Page 41 of Finding His Redemption

But she couldn’t say any of that. Not without revealing too much of herself.

“Because you’re here,” she said instead. “If you’d killed someone, you wouldn’t have come back. You’d have kept running.”

Jax stared at her for a long moment, something unreadable moving behind his eyes. Then he looked away, jaw working like he was chewing on words he couldn’t quite spit out.

“Doesn’t matter what you think,” he said finally. “Or what I did or didn’t do. The sheriff’s made up his mind, and I’m an easy target. Ex-con with a history of violence? Perfect suspect.”

“Then we fight back.”

“We?” His gaze snapped back to hers. “There’s no ‘we’ here, Nessie. You need to stay the hell away from me before you get dragged down with me.”

The words hit like a slap, but she didn’t flinch. “Don’t you dare tell me what I need to do.”

“I’m trying to protect you?—”

“I don’t need your protection.” The words came out harder than she’d intended, edged with old pain and older anger. “I need you to let me help.”

“Why?” The question exploded out of him, raw and desperate. “Why do you give a damn what happens to me?”

Because I know what it’s like to have the whole world convinced you’re something you’re not. Because I know what it feels like to be alone and afraid and certain that no one will believe you. Because when I look at you, I see myself four years ago, broken and running and convinced I deserved whatever hell was coming for me.

But she couldn’t say that either. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” she said instead, and knew it sounded inadequate even as the words left her mouth.

Jax studied her face like he was trying to read her secrets. “You’re lying.”

“Maybe. But I’m here anyway.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. He looked down at the monster muffin still clutched in his hands, its frosting smile cheerful and absurd.

“Tell your boy thanks,” he said quietly. “But tell him not to make any more for me. I won’t be around long enough to eat them.”

chapter

twelve

The drive homefrom Valor Ridge felt like a retreat from a battlefield, with Nessie’s heart still thundering in her chest long after Jax’s words had faded behind her.

I won’t be around long enough…

What did he mean by that? Was he planning to run? To turn himself in for a crime he didn’t commit?

The uncertainty gnawed at her as she stopped at the store for some groceries. She couldn’t forget the look on Jax’s face when she’d offered him that ridiculous monster muffin, like he’d been handed something radioactive instead of baked goods. The look in his eyes had been worse. He was a man who’d already accepted his fate and was just waiting for the executioner to swing the ax.

By the time she pulled into the alley behind the bakery, her head was pounding. The familiar brick exterior rose two stories above the sidewalk—bakery on the bottom, their apartment perched quietly above. The second-floor window boxes overflowed with cheerful blooms Oliver insisted they plant every spring. But today, the whole building felt different. Heavier. Like it had absorbed her anxiety and was pressing it back down on her.

She sat in the car for a long moment, trying to steady her breathing. Oliver wouldn’t be home for another few hours. Mariah had promised to drop him off after lunch, which gave Nessie time to shower, change, and figure out what the hell she was going to do about Jaxon Thorne.

She unlocked the back door to the bakery and stepped inside, groceries balanced awkwardly in one arm. The smell of coffee and sugar clung to the air, even with the ovens off and chairs flipped onto tables.

The place was so silent that her footsteps echoed on the stairs up to her apartment.

Her skin prickled.

It had been so long since she’d last experienced this creeping paranoia, she almost forgot it was how she was supposed to be living her life. Maybe she’d become too comfortable here, too complacent.

She set the groceries on the kitchen counter and placed the muffin tin in the sink. Complacency was dangerous. Complacency got people killed.