Jojo was mid-story with both hands in the air, the animation of a man who loved what he was talking about. “So then Burke says—Burke says—“ He paused, the deliberate timing of someone who knew exactly how to hold an audience. “He says, ‘I’ve got it under control,’ and then the sprinkler goes off directly over his head.”
The table erupted—Burke protesting loudly, Danny hiding his face in his hands, Rawley’s mouth doing the small movement that wasn’t quite a smile, but lived right next to one.
I felt my own face change, felt the release of tension that came with the recognition that whatever happened next, I was exactly where I needed to be for it.
The food was exactly what Jojo had described—pork with the rosemary-thyme crust, potatoes roasted with garlic and the local olive oil Rawley had brought back from his last trip to Billings, green beans from the garden with lemon and slivered almonds. It smelled like wood smoke and garlic and the specific combination of herbs that was Jojo’s signature rather than anything that had a name.
It tasted like belonging a meal made by someone who’d noticed what I could eat and what I couldn’t, who’d adjusted accordingly without making a show of it.
I thought about my grandfather’s kitchen in Nebraska—the smell of coffee and old wood, the way the morning light had cut through the east window and painted a thin line of gold across the worn linoleum.
I thought about the last time I’d seen him—standing in the doorway with both of my hands pressed between his, his voice carrying the tone of a man who knew exactly what he was saying.
“Don’t come back until it’s safe,” he’d said, each word precise. “No matter how long it takes. I’ll be here when you’re ready.”
I’d left that night with nothing but a duffel bag and bruises and the absolute certainty that I would never see that kitchen again—that Gerald’s resources and connections and conviction that I belonged to him would find me no matter where I went.
I’d been wrong. Not about Gerald—he had found me, had followed me from Nebraska, had stood in the yard of this very house and claimed I was his—but about the part that came after. About the simple fact that some problems, even the ones that seemed insurmountable, could be handled by people who had the tools for it.
I decided I would call to my grandfather tomorrow. I would tell him it was safe now—that Gerald had come and gone, that the ranch had resources he couldn’t access, that the men who lived here protected me.
I would tell him about Decker—about the way he’d looked at me in the dark and said “stay” with the weight of a man who meant exactly what he was saying. I would tell him about the ranch—about Rawley’s quiet acceptance, about Burke’s quick understanding, about the way the community had made room for me without being asked to.
I would tell him about the baby coming in the fall—about the ultrasound image, about Dr. Marsh’s matter-of-fact competence, about the due date that coincided with the first frost.
I pretty sure my grandfather would be glad. The mountain was dark through the kitchen window—the same mountain it had been the morning Decker had driven me up the gravel roadand Rawley had said I could stay. It hadn’t changed—wouldn’t change—would go on sitting exactly where it was regardless of what happened in its shadow.
I understood, with Decker’s knee against mine and the noise of the table around me, that I had stopped waiting to feel safe at some point without noticing the moment it happened.
There had been no dramatic shift, no revelation, no music swelling to mark the transition. Just the gradual accumulation of small certainties—that the mountain would be the same mountain tomorrow, that food would appear without being asked for, that help would arrive without drama or acknowledgment.
That I belonged here—not as a problem to be solved or a situation to be managed, but as someone who had earned his place through the simple fact of who he was and what he brought to the community.
I was already home.
Chapter Sixteen
~ Decker ~
The ranch house had gone quiet, most of the lights out, everyone long since retired to their rooms or back to their own places. Jasper and I had been the last ones at the dinner table, sitting with our knees touching beneath the worn wood, hands brushing as we passed the salt or reached for water.
Now we stood in the bedroom, the door closed behind us, the air between us charged with a electricity I’d been carrying since breakfast.
Jasper’s eyes met mine across the small space, his gaze steady in a way that would have been impossible three months ago. The fear that had lived there—the constant calculation, the carefulness around the edges—had been gradually replaced by something quieter and more certain.
It wasn’t gone completely—I knew better than to think that—but it had settled into the background rather than dominating every interaction.
“You good?” I asked, the question carrying more weight than its two words should have been able to.
Jasper nodded, not breaking eye contact. “I’m good.”
I closed the distance between us in one long stride, my hand coming up to cup the back of his skull. His hair was soft under my palm, slightly longer than it had been when he’d arrived at the ranch. I’d watched him grow it out—week by week, the careful attention he paid to its shape gradually giving way to something looser and more his own.
When I kissed him, Jasper’s mouth opened under mine immediately—not the careful tentativeness of our first few attempts, but the directness of a man who’d stopped questioning whether he was allowed to want this. His hand found my waist,fingers pressing into the muscle there, his body leaning into the contact.
I pushed my other hand under his t-shirt, palm flat against his skin. He was still too thin—would be for a while yet, despite Jojo’s best efforts—but the carefulness of the first weeks was gone. I could touch him without triggering that momentary freeze, that automatic calculation of whether this was safe.
I broke the kiss just long enough to pull his shirt over his head, taking my time with it, watching the way his eyes darkened as I deliberately slowed my movements. His hands moved to my belt, quick and capable, working the leather through the loops with practiced movements.
