Page 43 of Earning Her Trust

Boone poured a second mug for himself and sat back in the chair. “I didn’t plan to stay either,” he said after a while. “Just needed to check a box for the judge. But sometimes you find the place that fits, even when you didn’t know you were looking.”

Ghost watched the steam rise from the mug. “This isn’t that place.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But running doesn’t solve the problem when the problem is you. There’s nowhere to go that’ll feel any different than here. The walls are in your head, man.”

Those words had settled into his bones like splinters. He’d stayed for the coffee, sitting with Boone in silence until the sun peaked over the mountains. When Boone stood, stretched, and gathered his mug and thermos, Ghost had tried to hand the blue mug back.

“Keep it,” Boone had said. “It’s yours now.”

His. It was the first thing that had truly belonged to him since he’d lost his freedom, his identity, and everything else that had ever mattered.

He’d stayed.

And the mug had been his constant through every shift, through the years when he built his security systems and patrols and maintained the careful walls around himself.

But now it was gone, and he felt exposed. Like the one tangible thing anchoring him to this life had snapped, and now the same restlessness crawled up his spine. The same itch to vanish. To be just what his name promised—a ghost, untethered, unknown.

Except this time, he knew Boone was right. The problem wasn’t Valor Ridge. It wasn’t even the damn blue mug.

The problem was him.

He looked down at his phone. It was late—nearly midnight. Too late to call anyone. But his fingers moved anyway, scrolling through his sparse contacts until he found her name.

Naomi.

His thumb hovered over the call button. What the hell would he even say? Sorry to bother you, but I’m having an existential crisis over a broken coffee mug, and I can’t breathe in my own skin?

That would go over well.

He set the phone down, disgusted with himself, and rubbed his hands over his face. Pathetic. Getting worked up over ceramic and memories. There was a case to focus on. Missing women. A pattern. Real problems, not this... whatever this was.

He had always prided himself on being self-sufficient. Needing no one. But tonight, the emptiness echoed. He stood up abruptly, startling Cinder, who backed away a step, ears perked in question.

He needed?—

What? Company? A drink? A fight?

No. He needed to hear another human voice. Just for a minute. Just to make sure he was still tethered to the world.

He reached for the phone again.

This was stupid. It was late. She wouldn’t want to hear from him, not after that near-miss in the truck. But his thumb pressed the call button anyway, and he held his breath as it rang.

Once. Twice. Three times.

“Hello?” Her voice was sleep-rough, wary.

He almost hung up. “It’s Ghost.”

A rustle of sheets. “What’s wrong? Did something happen with the case?”

He could picture her sitting up in bed, black hair loose around her shoulders, lights off, staring into the dark with her phone against her cheek.

“No.” He swallowed, throat dry. “I just?—”

What? What did he want?

“I… broke something.”