Finally, Boone nodded toward the mug still perched on the arm of his chair. “Anson did a good job with that.”
“He did.”
Boone sucked in a breath. “We sat here just like this the night I talked you into coming back. The night I gave you that mug. I had no idea what it meant to you.”
“Neither did I until it broke.”
A faint smile touched Boone’s lips. “That night feels like a lifetime ago.”
“Yeah,” Ghost agreed, absently running his fingers through Cinder’s fur. “Everything was simpler then.”
“Was it?” Boone’s navy blue eyes reflected the dying embers. “Or were you just pretending it was?”
He considered it. Had anything ever been simple, or had he just been better at compartmentalizing, at walling off the parts of himself that threatened his carefully constructed control?
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Boone said suddenly, startling a laugh from him.
“Yeah, probably. For lots of reasons. Care to elaborate?”
“That woman,” Boone gestured toward the Hub with his chin, “has been through hell. Kidnapped. Beaten. Watched her cousin turn out to be a serial killer. Found out the man she’s in love with nearly died trying to save her.” His voice remained steady, matter-of-fact. “And instead of being there for her, you’re out here feeling sorry for yourself because you think she’s leaving you.”
Oh… fuck.
When Boone took a shot, he didn’t miss, and his aim was deadly.
“When I caught you two going at it in your truck on Main Street, I wasn’t happy about it.” Boone reached down, picked up a stick, and poked at the remnants of the fire. Sparks spiraled upward, brief flares of light against the darkness. “Thought it was reckless. Dangerous. For the ranch, for the program. For you.”
And the final piece—the one that had bothered him throughout his entire recovery—clicked into place. “It was never Isolde.Yousent Naomi that text telling her not to trust me.”
Boone nodded.
A flare of defensive anger lit along Ghost’s sternum. “It wasn’t your call to?—”
“Yeah, I know. But she didn’t listen, so let me finish,” Boone cut him off, voice firm but not unkind. “I said I wasn’t happy. Past tense.” He looked at Ghost directly now, his weathered face half in shadow. “You took a bullet for her.”
It wasn’t a question, but Ghost nodded anyway. “I’d do it again.”
Boone’s mouth quirked into something like a smile. “That’s when I understood.”
Ghost waited, sensing there was more. Boone wasn’t a man who wasted words any more than he wasted motion.
“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 ofdarkness 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.
