He tried to remember if he’d ever seen her relax. Actually sleep, not just power down between patrols—but no, she always waited, always watched. She was like him, that way.
But at the same time, she wasn’t.
She pressed her nose to his palm, pushing, insistent. Most nights, he just gave the command, closed the gate, walked away. Kept her separate, the way he kept everyone. Kept everything. Only this time she held her ground. Didn’t back off. Didn’t give up.
Like maybe she thought tonight something would be different.
Like she wanted it to be different.
He stared at her. At the deep, silent want in her eyes. It hit somewhere he didn’t have words for.
He’d spent his whole life locked down. Stitched himself together with discipline and distance, trusting no one, relying on nothing but instinct and the cold logic of survival. But here was this damn dog, pressing close with raw, wordless need, and he couldn’t shut it out. Couldn’t make himself turn away.
What would it even be like, to let go? To actually want something, and then reach for it? Not as a tactic, not as a lure, but as… himself. No mask, no shield, no agenda beyond the need crawling under his skin.
Fuck.
He couldn’t do that. Not for Cinder. And certainly not for Naomi Lefthand.
He backed up and shut the kennel door, ignoring the feel of Cinder’s stare following him out. He headed for the bunkhouse, hoping the others would be asleep so he could sneak into his room before anyone asked questions.
No such luck.
The common room was chaos, voices rising and falling in a tangle of insults and laughter. The pool table had been converted for a card game, with River, Jonah, and X in some kind of poker death match over a pot that included a crumpled heap of candy bars, loose change, and what looked like twelve AA batteries.
Anson sat at the kitchen island, pen scratching across a sheet of paper. His wolfhound, Bramble, sprawled out at his feet, snoring so loud the windows vibrated.
Ghost barely cleared the threshold before River fixated on Anson, grinning like he’d just sniffed out somebody’s secret. “You ever going to tell us about this mysterious pen pal, Sut?”
“My bet is it’s an old lady in Tennessee who collects taxidermy possums,” Jonah said.
“Or a forty-year-old bald man,” X said. “He lives with his parents and gets his kicks by stringing along lonely cons.”
Anson just kept writing, hand steady. “Fuck off,” he said, but there was no heat in it.
X spun his chair around, eyes sparkling. “Come on, man, you ever heard of email? Or are you living in 1995?”
River threw down his hand, folding, and leaned back in his chair. “Do you seal it with a kiss?” He dropped his voice in a fair approximation of Anson’s: “Dear Miss Mabel?—”
“Maggie,” Anson corrected.
River ignored him. “Hope this letter finds you well. Enclosed, a lock of my beard and a pressed dandelion. Yours eternally, Anson Sutter.”
X snorted.
Anson flipped them off and kept writing.
At the opposite end of the room, Bear was doing battle with King, trying to towel off the enormous dog and losing. Water flew everywhere. King grinned, tongue lolling, and Bear grumbled a string of kid-friendly curses since Oliver was present. The kid was planted on the sagging couch next to Jax, determinedly drawing while Echo, the Australian shepherd, watched them both with love in her mismatched eyes.
“Bear, that dog needs some training,” Jax said.
“Heistrained,” Bear growled. “He just doesn’t always listen.”
Once again, Ghost thought of Cinder in her kennel. Would she rather be here? The other dogs didn’t seem to mind the chaos one bit, but he couldn’t picture her here. Hell, he didn’t want to be here. It was too much. The voices, the laughter, the constant push and pull of men who actually wanted to be around each other. Family.
He wanted to bolt. He made it three steps toward his room before River spotted him.
“Hey, look! Casper decided to grace us with his presence. Did you get lost, or were you just hiding in the shed again?”
