEEN NEAR HOLLOW RIDGE
$5000 REWARD
IF YOU HAVE INFORMATION…
Family.
She has family.
People who love her. People who never stopped looking. People who want her back.
People who had her first.
My chest tightens. A cold, ugly fear slides through me. Because if they find her… if she remembers them… if she sees the life she lost…
What happens to the life she has with me? What happens to the way she reaches for me in the dark? I’m already falling in love with her. The thought of my cabin empty puts my heart in a vice.
The clerk clears his throat behind the counter. “Sad story, that one. Been three years now. Poor girl’s probably dead. But her mama—she don’t quit.”
Something inside me snaps.
I rip the flyer off the board so fast the thumbtack pops and bounces across the floor.
“Hey—” the clerk starts.
I turn and stare at him. Quiet. Dead cold. His mouth shuts immediately.
The paper crumples in my hand, but I smooth it out, fingers shaking. I fold it once. Twice. Tuck it into my pocket until I’m ready to face it head on.
My pulse thunders.
Tell her. Don’t tell her. She deserves the truth. She deserves the choice.
But the thought of her choosing a world I don’t belong to—of her stepping away from my cabin, from the woods, from me—tears something raw inside my chest.
I grip the counter to steady myself.
“Rafe?” the clerk says carefully. “You okay?”
No.
Grabbing the clan’s mail, I push away from the counter before the words climb out of me. The door slams behind me, the bell ringing too bright, too sharp. The sunlight hits my eyes hard, but I barely feel it.
The only thing I feel is the folded paper burning through my pocket.
The only thing I hear is Briar’s soft voice that never comes.
And the only thing I know is this: If she leaves, it will break me clean through.
I drive home fast, too fast, hands shaking. Because the world she came from just reached into mine—and grabbed hold.
I don’t go straight home, taking the ridge path without asking my mind. The folded flyer in my pocket feels heavier with every mile. The fear settles deeper, tight in my ribs, tight in my throat.
Silas’s place sits off the trail, smoke curling from the chimney. He’s outside splitting kindling, steady and unhurried, like the world never asks too much of him.
He looks up the second I cruise to a stop and open my door. “Rafe.” A narrowing of his eyes. “You look like hell. What happened?”
I can’t speak, so I pull the flyer out and hand it to him.
He takes it slow, unfolding the paper carefully. His jaw flexes as he reads. His gaze lifts to mine, heavier now.
“Well,” he exhales. “That’s a punch to the gut.”
I say nothing. My throat’s too tight to trust the words.
Silas studies the photo again. “Pretty girl. Got snatched at eighteen. That means Daryl had her going on three years.”
My hands curl into fists.
He notices. His mouth twitches. “Easy. I wasn’t saying anything you don’t already know.”
I drag a hand down my face.
“She’s got people,” he adds quietly.
The words cut deeper than they should.
“I know.”
“They’ve been looking a long time.”
“I know.”
Silas folds the paper and hands it back. “You gonna tell her?”
The question hits hard and slices clean through.
I shake my head before my mouth can open. “I don’t know.”
Silas raises an eyebrow. “What’s the part you’re afraid of?”
I almost walk away. Almost shut down. But the truth is too big to swallow.
“She might go back,” I say, voice rougher than I expect. “She sees them, sees what she came from… maybe she chooses that. Chooses them. I lose my only chance at happiness. At a future.”
Silas leans his hip against the chopping block, arms folding across his chest. “And you think that’d be wrong for her to go back?”
My teeth grind. “No,” I admit. “But it’d tear me in half.”
Silas nods slowly, waiting for me to say it out loud. “There it is.”
I look away, staring at the tree line, at anything that isn’t my own damn fear.
“She feels like mine,” I whisper, hating how true it sounds. “Not to own. Not to keep. Just… mine to protect. Mine to hold. Mine to care for.”
Silas is quiet for a long beat. “Rafe… you didn’t steal her from her life. You saved her from dying in it.”
I close my eyes.
“But she deserves the truth,” he continues. “And you deserve to hear what she chooses. Don’t cheat either of you out of that.”
A muscle jumps in my jaw. “I’m not ready.”
“No man ever is,” Silas says. “But you’re not the kind who lies to a woman to keep her close.”
My stomach twists because he’s right.
And I hate it.
“You tell her when you’re calm,” Silas says. “Not from fear. Not from panic. From love. She’ll hear it.”
I grip the back of my neck. “I don’t want to lose her.”
Not now. Not when she just started choosing me.
Silas gives a rough laugh. “Rafe, she looks at you like you hung her damn moon. That girl isn’t leaving unless she wants to. And you don’t get to decide that for her.”
I nod once, the truth settling in my chest. “I just…” The words scrape. “I want one more night where she’s not scared. Where I’m not scared.”
Silas claps a hand to my shoulder. “Then go home. Hold her. And tomorrow… you tell her.”
I get back in my truck and turn toward home—heart pounding, hands shaking, the flyer burning warm against my thigh.