Chapter 12
Asher
The office smells like paper, ink, and coffee that’s been reheated too many times because nobody has the patience to make a new pot when there’s work to do.
The vents in my computer are working overtime as it generates another report.
I sit behind Logan’s desk because it’s the one with the cleanest surface, which is saying something, and I keep my phone face-up beside the ledger like I can will it to buzz.
It does not.
Logan paces the narrow strip between the filing cabinet and the window.
Three steps, turn, three steps back. The floorboards complain every time he pivots.
He is trying to keep his temper contained, which is almost worse than when he lets it loose.
When Logan goes quiet, everything in the room sharpens.
“She left.” He doesn’t look at me. His voice is low, too steady to be calm. “Just walked out.”
I close my eyes in exasperation. I mean, I was right there.
I can still picture the diner door swinging shut behind her, the bell giving that bright little jingle like nothing in the world had changed.
She didn’t slam it. She didn’t cry. She didn’t do anything dramatic, and somehow that made it feel more serious.
Like the whole thing had been decided inside her long before she stood up.
I keep my gaze on my phone. On the dark screen. On the time in the corner that keeps moving forward, whether she answers or not.
I pick up the ledger and flip it open even though I am not reading it. The paper is smooth under my thumb, crisp and clean. It smells faintly of ink and dust. Something I can touch that is real.
“She thinks she’s protecting us,” I surmise.
Logan stops pacing long enough to drag a hand through his hair.
It sticks up at the front, the way it does when he’s been up too long.
He looks like he could go straight through a wall if it would get him what he wants.
That instinct to break things has always been there in him.
He learned young that force gets results, and he has had to teach himself that some battles are not won with fists.
“Protecting us from what?” His laugh is humorless, a harsh puff of air. “From her ex? From some paperwork? From a court date?”
He knows the answer. He just hates it.
From her own shame.
I tap my phone once. No new notifications. The silence is loud enough to make my molars ache.
After we got her back to the farm this morning, after the diner and the way Richard’s voice turned the whole room into a weapon, Josie moved like she was made of glass.
She kept her shoulders squared, her chin up, her hands busy.
She went straight to the barn and started hauling hay bales like her muscles could carry what her mind didn’t want to hold.
When Logan tried to take one from her, she tightened her grip and said, “I’ve got it,” like it was an argument she could win just by refusing help.
Then she disappeared into the office trailer with her laptop and shut the door.
Thirty minutes later, the sanctuary budget was updated and emailed to us, with clean notes and color-coded changes. No message. No “I’m sorry.” No “I’m okay.” Just numbers and maybe proof that she could still function.
It was the same thing she did when Richard was still in her life.
I didn’t know her back then, but I can see the pattern now as clearly as if it’s printed on paper.
When something hurts, she turns it into competence.
She becomes an unbreakable spreadsheet. She becomes a woman who can’t be accused of being emotional if she’s buried under facts.
I sent her a text at noon. You home? We can come by and help.
At one, I tried again. Talk to me, Jo.
At two, Logan tried. Don’t shut us out.
At three, she finally replied. Two words. Need space.
No punctuation.
No softness.
Just a boundary hammered into place.
Logan stares at my phone when I set it down again. “Space,” he repeats, like it’s a foreign concept. “After what he did to her, the last thing she needs is space.”
I swallow, because my own anger is sitting too close to the surface. Anger is easy. Anger makes you feel strong. But what I feel beneath it is something heavier, something I don’t like to name.
I watched her freeze, and I didn’t get to her fast enough.
I watched the way her eyes went distant, the way her breath turned shallow, the way her voice thinned to a whisper when she tried to defend herself.
I watched Richard enjoy it. And I did nothing because if I moved the wrong way, if I swung first, if I let Logan swing first, it would have turned into a spectacle that Richard could use.
Richard did not show up in that diner to win an argument. He showed up to pull her back into the version of herself he created. The one who doubts, who apologizes, who goes quiet. And he almost succeeded. Maybe he did.
Fuck that!
Logan starts pacing again, faster this time, like the motion keeps his hands from doing something they can’t take back. “She retreated faster than a quarterback who just saw the blitz coming,” he says. “One second she’s there, next second she’s gone. Didn’t even look at us.”
I watch him, the tension in his neck, the set of his jaw. Logan’s love is a physical thing. It wants to be seen. It wants to be acted on. It wants to pull her close and say, “I’ve got you,” and mean it so hard the world listens.
Josie does not always know how to receive that.
“She needs support.”
“She does.” Logan stops so suddenly that the rug beneath his feet rumples.
“That’s why I recruited a team. A part in me knew she’d do this.
That the moment it got ugly, she’d try to take it on alone.
She’d try to make herself small and disappear before anyone could choose her. ” His voice cracks on the last word.
I look toward the window. “She can handle the courtroom.”
“I know she can.” Logan scrubs a hand over the back of his neck. “What she can't do is spend the next three months convincing herself she's fighting alone.”
“So?”
“We'll remind her who she is.” His mouth firms. “And we'll show her what it means to be part of this family.”
I lean back in the chair and let my shoulders sink for a second. The leather seat is cold through my jeans. “Okay.” I steeple my fingers and tap my bottom lip. “Do you think she’ll accept it?”
Logan’s nostrils flare. He drags in a breath, holds it, lets it out slow. Then he chuckles. There’s no mirth in the sound. “Nope.”
The corner of my mouth twitches. “Not if we ask permission first.”
He stares at me, and I can see the moment he understands what I mean. Josie doesn’t respond to being coaxed when she’s scared. She responds to consistency. To people showing up anyway. To quiet, relentless presence that doesn’t demand anything from her but also doesn’t allow her to vanish.
I reach for my phone again and open the email thread. The sanctuary budget. The updated projections.
3:17 a.m.
My chest tightens. She did this in the middle of the night while the rest of the world slept. She did it because she couldn’t sleep. Because the numbers are safer than her own thoughts. Because being useful is the only way she knows how to feel secure.
Logan sees the timestamp, and his face changes. The rage doesn’t leave, but it shifts. It turns into something quieter and more dangerous.
“She’s going to keep doing this until she collapses or until she convinces herself we’re better off without her.”
Logan’s hands curl at his sides. “We’re not.”
I stand, pushing the chair back, and the wheels roll over the floor with a sound that makes my shoulders tense. I know he’s right. Now we just have to convince Josie of that.