Page 55

chapter

thirty-eight

By the time they got back to the ranch, Oliver was waiting on the cabin’s front porch, practically vibrating with excitement. Echo sat beside him, her tail wagging as she watched their approach.

Jax climbed out of the truck. The whole ride, he’d mentally rehearsed how to present Oliver’s pets to him, wanting to get it right. Wanting to be the hero, just this once.

But of course whirlwind Oliver had other ideas.

“You found them!” He scrambled off the porch, moving toward Jax with such speed he nearly tripped. “You really found them all!”

“Every last one.”

“I knew you would.”

Christ, what had he done to deserve this kid’s trust? Nothing. Not a damn thing. But he’d greedily take it all and guard it like it was something precious, because to him, it was the most priceless thing in the world.

“The guys helped.” He nodded to the other trucks filing into the drive. “Bear was particularly good with Toothless.”

Oliver’s eyes went wide. “He wasn’t scared of him? Toothless can be really grumpy in the mornings.”

“Bear’s handled scarier things than grumpy dragons.” Jax knelt down, bringing himself to Oliver’s level. “Trouble gave us—well, trouble. And Niblet was a tough one to find. Jonah had to use three carrots to coax him out.”

“That’s ‘cause it’s Tuesday,” Oliver said with complete seriousness. “He hates Tuesdays.”

“So I hear. X got it all on camera so you could see the rescue.” Jax’s chest felt too tight, watching the boy’s face light up with each word. “But right now, your pets are all pretty scared. We’ll need to set them up in a safe space.”

Oliver nodded, tears streaming freely down his cheeks now.

His bottom lip trembled as he peered into each carrier, whispering soft greetings to the terrified cats.

When he looked back up, his face was a storm of emotion, and he launched himself forward, skinny arms wrapping around Jax’s neck with surprising strength.

The impact nearly knocked Jax off balance, but he steadied himself, his arms coming up automatically to return the embrace.

“I love you,” Oliver whispered against his neck, the words muffled but unmistakable.

Jax’s throat closed up. His chest felt like someone had reached in and squeezed his heart with a fist. He tried to speak, to say something—anything—but no words came. All he could do was hold on tighter, his eyes burning as he buried his face in Oliver’s wild hair.

This kid. This brave, resilient, incredible kid who’d been through hell and still had so much love to give.

How had Jax gotten so lucky?

He didn’t deserve this. Didn’t deserve to be loved by someone so pure, so untainted by the darkness that had followed Jax for years. But here it was anyway—freely given, asking nothing in return.

His vision blurred. He blinked hard, trying to clear it, but the tears came anyway. Hot and fast and completely beyond his control.

Christ. He was crying in front of a seven-year-old. In front of the other guys. But he couldn’t stop it, couldn’t pull himself together enough to be the strong one Oliver needed him to be.

He looked up and saw Nessie standing on the cabin’s porch, her hands clasped in front of her mouth, her eyes wet.

She was wearing donated clothes—jeans that were a little too long and a sweater that hung loose on her frame—but she was so damn beautiful.

More than that, she looked lighter somehow, like seeing Oliver’s joy had lifted some invisible weight from her shoulders.

“Thank you,” she mouthed.

Late that night, with Oliver finally asleep and the cats tucked into an abandoned chicken coop, which Oliver had dubbed “the best pet hotel ever,” Jax found himself tangled in sheets with Nessie, both of them breathing hard as sweat cooled on their skin.

Her hair was a dark fan across the pillow, her eyes half-lidded with satisfaction.

He traced a finger along her collarbone, marveling at the softness of her skin, at how she arched into his touch instead of away from it.

She shifted closer, her warm breath tickling his chest as her fingers found the puckered scar on his shoulder. The knife wound from Kandahar. Her touch was gentle, almost reverent, as she traced its outline.

“What’s this one from?” she asked, continuing their game from earlier. She’d been asking about his scars one by one, and he’d been surprised at how easy it was to tell her.

“Firefight gone wrong. Guy came out of nowhere with a blade. I was lucky he missed the artery by half an inch.”

Her fingers moved to a small, round scar on his bicep. “And this?”

“Shrapnel. IED on the road outside Bagram.”

She continued her exploration, mapping the history of violence written on his body with touches so tender they made his breath catch.

