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His bright blue eyes held her gaze trapped for a few seconds, and then he picked up the coffee cup anyway. She thought he would leave. She thought she’d asked something stupid, and the blush crept into her cheeks quickly. He didn’t go though. Instead, Kade sat on the edge of the bed, and took a sip, and then another.

“Why didn’t you leave?” he asked low.

Jess shrugged and hugged one of the spare pillows closer. “I just got stuck, I guess.”

He reached over and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “I imagined you found a better place. I had a lot of time to think in Cold Foot Prison, and that was the fantasy. You were supposed to be better off.”

Whoo her heart. “My fantasy was that you would come back and make it right somehow. I have a picture of you in my phone, from our Promise Day. I would look at it when everything felt too heavy. I imagined who you were. Who you really were. I tried to figure out why you did what you did. I wanted you to be someone better than you were.”

He broke their eye contact and stared at the open doorway he’d come in, like he wanted to escape. And she got it. She understood. She was still a bag of memories.

“If I never see you again, thank you for trying,” she told him.

“Trying to what?”

“Trying to fix things. Setting up a few nights here for me. Being nice. You didn’t have to do any of this. Our contract is done.”

He huffed a breath. “Maybe it was never about a contract for me, Jess.” Kade stood and made his way to the door. “If I never see you again, thank you for trusting me enough to leave.”

She let off a sleepy laugh. “You got the entire Sister’s Edge Crew riled up, interrupted my date night with my next Promise, brawled with said Promise, and destroyed my house. What choice did I have?”

“There’s always a choice,” he said with a grin. “If you were too deep in it, you would’ve Changed and defended your next Promise.”

“I don’t have access to my animal much anymore, remember?”

“Oh yeah? Then why does the cut on your arm look two months healed already?”

And she had no response to that, because dammit, he had a point. A good one. If her animal was still dormant, the healing wouldn’t have happened like it had.

“Fuck that date,” he said. “I’m glad I interrupted it. I would do it again.” There was conviction in his voice. “Goodbye, Stranger.”

She smiled softly at him and wished she could take a picture of him just as he was—standing tall, dimly illuminated with the soft, gold glow of the bedside lamp, eyes bright, hair mussed, looking sleepy and drained, handsome, and smiling at her with an ease he was never able to before, when she knew the Sister’s Edge version of him.

She wished she could remember him just as he was in this moment, not what she remembered of him before.

“Goodbye, Stranger,” she murmured.

Chapter Six

Kade sat in front of the house, staring at the front door. What was he still doing here? He’d been parked here for five minutes, trying to convince himself to leave.

Jess was probably long asleep. She didn’t need anything. She was safe. She was good.

How many times had he looked over at Jess while she slept on that long drive? How many times had he noted how pretty she was, or the peace that found her face when she was unconscious to the problems in her world. She looked different, and she felt different too. She was more defensive now. More careful. A little bitter at certain points in their conversation. The years since he’d last seen her had taken a toll on her.

But underneath it all, there was still the watchful, sometimes shy, scarred but strong beauty with the surprising wit, and the smile that showed up sometimes when she was happy, and sometimes when she was feeling sarcastic. She was a study in balances.

She was hurting inside. That much was easy to sense when he was around her, but he knew that could change if only she had time away from the things that had been dragging her down.

Females in the Sister’s Edge Crew were like birds who’d had their wings clipped.

Hell, after a couple years in Cold Foot Prison, he felt the same about himself when he thought back to his Sister’s Edge times.

Distance from that place was what she needed. Distance and rest, and space from anything or anyone who needed anything from her.

And that…that was the part that was making it hard to leave.

He wouldn’t see her anymore.