Chapter 18 Jennie #2
Sloane rolled her eyes. “That’s my son, Noah. Normally, I’d make him eat family dinner with us, but I figured tonight he could be off the hook.” She didn’t say it unkindly. She just hadn’t been sure what kind of meal it would be with me here.
After dinner, the house emptied slowly, with the shuffling inertia of people who'd eaten too much and didn’t want to do evening chores.
Buck and Midge disappeared into the kitchen, arguing over who'd left the oven on.
Tess and Ash vanished out the back, laughing loudly.
Sloane retreated to the study, her silhouette flickering against the glass as she checked messages on three different devices.
Reid put a hand on my back, light, not pushing, but enough to let me know it was time to go. “Walk?” he said.
“Sure,” I said, and followed him outside.
The yard was cooling, the sky gone deep blue, with the last light fading behind the barn. The air was heavy with cut grass and the sharp tang of livestock, undercut by something sweeter, honeysuckle, maybe, or wild mint.
We walked the fence line first, the gravel underfoot crunching in rhythm with our steps.
told me about the summer he and Calder built the tack room themselves, how Eli broke his arm falling off the hayloft, how Midge used to make them all sit on the porch at sunset and say one thing they did right that day.
Most of the time, he said, they just lied and said “everything.” It was the most he’d ever spoken to me since I’d met him.
I listened, letting the stories settle. There was no performance in his voice, he didn’t sell the ranch, or himself, or the history. He told the stories. I realized, halfway through, that I liked that about him. Nothing was ever just for show.
At the main barn, he opened the big sliding door and let the night air in. The horses were bedded. Ghost watched us, ears up. I ran my hand down his nose, and he huffed a breath that said, in horse, that I would do.
Reid checked the water, topped off the grain, and closed the door behind us.
“You don’t have to pretend,” he said as we crossed to the corrals. “If you’ve got questions, just ask.”
I shrugged. “I’m used to reading the room first.”
He nodded. “So am I.”
The walk ended at the edge of the property, where the floodlights from the house faded and the world turned to shadows.
There, half-hidden behind a stand of post oaks, was his cabin.
One window, one door, roof patched with mismatched tin.
The porch was small but solid, and the only sign anyone lived there was a pair of boots lined up on the top step, caked in a different layer of dust than the ones he wore now.
He took care of his home. It wasn’t fancy, but it was solid. Dependable. Just like him.
He opened the door and stepped inside, flicking on a single lamp that lit the whole place warmly.
The inside was immaculately organized. Bed in one corner, made so tight I could’ve bounced quarters on it. A table with three chairs. A stove, black and gleaming, and a shelf lined with tins of coffee, chili, and canned peaches.
I circled once, taking it in. There were no photos. No trophies. Just a single, battered mug on the windowsill and a locket on a nail above the bed.
He saw me look but didn’t flinch. “My mother’s,” he said.
I nodded, not trusting myself to answer.
He poured water into a glass, offered it, and when I took it, our fingers brushed. He held my hand for a second, thumb tracing the scar I’d gotten when I was twelve falling off my neighbor’s bike. I thought he might kiss me. I hoped he would.
Instead, he sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, looking out the window at the moon, and I sat beside him. He said, “You figure us out yet?”
Somewhat. “You’re more like a unit than a family. Everyone’s got a role, and it changes depending on what the world needs that day.”
He nodded. “That’s how it’s always been, but it is family.”
I said, “You ever want something different?”
He was silent so long I thought maybe I’d pushed too far. “Sometimes. A partner. But I wouldn’t know what to do with her.” He looked at me, eyes yellow in the lamplight. “What about you? You ever want to stop running?”
It was my turn to look away. “I don’t know how.”
We sat there a while in a comfortable silence.
I was aware of him in a way I didn't usually let myself be aware of people, the particular quality of his attention, the way he sat beside me and didn't fidget, didn't perform, was just exactly where he was.
I'd spent years reading people for tells and motive and threat.
What I was doing right now felt different.
It felt like something I'd forgotten I knew how to do.
"I like you," he said. "You don't scare easily."
"You should see me around cats," I said. "Total meltdown."
He snorted. He was looking at me sideways in the lamplight, those yellow-gold eyes patient the way he was patient at everything, and I thought, not for the first time tonight and probably not for the last, that I was in some trouble I hadn't accounted for.
I leaned in. He didn't move to meet me or pull back, just let me come to him, and when I kissed him, he kissed me back with the same deliberate care he brought to everything.
His hand came up and settled at the back of my jaw, warm and certain, and I felt the roughness of his palm, the particular weight of someone who worked hard every day and never once thought about it.
When we broke, he touched his forehead to mine, and we stayed there, breathing the same air.
"You sure?" he asked. No pressure in it. Just the question.
"Not even a little," I said. "But I want to be."
He looked at me, and whatever he was looking for, he seemed to find it, because he nodded once, and something eased in my chest.
"You can stay," he said, "if you want."
I wanted to. That was the thing I hadn't planned for, the wanting.
I'd been careful for a long time, careful about people and what I let matter, careful the way you get when you've had things taken and learned the cost of replacing them.
But sitting in this small, immaculate cabin with his hand warm at my jaw and her locket on its nail above the bed, I thought maybe I'd been calculating the wrong kind of cost. Maybe what I should have been watching out for was the price of not.
"I have to get back," I said. I didn't let go of his hand.
He kissed me again, slower, like there was no particular hurry about any of it, and when we finally broke, I pressed my lips together to keep the feeling in. I never wanted to lose it.