Page 84

“Do you need to get that?”

Yes. I should, her head argued.

No, the day is gorgeous and so is the man in front of you, her heart argued.

“No. Anyway, you were saying?”

“Nothing. Just sorry for dipping out on you while Bennett and Maggie are out. That’s a lot of responsibility to handle yourself.”

“No apology is necessary. I’d think you were crazy if you kept up that workload when you have this.” She pointed to Ren, who’d moved on from the rope and was feeding Lightning. Little did he know he’d probably made a friend for life with that carrot. “Besides, if it wasn’t now, you’d have wanted to get out anyway, right?”

His gaze landed on Ren, and he sighed. Jax’s laid-back shoulders, combined with the wide smile, made him look ten years younger. And … happy.

“I dunno anymore.”

“What do you mean? I thought you wanted more, or out of here at least.”

Jax sat and pulled her down onto his lap. She squealed and caught a laugh and headshake from Ren.

“Jackson!” she hissed.

“What? He’s fifteen and noticed the way I was looking at you after thirty seconds. He can handle a little PDA. In fact, he said if I don’t pursue you, I’ll miss out on something amazing.”

“Oh.” Something shifted in Jill’s chest, like a lock clicking into place.

Jax didn’t offer any more insight, so she didn’t pursue it. But her heart didn’t slow its steady thump-thump as it imagined what pursuit from a man like Jax might look like. Feel like. If it was anything like what they’d been doing, it would probably feel pretty dang good.

But did those kinds of feelings—and what came with them—fit into the life she was building?

How will I know if I don’t try? A tiny bulb of heat pulsed behind her ribs.

But if I try again, I have so much more to lose if it doesn’t work out.

Her job, the family she’d found in Maggie and Bennett, and even Grace Marshall… Sure, they’d all be there in some form, but things would be different, lines drawn.

Her heart. It’d recovered, as a heart did after its first love tried to shatter it, but the way she felt about Jax already was so much stronger than anything she thought she’d felt for Liam.

Losing him would break her. Especially if she kept getting to know Ren; being a mom was high on her list of priorities, but now? To a fifteen-year-old who needed someone to stay steady in his life?

What would it do to him if she and Jax went separate ways?

Oof. This was as complicated as the maze of trails behind the Marshall and Newman properties.

“So, you think you’ll stay now?” she asked. She needed another topic, another distraction.

“I’m not sure, to be honest. If you’d have asked me a month—hell, a week—ago what I wanted my life to look like, I’d have painted you a picture of living on the road, the open air in front of me and my past behind me. Bennett always wanted to turn this place around as a way to say eff you to the old man. Not just for being a prick, but for trying to take us down with him.”

“What did you want?”

Jax clasped her hand and pulled it to his lips, but his gaze stayed pinned to Ren, who’d walked down the riverbank.

“I wanted to leave the memory of it all in the dust.” He paused and looked down at his feet, his cheeks turning a light red. From the heat or something else? “I’m ashamed to admit it, but when the fire thrashed the canyon last year, I secretly wished it would keep going. I wanted this place to die in flames and didn’t care what it would’ve done to Bennett if I could just watch it burn. But now—”

“Now you see it in a different light?” she offered.

He nodded.

She got it. She’d felt the same when Liam got hurt. Like she’d have personally torched every last rodeo arena herself, even at the expense of her parents’ livelihood, their empire. Especially at the expense of their empire, in fact.