Page 5

chapter

three

Jax didn’t want to talk. Didn’t want to sit in this bright, cheerful bakery with its sea-monster logo and cinnamon-scented air while a man who looked like he bench-pressed small cars explained all the ways his freedom hung by a thread.

But Boone’s steady gaze left no room for argument, so Jax found himself sliding back into the chair by the window.

Boone settled across from him, the wooden chair creaking in protest under his weight. He set his hat on the table, a gesture that seemed to signal this wouldn’t be a quick conversation.

The morning rush began the moment Nessie unlocked the door and flipped the sign to “open.” A cluster of men in worn Carhartt jackets huddled near the counter, their voices a low rumble of cattle prices and weather predictions.

Two women in scrubs claimed a booth by the far wall, shoulders slumped from night shift exhaustion.

An old man with gnarled hands nursed a coffee at the counter.

And through it all moved Nessie, a whirlwind of efficiency in her bright yellow apron, pouring coffee and calling customers by name, somehow keeping track of a dozen conversations at once while her son perched on a stool behind the counter with a coloring book.

She approached their table, sliding a plate of scrambled eggs in front of Jax.

The eggs were fluffy, flecked with herbs and what looked like bits of cheese, nothing like the gray, rubbery mass they’d served in prison.

A slice of buttered toast and some fresh fruit completed the plate.

It was the kind of breakfast normal people ate.

“Coffee, Boone?” Nessie asked, already pouring it into the mug she’d set before him.

“Thanks.”

Nessie’s gaze flicked to Jax, soft with something that might have been concern. “Eat while it’s hot.”

He nodded, not trusting his voice, but made no move toward the food as she walked away.

“You planning to stare that breakfast to death?” Boone asked, doctoring his coffee with a splash of cream.

Jax picked up his fork and pushed eggs around the plate. The smell made his stomach clench with hunger, but his throat felt too tight to swallow. “Not hungry.”

“Bullshit,” Boone said mildly. “But it’s your call.”

Silence stretched between them, broken only by the clink of Boone’s spoon against ceramic as he stirred his coffee.

Jax kept his eyes on his plate, hyperaware of Nessie moving through the bakery, of the weight of Oliver’s curious stare from behind the counter, of the way the other customers occasionally glanced their way with barely concealed interest.

Small towns. Everyone always wanted to know everyone else’s business.

“Valor Ridge doesn’t work unless you want to be there,” Boone finally said, setting his spoon down with more care than his huge hands seemed capable of.

“You’ve got six months here or you break parole.

No getting around that, but if you work at it, it can be more than a condition of your release. It’s a second chance.”

Jax’s jaw tightened until his molars ached. Second chances. Everyone kept throwing that phrase around like it was a life preserver instead of an anchor dragging him down.

What the hell did they expect him to do with a second chance? He’d done his time. Paid his debt. Wasn’t that enough?

“I didn’t ask for a second chance.”

“No one does,” Boone replied. “But you got one anyway.”

A loud burst of laughter erupted from the counter as one of the Carhartt men slapped his friend’s back at some joke. Jax flinched, hand instinctively tightening around his fork.

“Listen.” Boone leaned forward, lowering his voice. “I get it. First day out, everything’s too bright, too loud, too much. You want to run. Find some hole to crawl into until your brain remembers how to process freedom. But running won’t fix what’s broken, Thorne.”

“Nothing’s broken.” The lie tasted bitter on his tongue.

Boone’s navy eyes saw straight through him. “You got out of your cell, but you’re still carrying the bars with you.”

Jax set his fork down before he could do something stupid like stab it into the table. Or Boone’s hand. “You don’t know me.”

“I know enough.” Boone took a slow sip of his coffee, watching Jax over the rim of his mug. “Navy SEAL. Decorated. Then something went wrong overseas. Bad op. You lost half your team, came home a different man. Started spiraling. Ended up putting your CO’s wife in the hospital.”

Each word landed like a gut punch. Jax’s hands were numb, but he felt a warmth in his chest, an uncomfortable heat that he recognized as shame.

Not guilt—he’d had five years to process his guilt.

But shame was different. Shame was public.

It was sitting in a sweet little bakery with a stranger who knew the worst thing you’d ever done while good, decent people served you breakfast.

“That about cover it?” Boone asked.

