Page 22 of Destined Prey (Wild Ones #1)

Jack jolted and spun around in the kitchen. Rhett stood in the doorway, studying him. Jack couldn’t tell if Rhett was angry or what. His expression was completely blank. “Are you okay?”

Jack studied the set of Rhett’s jaw, the tired at the corners of his eyes. Not anger exactly—strain. The kind that came from trying to hold ten things steady with two hands.

“Are you?” Rhett retorted.

“Can we not be weird with each other?” Jack asked. “We just got to a point where we were getting close again, like when we were kids. Let’s not lose that.”

He offered the truce with empty hands—no defenses, no jokes—because that was how you made it stick with family.

Rhett folded his arms over his chest. “You’re the one consorting with…with…”

“People,” Jack said softly, before Rhett could fill the word with something worse. “You mean I’m with people.”

He shook his head. “No, wait. I don’t mean that.”

“Are you sure?” Jack snapped, standing up and debating whether to try to smack some sense into Rhett. “Because you really sounded like a total judgmental asshole.”

Rhett seemed to sag against the doorframe, and his blank expression turned to one of displeasure as he frowned.

“God, I know, right? My head’s fucked up, but it’s not your fault.

Just, like you said. I guess I’m worried and maybe a little jealous, because you just came back here, and now you’ll probably want to leave again. ”

“I’m not leaving,” Jack said, closing the distance between them. “Rhett, I’m right here, and I know me and Ben were wrapped up in each other for a few days, but that’s the newness of finding each other. I’m still here for you.”

Rhett wouldn’t look him in the eyes. “Are you gonna turn into one of them?”

Jack took a half step back. “I don’t think so. He didn’t bite me or anything.”

Rhett smirked then, just a little, and he finally looked at Jack. “Maybe y’all aren’t doing the whole sex thing right then.”

Thank God for humor; it let the room exhale. Jack let the smile happen, then held Rhett’s gaze so the next part would land.

Jack snickered, and in an instant, Rhett reached for him and hugged him. Jack held on and embraced his brother, too. “We do just fine, you goof. I mean no fangs and blood and stuff like that. He’s all man in bed.”

“I don’t need details, kiddo.” Rhett sighed and released him.

“I’m sorry. Just, this is a lot to adjust to.

I’m off-balance. I don’t want you to leave.

” He stood straighter. “I hope you know you and Ben can live here. This house has four bedrooms, remember, and there’s the basement.

That could be converted into an apartment for y’all, with a private exit and all. ”

Jack truly understood how much Rhett wanted him there, then, and it touched him deeply. “Why did we not stay in touch like we should have?”

“Too many secrets,” Rhett replied. “Speaking of, you said Alex wasn’t bothering you.”

Jack didn’t miss the accusation in Rhett’s voice.

“He isn’t bothering me. He can text and call and email all he wants.

I don’t give a shit. He’s a mistake I don’t care to dwell on.

He’s insignificant, and another thing—” He started to expand on that until a thought stopped him.

“Hey, how’d you know he’s still trying to contact me? ”

Rhett reached behind him, taking something from his back pocket. Then held out several envelopes. “He obviously knows where the ranch is. Where you are. Picked these up when I went in to get the mail this morning.” He held them out to Jack. “Six of ’em.”

His name in Alex’s handwriting made his stomach dip. Muscle memory. He laid the letters flat so the past couldn’t loom larger than paper.

Jack grimaced and took the envelopes from Rhett. “Great. Well, I don’t know why he’s bothering. I told him I’d press charges against him if he didn’t leave me alone.”

“And you haven’t done it, so he figures you won’t and he can win you back,” Rhett said. “Classic abuser’s pattern.”

“Hm.” Jack was tempted to throw all the letters away, just as he’d deleted all messages from Alex, and blocked his number—finally.

“I think I was depressed when I first got here. I didn’t have the energy to do anything.

I’ve blocked his number now, and I’m changing my email address.

I didn’t really have many close friends in New York I’d want to keep in touch with, except for Aaron and Macky.

I need to message them today.” They’d been concerned about him, and he’d brushed them off, distanced himself over the past year, but Jack wanted to rectify that mistake.

“You were hurting, in more ways than one,” Rhett pointed out. “You’re feeling better. How’s your ribs?”

“A lot better. In fact, they haven’t hurt at all the past couple of days.” Jack touched them lightly, then pressed harder. “Huh. Not sore at all.”

“Maybe your shifter boyfriend has some kind of magic healing powers,” Rhett teased.

“I’d be cool with that.” Jack glanced at the letters. “Well, should I bother to read them?”

Rhett tapped them. “Might be a good idea. If he’s going off the rails and stalking you, we’d need to know that. If he were to show up out here, especially at night, with the—” Rhett gulped. “The shifters that have been fighting on the ranch, he could be killed.”

“No matter how much I despise what he did, what I let him do, I don’t want Alex dead.

