I expected him to move—to extract himself, to put space between us, to treat what had just happened as the exception rather than a new normal.
He didn’t. Instead, he shifted slightly, his hand coming to rest at the base of my neck where it met my spine—not a gesture, just a presence. His eyes were still on my face, the directness of his gaze making something in my chest loosen.
“Stay,” he said, the single syllable carrying more weight than it should have been able to.
I nodded, not trusting my voice, and rolled to my side, pulling him with me. His body settled against mine as if findingits natural state, his head coming to rest on my chest, ear pressed above my heart.
His breathing evened out gradually, his weight growing heavier against me as he drifted toward sleep. I kept my arm around him, hand resting at the small of his back, and didn’t move to leave.
We lay tangled in the dark, the farmhouse quiet around us, both of us breathing. Jasper’s weight had settled against my side, his head on my chest, one hand loose and open on my ribs.
The rightness of the moment settled into my chest like a physical thing—not the dramatic swelling of music or the flush of fiction, but something quieter and more certain: the simple fact of a man who’d decided I was worth trusting and wasn’t performing safety or obligation, just offering the thing itself.
I didn’t move to leave. I shifted slightly, adjusting my arm to make sure Jasper was comfortable, and stayed exactly where I was. The room was cool around us, but Jasper was warm against my side—the heat of a body that had stopped guarding itself, that had decided, at least for tonight, that it was safe enough to rest.
I’d been awake for twenty-two hours straight by then—the alertness that happened when my body decided sleep was a luxury rather than a necessity—but I couldn’t bring myself to close my eyes. Not yet. Not with Jasper’s weight solid against me, his breathing even and deep, the occasional small shift of his hand against my ribs.
I’d watched him hold himself together through the porch conversation—through the mention of Sterling, through Burke’s casually offered nuclear option, through the shorthand that had passed between the men who’d served together and now lived on the same ranch.
He’d sat straight-backed and still, eyes on the porch boards between his feet, face set in lines that gave nothing away. ButI’d seen his hands—the way his knuckles had gone white where they rested on his knees, the small, unconscious movement of his thumb across his palm.
He was still doing it now—even half-asleep, his body hadn’t fully surrendered. His breathing was even, his weight solid against me, but his thumb moved in a small, unconscious circle against my ribs—the self-soothing gesture of someone who’d learned the hard way that comfort was something you provided yourself.
“Hey,” I said, voice low in the darkness. “You still awake?”
Jasper made a small sound against my chest—not quite a word, but adjacent to it. His weight shifted slightly as he tipped his head back, eyes finding mine in the thin light from the window.
“Yeah,” he said, the single syllable carrying more weight than it should have been able to.
I ran my hand up his back, feeling the warmth of him beneath my palm, the slight ridge of his spine under my fingers. “You ever think about staying in Montana?” I asked, the question coming out before I’d fully formed it.
It wasn’t a plan. It wasn’t a proposal. It was just a question, the kind a man asked when the answer mattered to him, but he wasn’t ready to say why out loud.
Jasper went still against me, the unconscious movement of his thumb pausing mid-circle. “What do you mean?” he asked, voice careful in a way that spoke of practice rather than calm.
I kept my hand moving, tracing small circles at the base of his spine. “Just a question,” I said, keeping it simple. “You seem to fit here. That’s all.”
In the silence before Jasper answered, I turned over what I’d watched over the past days: Jasper crouched in the gravel with a scraped-knee toddler, his movements careful and sure, voice in the soft tone adults used with children who were hurting. Jaspertalking neonatal feeding technique with Carter like he’d never stopped being a nurse, hands moving with the confidence of someone who knew exactly what they were doing. Jasper on the east porch in the early light looking at the Black Butte mountain like it was the first thing in a long time that hadn’t asked anything of him.
I’d seen him finding his footing—not performing competence, but actually building it, one careful interaction at a time. He’d earned his place here—not through obligation or charity or because of what had been done to him, but through the simple fact of who he was and what he brought to the community.
“Yes,” Jasper said finally, the single syllable carrying a weight I hadn’t expected. “I could see it. If I had a good reason to stay.”
Something moved behind my ribs—not quite hope, but adjacent to it. I kept my voice level, eyes on the ceiling rather than his face. “What constitutes a good reason?”
Jasper didn’t answer with words. He tipped his head up and pressed a kiss to the edge of my jaw, the contact brief but deliberate—not a gesture, but a statement. Then he tucked his face back against my chest and closed his eyes, his weight settling more fully against me.
My arm tightened around him without my permission, the moment settling into my chest like a physical thing.
Neither of us said anything else.
The silence between us expanded to fill the space it needed—not empty or awkward, but charged with something I didn’t have a name for yet.
Outside, the ranch was completely still—no traffic sounds, no neighbors’ voices, just the occasional creak of the house settling and the distant call of an owl from the stand of pines to the west.
Sterling was somewhere in the sky above Montana by now, Burke’s call bouncing through whatever secure channels theman used to keep himself unreachable to anyone who wasn’t family.
Seven men would drop from a plane at fifteen thousand feet sometime tonight, descending through the dark with nothing but parachutes and the absolute certainty that Burke wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t serious.