Her fingers found the jagged scar on his forearm. He tensed.

“This?” she whispered.

Jax stared at the ceiling, pulse ticking in his throat. “That one wasn’t from combat.”

Her hand stilled. Waiting.

He exhaled slowly. “It’s from the night I hurt Alexis. They sent a K9 after me. Ranger, a beautiful Dutch shepherd. He bit me and dragged me to the ground. I was still holding the knife.”

She didn’t flinch. Just let her palm rest lightly against his ribs, waiting.

“I don’t remember the pain,” he admitted. “Just the blood. Hers. Mine. All of it blending together in the snow.” His throat closed up, and he didn’t think he’d be able to continue. He never talked about that night. Hated to relive it.

But this was Nessie, and she deserved to know the whole story, not just what she’d read online.

He swallowed hard before continuing. “I’d taken so many drugs that night, I could barely tell what was real. Couldn’t feel anything. Not guilt. Not grief. Just this…rage. And emptiness.”

He turned his head to look at her. “I told Shane I liked it. Killing people. Said it was the only thing that made me feel alive. I wanted him to think I was a monster. I wanted him to kill me. Because the alternative was facing the truth.”

She leaned in and pressed her lips to the scar, and the simple acceptance undid him. “What was the truth?”

“That I was the one who destroyed my life. Not him. Not the Navy. Me. I was trying to punish Shane for not listening to me in Afghanistan. For leading us into that slaughter. I told myself I was punishing him for moving on when I couldn’t.

But the irony was, he hadn’t moved on, either.

For years, he lived off the grid, in a self-imposed exile, until Alexis brought him back to life. ”

He blinked up at the ceiling, trying to breathe past the tightness in his chest. “That’s really what made me snap.

Because he had that, had someone who cared enough about him to work through his demons, and I didn’t.

That’s why I wanted to take her from him.

I had every intention of dying that night, either by Shane’s hand or the local sheriff’s.

” His voice cracked, and he covered his face with a trembling hand. “Jesus. I should’ve died that night.”

“You didn’t.” Nessie stroked his chest, up and down, soft and soothing. “And she didn’t either.”

His hand dropped back to the bed. “Barely. The knife nicked her carotid. She should’ve bled out in minutes, but Shane got to her in time and put all of our battlefield medical training to use.

She lived. And I went to prison. Withdrawal hit me hard.

My lawyer said I had so many drugs in my system, it was amazing I hadn’t overdosed.

I was hallucinating for days. Couldn’t remember what was real or imagined… ”

He’d told the story a dozen times to therapists, to the parole board, to Walker as they’d driven from California to Montana. But telling it to Nessie, feeling her warmth against his side as he laid bare the worst parts of himself, felt different, like confession instead of recitation.

“The hallucinations were the worst part,” he continued in a strained whisper.

“I kept seeing Alexis everywhere. Sometimes she was bleeding, sometimes she was screaming. Sometimes she’d just stand there and stare at me with these dead eyes.

I saw my dead teammates, too, all crammed in the cell with me.

It was hell, so when the cops interrogated me, I confessed to every sick, twisted crime they asked me about because I thought they would kill me.

” He scoffed. “The sheriff there mentioned the death penalty in passing once and I was all in. Wasn’t even on my radar that California no longer kills criminals. I just wanted it to be over.”

He went silent for a long moment and felt her hot tears fall against his skin. “You needed help, Jax. Not prison.”

“I got it eventually.” His throat felt like he’d swallowed glass.

He’d never said those words out loud before—that he’d needed help, not punishment.

That the system had failed him as much as he’d failed himself.

“The prison shrink said I had what they call ‘moral injury.’ When you do something that goes against everything you believe about yourself, it fractures your soul. The drugs were just my way of trying to numb the pain.”

Nessie’s hand found his, their fingers interlacing in the darkness.

He sucked in a deep breath. “So, that’s the man I was.

And now every time I pick up a knife, even to cut a damn apple, I remember the feel of her skin giving way.

I remember the blood. I remember telling her she deserved it.

” He closed his eyes, but it didn’t help.

He still saw the whole thing playing out on the back of his eyelids.

“I’d rather rip my own heart out than be that man again. ”

“You’re not that man,” Nessie said. No hesitation. No fear.

“I don’t know how you can be so sure when I don’t even know if that monster is still inside me.”