He wasn’t always an asshole.” Jack waved the letters.

“I wasn’t always nice, either, but that’s no excuse for his violence or my acceptance of it.

Regardless, I’m done with him.” Jack turned back into the kitchen, intending to throw the letters away.

“Open one of them, at least,” Rhett urged. “Or let me. If he’s threatening you, you need to take action against him.”

“I just want that part of my life to be over and done with. In the past.” Jack detoured to the counter by the sink and set the envelopes down.

Then he spread them out and selected the one with the newest post-marked date on it.

“Maybe this is part of doing that, though.” He tore the envelope open, then pulled out the letter and unfolded it.

Jack scanned the contents and frowned. “Huh. He’s admitting himself into some kind of rehabilitation center.

Hope was a complicated reflex; it flickered and he refused to feed it.

Boundaries were not cruelty. They were oxygen.

He’s sorry—he was always sorry—but this time he means it. Same line I’ve heard before. But…”

“But what?” Rhett prodded, joining him by the sink. “Spill.”

Jack handed him the letter. “He doesn’t want me back.

That’s not what all the attempts to reach me have been about.

Those were because I left stuff at the place we shared, and he wanted to know what to do with it, because he’s moving once he’s out of the rehab center, whenever that might be.

” Jack picked the envelope back up. Then he looked at the others on the countertop.

“Oh. Well, none of these have the return address for where we used to live. I don’t recognize the address on here, but it wasn’t our place. ”

“Maybe he’s really getting help,” Rhett mused, “or maybe he’s wanting you to think that so he can show up here and try to, I don’t know, kidnap you or something.”

Jack couldn’t help it. He laughed. “No, Rhett. Alex… He’s not like that.

The alcohol, it made him mean and violent, and I think he must have been drinking more and more every day, because he got worse there the last month I was with him.

Maybe he wasn’t ever sober, I don’t know.

I was wound up in my own problems with work and all. ”

Rhett held up another envelope and raised his eyebrows in question.

“Go ahead.” Jack waited while Rhett opened it and read it.

Rhett grunted and set the letter down. “Same thing in this one, though he said that if you felt you needed to file charges on him for hurting you and for contacting you, to do it, but he had to at least try to get your stuff back to you, and to refund you the rent he’d had you pay him.

He’s pretty insistent on that, and he says again that he isn’t trying to get back together with you.

Says he’s a toxic source for anyone and he needs to get help, or he’s going to die, soon, and alone, or in some kind of violent outburst, and he doesn’t want that. ”

The apology was better. It still wasn’t a key to his door.

Jack ran his hands through his hair. “I did leave most of my stuff there. Just brought some clothes and my laptop here. I don’t care about the furniture, except for Mom’s rocking chair. I want that back.”

The chair wasn’t furniture; it was a room full of afternoons and the sound of spoons in iced tea. He could feel the shape of it in his hands.

“We’ll get it. Why don’t you let me call this number Alex put on here and make arrangements?

That way he doesn’t get direct contact with you, if that’s what he’s wanting, despite what he says in these letters.

” Rhett picked up another one. “Let me help you, Jack. I wasn’t there for you before. Let me be there now.”

“Okay,” Jack said, letting the word be big. Accepting help had always felt like failure. Today it felt like staying.

“Rhett, I wouldn’t let you be there, and I sure wasn’t here for you, either.” Jack chuckled, though he wasn’t amused. It was more sardonic than anything. “I just left.”

“I wanted you to get to go out and live life however you wanted,” Rhett said. “And we’ve been over this. We both messed up, but we aren’t going to let each other go again.”

“No, we aren’t, and yes, you can help me.

I’d appreciate it, actually.” Jack grinned.

“I really just want to forget about Alex after this. As for the whole living arrangements, I don’t think we need to worry about that anytime too soon.

Ben and I need more time to get to know each other better before we get to that point.

When we do, I want to live here. I want to help with the ranch.

I want us, me and you, to share the responsibility for the Double T. ”

Saying it out loud rooted the thought. Home wasn’t a retreat. It was a choice you kept making.

Rhett’s smile was bigger and more genuine than any Jack had seen from him in the past few days. “Good. That’s what I want too, and I hear what you’re saying—but I still think I’ll get started fixing up the basement. Might move myself down there.”

The picture flashed, so clear it startled him: Ben laughing in this kitchen, muddy boots by the back door, Rhett grumbling and secretly pleased. It fit. It terrified him how much it fit.

“You don’t have to do that,” Jack protested, but anything else they might have said was forestalled by someone pounding on the door. “I’ll get it.”

“I didn’t hear anyone drive up, so it’s gotta be one of the hands.” Rhett was right behind him. “I’ll call about your stuff after we take care of this.”

Jack slid the letters into a drawer—not buried, not center stage. “One thing at a time,” he told himself, and went to meet whatever was knocking.