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She reached into her pocket for her phone, but hesitated. She didn’t know why, but Jax tugged at her. He was clearly running from something. Maybe the ranch, maybe himself. And she knew what it felt like to run.

The water turned on in the bathroom, and she heard the sound of vigorous scrubbing. She put her phone away and went to the fridge for a carton of eggs. Her specialty was pastry, but she could whip up a mean scramble when the situation called for it.

The sound of running water drifted from the bathroom, and she tucked the phone away.

“Mom?” Oliver climbed onto his step stool and peered over the counter. “Is Jax sad?”

Out of the mouths of babes. “I think he might be, honey.”

“Like when we first came here? And you used to cry at night?”

Her chest tightened. Oliver had been barely four when they’d arrived in Solace, but he’d been old enough to notice things. Too many things. “Something like that.”

“We should help him feel better.”

Before she could answer, the bathroom door opened and Jax emerged.

He’d washed his hands and face, smoothed his hair back, but he still looked like a man carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

His gaze found hers across the bakery, and again she saw something raw and vulnerable there before he shuttered it away.

“Where’s that flour you need moved?” he asked, carefully neutral.

She pointed toward the back. “Storage room’s through there. Just stack the bags against the far wall, away from the freezer door.”

He disappeared into the back, and she heard the sound of heavy lifting. No grunting, no complaints, just the methodical thud of fifty-pound bags being moved with military precision.

Oliver wandered over to the storage room doorway to watch. “You’re really strong,” she heard him say.

“Strong enough,” came Jax’s quiet reply.

“My dad was strong too, but he used his strong for bad things. Do you use your strong for bad things?”

Nessie’s heart stopped. She dropped the bowl she’d just pulled off a shelf and hurried toward the storage room.

Her son had no filter, no sense of boundaries.

He asked the questions that adults were too polite or too afraid to voice.

She had to constantly remind him of all the things he couldn’t say and all the reasons he couldn’t say them.

But Jax’s voice brought her up short outside the door.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I did.”

“But not anymore?”

A long pause. The sound of another bag hitting the floor.

“I’m trying not to.”

“That’s good. Mom says trying is the most important part.”

Nessie closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the wall.

God, she wished Oliver didn’t know about the bad things in life.

He was only seven. If she hadn’t already hated her ex for all of his many other crimes, she’d hate him for stealing her son’s innocence.

For making him understand, at such a young age, that some people use their strength to hurt instead of help.

“Your mom sounds smart,” Jax said.

“She is. She knows everything. Well, almost everything. She doesn’t know about dinosaurs as much as me, but she knows about making people feel better.”

Another thud. Another bag moved.

“Does she make you feel better?” Jax asked, and there was a note of something she couldn’t place in his voice. Curiosity. Maybe even longing.

“Yeah. She gives the best hugs. And when I have bad dreams, she sits with me until they go away. And she makes special pancakes on Sundays that look like her sign monster, but with chocolate chips for eyes. Oh, and her monster muffins are really special, too. They make you feel brave. She gave me one before my doctor appointment, and I didn’t cry even when I got a shot. ”

Nessie pressed her hand to her mouth, blinking back sudden tears. She hadn’t realized Oliver paid such close attention to all the small things she did to help him feel safe.

“That sounds nice,” Jax said quietly.

“Do you have bad dreams?”

The sound of movement stopped. The silence stretched so long that Nessie almost stepped into the room to rescue both of them from the weight of her son’s innocent question.

“Yeah,” Jax finally answered. “I do.”

“Maybe Mom could make you a monster muffin, too, so you can feel brave when you have your bad dreams.”

“That’s... that’s real nice of you to offer, kid. But I won’t be sticking around long enough for pancakes.”

“How come?”

“Because I don’t belong here.”

“How do you know? You just got here.”

Another pause. Then a rough laugh that sounded more like pain than humor. “Trust me. I know.”

Nessie stepped away from the doorway and went back to the eggs, her chest tight with an emotion she couldn’t quite name. She cracked them into the bowl harder than necessary, whisking them with sharp, aggressive strokes.

The bell above the front door chimed, and she looked up to see Boone Callahan filling the doorway.

All six-foot-four of him, with shoulders that barely fit through the frame and dark blue eyes that missed nothing.

He wore his usual uniform of faded jeans, work boots, and a black Stetson pulled low over his brow.

“Morning, Nessie.” His voice was a low rumble, the kind that made smart women stupid and stupid women forget their own names.

“Boone.” She kept whisking. “You’re out early.”

“Looking for someone.” His gaze swept the bakery, landing on the duffel bag beside the table by the window. “Tall guy, blond hair, probably looks like he’d rather be anywhere else?”

She set down the whisk. “He’s in the back, moving flour for me.”

Boone’s eyebrows rose. “You put him to work?”

“He needed breakfast. I needed help. Seemed fair.”

“Nessie.” Her name held a note of gentle warning. “Do you know who that is?”

“I know he’s one of yours. I know he helped me change a flat tire when he didn’t have to. And I know he’s been nothing but polite to me and Oliver.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

She met his gaze steadily. “Then maybe you should just say what you mean for once.”

She wasn’t oblivious to the fact that Boone had a thing for her, but he’d never acted on the attraction.

He was too damn honorable for that, too aware of the trauma in her past, though she’d never told him about it.

He’d just known from day one and treated her like fine china.

So many times she wanted to reach out and shake him, tell him to stop treating her like she might break, that she was stronger than she looked, and if he wanted to make a move, he should do it.

If he’d asked her out in the beginning, she probably would’ve said yes.

He was a handsome man with all that dark scruff on his hard jaw and that voice like whiskey and sin.

But he was also as stubborn as a Montana winter was long and measured his words so carefully that it made her want to scream.

She’d tried, God help her, to draw him out.

To flirt. To tease. To get some reaction out of him that wasn’t just a grunt or a long-suffering sigh.

Eventually, she’d realized that Boone Callahan was emotionally constipated.

Loving him—if she’d ever tried—would’ve been like running head-first into a brick wall over and over, hoping it might eventually feel like a door.

No, thank you.

And maybe that wasn’t fair. Boone was a good man. Steady. Kind. Protective. But he would’ve always held her at arm’s length, and she didn’t want to be a porcelain doll on a pedestal. She wanted someone who saw all her cracks and held her anyway.

Boone sighed and pulled off his hat, running a hand through his dark hair. “Okay. His name is Jaxon Thorne. He’s fresh out of prison after serving?—”

“I don’t need to know his record.”

He studied her for a long moment, his jaw working like he wanted to say more. But he only exhaled slowly and nodded. “Jax got to the ranch late last night and took off before dawn.”

“So you came to drag him back?”

“I came to make sure he’s okay. And to convince him to come home.”

“What if he doesn’t want to?”

“Then that’s his choice. But he needs to make it with a clear head, not running on fear and whatever demons are chasing him.”

The sound of footsteps made them both turn. Jax emerged from the storage room with Oliver at his side, the little boy chattering about fire trucks again. Jax was almost smiling, but his expression shuttered the moment he saw Boone.

“There you are,” Boone said gruffly. “You had us worried.”

Jax didn’t move. “I’m fine.”

“I can see that.” Boone nodded toward the table. “Mind if we talk?”