“Yeah, you’re pleased with yourself, aren’t you?”
She just chuffed and continued across the road to Jax’s.
Ghost stalked after her, hands jammed in his jacket pockets, head down against the wind. The chill stung his face, but he didn’t slow. If he thought about it too hard, he’d turn around and head straight back to the Hub, but Cinder was already halfway to the porch before he’d crossed the drive.
It wasn’t raining anymore, just a sullen mist clinging to the trees and a dusting of snow on the mountaintops. The ground squelched under his boots as he walked up the porch and caught the low thrum of music—some old country ballad. He debated bailing out, telling himself it wasn’t necessary. Jax would get over it. They all did.
I’m not your next fucking project, and we’re not friends.
He’d meant them in the moment—or thought he had. But the way Jax had looked at him afterwards, like he’d put a knife between Jax’s ribs, and left it there, twisting. Most guys at the Ridge bounced back from an argument the way dogs shook off rain. Jax wasn’t most guys. He absorbed shit and let it rot inside until it went septic.
Ghost didn’t care. He didn’t. But he knocked anyway, three short raps that sounded too loud in the dusk.
The music stopped. Footsteps approached, and then the door swung open, spilling gold light across the porch. Jax stood there in a worn flannel shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, a smattering of sawdust clinging to his clothes. Behind him, Echo lay sprawled across the rug on her back, but she perked when she spotted Cinder.
Surprise flickered across Jax’s face, then wariness. “Ghost.”
“Can I come in?” The words felt like gravel in his throat. He wasn’t good at this shit. Had never been good at any of the “feelings” crap the Dr. Perrin, the ranch’s therapist, was always pushing. He much preferred silence, or violence, or anythingthat didn’t require him to unseal something raw and festering inside.
Jax hesitated just long enough for him to feel the weight of what he’d broken. Then he stepped back, gesturing inside. “Yeah, sure.”
The cabin was warm, the air filled with apples and cinnamon and wood smoke. A half-carved piece of wood sat on the coffee table alongside a glass of something that smelled like cider. A black-and-white cat lay stretched out in front of the woodstove, purring loudly.
Socks.
Ghost had helped wrangle the beast this summer after Nessie’s Place had burned down, all because Oliver had worried about the strays in the alley behind the bakery.
Apparently, Socks had been happy to give up his life on the street while the other two—a gray tabby named Trouble and a calico named Princess Jellybean—now roamed around the ranch like it had always been their property.
Echo watched Ghost and Cinder with her mismatched eyes, tail thumping once against the floor in cautious greeting as they stopped just inside the threshold.
Ghost stood there awkwardly, hands at his sides, unable to find a natural place to put them. Cinder planted herself beside him as he searched for something to say.
“Are… Nessie and Oliver here?”
“No,” Jax said. “They’re at Mariah’s for the night. Oliver wanted a sleepover with Tate, and Nessie and Mariah are planning a project together for the fall festival thing in a few weeks.”
Mariah Duval was the owner of Pine & Bloom Floral in Solace, located across the street from Nessie’s Place and next door to Craig Foster’s office. She did good work, if you liked that sort of thing, but he couldn’t puzzle out how a bakeryand a flower shop had enough in common to work together on anything. He opened his mouth to ask, but Jax was already shaking his head.
“Yeah, don’t ask me. I have no idea.”
An awkward pause.
“You want a drink?” Jax asked, picked up his mug, and headed for the kitchen. “Nessie’s been playing with cider recipes and we’re all but swimming in it.”
Tempting. He liked Nessie’s cider, but he shook his head. “No. Thanks.”
The silence stretched, the only sound the soft crackle of the fire, the cat’s continued purring, and the occasional drip of rainwater from the eaves outside.
“I don’t do this well,” Ghost said finally.
“Do what?”
“This.” He gestured vaguely between them. “The...talking. After.”
Jax leaned against the kitchen counter, arms folded, face unreadable. “Yeah, I noticed.”
His throat constricted, and he clenched his jaw against the emotion.Just say it. Get it over with.