Jax stared out the window. A woman walked by with a stroller. A man across the street swept the sidewalk in front of a hardware store. Normal people doing normal things on a normal day.

“What do you want from me?” he finally asked.

“Me? Nothing. But Walker—the man who pulled strings to get you out, the man who’s giving you a place to stay, a job to do, and a chance to get your head straight—he thinks you’re worth saving.”

“He’s wrong.”

“Maybe.” Boone shrugged those massive shoulders. “Wouldn’t be the first time. But here’s the thing about Walker. He sees something in the men others have written off. Saw it in me when I was a mean son of a bitch with nothing but rage and a prison record. And now he sees it in you.”

Jax forced himself to take a bite of the eggs.

They were good—better than good—but he barely tasted them.

His mind was a minefield of memories: Shane’s wife on the ground, blood pooling around her, spurting from the wound he’d opened in her neck; the cold metal of handcuffs; the hollow echo of a cell door closing; the endless, endless nights of staring at concrete walls and wondering if this was all that was left of his life.

“I can’t be saved,” he said quietly.

Boone’s expression didn’t change. “Okay, then come back and show us how irredeemable you are. Prove Walker wrong. Prove me wrong. Prove everyone wrong who thinks you’re worth a damn.”

Jax looked up sharply. “What?”

“You heard me.” Boone was calm, matter-of-fact. “Come back to the Ridge and fail spectacularly. Show us all what a waste of time you are. Hell, make it easy on yourself—break every rule, start fights, refuse to do the work. Walker will have no choice but to send you back to California.”

Jax’s pulse quickened, anger stirring in his chest—the first real emotion he’d felt since walking out of his cell. “You think reverse psychology is going to work on me?”

“I think you’re scared.” Boone’s words cut clean and deep. “Scared that maybe Walker’s right. Scared that you might actually be worth saving, and then you’d have to figure out what to do with a life that means something.”

“Fuck you.”

“There we go.” A faint smile curved Boone’s lips. “First honest thing you’ve said all morning.”

Across the bakery, Nessie glanced over at them, her brow furrowed with concern. Oliver had abandoned his coloring book and was watching them with the unblinking intensity only children possessed.

Jax forced himself to lower his voice. “I hurt people. I almost killed someone.”

“Yeah, you did.” Boone didn’t flinch from the truth. “And you paid for it. Five years in a cage. But paying for something and learning from it are two different things.”

“Like hell I didn’t learn.” The words came out harder than he intended. “I learned I can’t trust myself. I learned that when I break, innocent people get hurt. I learned that some things can’t be fixed.”

“And I learned that a man who’s truly dangerous doesn’t spend five years in therapy trying to understand why he snapped.”

Jax’s fork clattered against his plate. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?” Boone leaned back in his chair. “Tell me, Thorne. When you helped Nessie with her tire, when you moved those flour bags, when you talked to her boy about fire trucks—did you hurt anyone?”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“Because...” He struggled for words, for the logic that had kept him sane for five years. “Because I was in control.”

“And what makes you think you can’t stay in control?”

Jax picked up his coffee mug, but his throat was too tight, and he couldn’t swallow. He set it down again, the coffee sloshing as his hand trembled.

Oliver piped up from behind the counter. “Jax, are you gonna eat your toast? ‘Cause if you’re not, I know someone who’d like it.”

Both men turned to see the boy grinning at them, oblivious to the weight of their conversation.

“Oliver,” Nessie warned with more amusement than reproach.

Jax looked down at his plate, surprised to find he’d eaten most of the eggs without realizing it. The toast sat untouched, golden and perfect.

“You can have it,” he said roughly.

Oliver’s face lit up like Christmas morning. He scrambled down from his stool and darted across the room to their table.

“Thanks!” He grabbed the toast and took a huge bite, crumbs scattering across the table. “Mom makes the best toast. She puts real butter on it, not the fake stuff.”

“Oliver,” Nessie called. “Let them finish their conversation.”

But Oliver was already heading back to his perch, chattering to himself about the merits of real butter versus margarine.

Boone’s hard expression softened as he watched the kid. “The boy likes you.”

“Kids are stupid.”

“Kids are honest. They don’t see what you used to be. They see what you are right now.”

Jax pushed his plate away, suddenly exhausted. The bakery felt too warm, too bright. “You mentioned rules?”