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west

T he house was on fire.

Harrison’s house was on fire.

The smoke and orange glow were the first things I saw from the stables. It was real damn hard to miss. I just stood there dumbfounded and wondering just how drunk I fucking was to hallucinate that.

But then the sirens came, blaring and cutting through the night. Several fire trucks bounced along the road as they navigated their way through the ranch.

I ran after them.

I had to see it for myself.

By the time I got there, the firefighters had set up but no one was doing a damn thing. They stood ready but no one moved, and the fire just kept on raging.

I stared at my childhood home as flames wrecked it. My chest constricted painfully. I hadn’t laid eyes on this place since the night I left. Since Harrison damn near killed me .

There was so much shit built inside those walls—secrets I’d kept to myself. My mother’s suicide. No one else knew I’d been in the room with her the night she killed herself. Harrison’s drinking. No one knew just how often I picked my old man off the floor night after night. The hits I’d told myself I could take. No one knew just how bad his temper really got. The whole place was a fucking hellhole wrapped up in one bad memory after another.

And every one of them was burning right before my eyes.

I swallowed hard against the hefty rise of emotions inside me. I wouldn’t break down. I wouldn’t panic.

“What happened?” I asked, unable to look away from the fire as I approached the fire chief.

“Controlled burn,” the fire chief snapped, and I frowned. When I glanced at him, he said, “Don’t ask me. Ask him.”

I followed his gaze to see Jackson. My heart kicked up harder in my chest, anxiety clawing at me. He was completely undeterred by everything with his arms crossed and a dying cigarette balanced between his lips. The expression on his face was one of odd satisfaction.

Had he done this?

But why? Was he that fucking pissed off at me that he burned the whole thing down?

“Jackson!” the fire chief yelled, anger lacing his voice. “We need to shut this thing down before it spreads to the whole goddamn ranch!”

“No one fucking moves a goddamn muscle until that house is as dead as Harrison fucking McNamara,” Jackson ordered. “My ranch, my rules. I want the whole damn thing gone.”

“Then hire a demolition crew!”

“It had to go,” he replied. His gaze locked onto mine. The usual contempt and anger were gone—replaced with a kind of sadness. “Tonight.”

It hit me right then and there. Jackson hadn’t known. He hadn’t known any of it. Not the shit with Harrison. And probably not anything else either.

I didn’t know what to do with that piece of information.

And so I stood there, dumbfounded. Conflicted. Crawling out of my skin.

Why? Why the fuck was he doing this?

It made no sense.

Eventually, the fire chief ignored any of Jackson’s protests and moved in. But at that point, there was no saving the house. Everything was charred and crumbling.

I should’ve been happy. I should’ve been fucking thrilled. But I wasn’t. Some weird sense of dread and panic did its best to take hold of me—memories set free from a dying house. I wanted to crawl into a hole and drink until I didn’t have to think or feel anything anymore.

I should’ve walked away. And yet, I couldn’t. Some twisted part of me was convinced I had to stay and see it through—like I owed it to someone. Anyone. Jackson maybe? Harrison’s memory? Myself? Fuck, I was so fucked up in the head over all of it. Inexplicable emotions that I didn’t want to feel had complete control of me.

When Jackson rounded the side of his truck with his keys in hand, I chased after him because what the fuck?

“Jackson!”

“ No! ” he hissed as he turned on me fast. I took one long step back, his livid expression sending my heart racing. “You and me, we are going to talk, but not right now. I’m just as likely to fucking fight you as I am to talk to you, you hear me? Go away, West.”

I just nodded. What the hell was I supposed to say to that?