Page 63

The barn was quiet as Jax slipped inside, the evening light filtering through the high windows in dusty, golden bars.

The day’s work was done, the ranch hands gone to dinner, leaving behind only the soft sounds of horses shifting in their stalls and the distant call of birds settling for the night.

He moved down the center aisle, his footsteps muffled in the sawdust, until he reached the familiar stall where Lazy Susan stood dozing, her head dipped low over her feed bucket.

She lifted her head at his approach, ears flicking forward in recognition but without any real enthusiasm. Typical Suzy, acknowledging his presence while making it clear she wasn’t particularly impressed by it.

“Hey, old girl,” he said softly, holding out his palm with a peppermint he’d swiped from the kitchen. She took it with exaggerated delicacy, her lips velvety against his skin.

Jax leaned against the stall door, the new cowboy hat tilted back on his head. It still felt strange there, like something that belonged to someone else. Yet the hat was his now, just as the red roan was his, just as this new life was slowly becoming his.

“Guess this is it,” he told the mare, reaching out to stroke her neck. “You and me are done. But I wanted to say thanks.”

Suzy huffed softly and bumped his shoulder with her nose.

“Yeah, I know. You think I’m being sentimental.

” He scratched behind her ear, finding the spot that always made her lean into his touch.

“But you taught me more than Walker probably intended. Patience. Persistence.” He smiled.

“How to deal with a stubborn female who has her own ideas about everything.”

The mare’s dark eye regarded him steadily, unimpressed.

“You were exactly what I needed,” he continued. “Someone who didn’t care about my past. Who didn’t expect anything from me except to show up and try again. Even when I wanted to quit.”

And he had wanted to quit, those first few weeks at Valor Ridge.

The nightmares had been worse then, the guilt heavier, the ghosts more persistent.

But every morning, Lazy Susan had been there, plodding and steady, refusing to be rushed yet never refusing to move forward.

One hoof in front of the other. Again and again. Until the path seemed less impossible.

“I won’t forget it,” he promised her.

“Should I be jealous?” Nessie asked from the barn entrance. “You never talk to me that sweetly.”

He grinned over at her. She leaned against the door frame, her smile warm, her hair loose around her shoulders, catching the last golden light of evening. The sight of her still hit him in a rush of want and wonder that he wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to.

“Yes, I do, sweetness. But I’m usually balls deep in you and you’re screaming too loud to hear it.”

She rolled her eyes even as a pretty pink flush seeped into her cheeks. “Is sex all you think about?”

“When it comes to you, yeah.”

She laughed softly and nodded to Suzy. “What are you doing?”

“Just saying goodbye,” he said, feeling strangely caught out. Like she’d interrupted something private. “Since I’ll be riding the roan from now on.”

Nessie pushed off from the door and walked toward him, her movements fluid and unhurried. When she reached him, she ran her fingers along the brim of his new hat, mischief dancing in her eyes.

“If I’d known how sexy you’d look in a cowboy hat, I would’ve bought you one months ago.”

Heat crawled up his neck. “It’s just a hat.”

“Mm, no.” She lifted to her toes to adjust it slightly. “It’s not just a hat. It’s a statement.”

“What kind of statement?”

“That you belong here.” Her voice softened as she stroked his cheek. “That you’re putting down roots.”

The words settled in his chest, warm and right.

Nessie stroked Lazy Susan’s nose, then turned back to him. “So what are you going to name the new horse?”

“Red,” he said, then, after a pause, added more quietly, “short for Redemption.”

Her eyes widened, understanding blooming in their warm depths. “Redemption,” she repeated, the word soft on her lips. She studied his face. “Does that mean you finally think you deserve it?”

His jaw worked as he struggled to find the words. This was harder than breaking Red, harder than facing down his demons in the dark of night. This required a kind of courage he wasn’t sure he possessed.

But Nessie waited, patient and steady. Like Lazy Susan, he thought with an internal smile. Stubborn in all the right ways.

“I do,” he said finally, the admission forcing its way past years of self-recrimination. “I think maybe I do.”

A weight lifted from his shoulders, like he’d finally set down a pack he’d carried for too long. He hadn’t realized how exhausting it had been to believe himself beyond forgiveness.

Nessie’s eyes shimmered. “It’s about damn time.”

She stepped closer, and he pulled her against him, her head fitting beneath his chin like it had always belonged there.

“I love you,” he said, low and hoarse. He’d made sure she knew how he felt every single day, showing her with his actions and body, but he’d never been able to say the words out loud before now.

“I think I’ve loved you since that first morning when you gave me coffee and didn’t look at me like I was broken. ”

Her breath caught, tears welling in her eyes, but he wasn’t done. Now that he’d started, the words poured out of him.

“You saw me when I was trying my damnedest to be invisible. You trusted me with Oliver when you had every reason not to trust anyone. You let me touch you when I thought these hands would never hold anything good again.” He drew back to meet her gaze, cupping her face in his hands and catching her tears on his thumbs.

“You and Oliver—you’re the only good thing I’ve ever let myself want, and I’m scared shitless that I’ll fuck it up.

But know that every day, I’m striving to be a good man because you believe me to be one. ”

“You are a good man.” She smiled through her tears.

“But you will fuck things up, and so will I occasionally. That’s what love is, Jax.

Choosing each other despite our fuck-ups, past and future.

” She stretched up and kissed him softly.

“I love you. I love how you look at Oliver like he’s a miracle.

I love how you make me feel safe without making me feel weak.

I love that you’re willing to fight for us, for this life we’re building.

And that’s why I will always choose you, every day. ”

He didn’t answer at first.

Because for a moment, all he could do was look at her and let the truth of her words land.

It rushed through him all at once—love, fear, awe—so fierce that his knees threatened to buckle. His hands trembled where they held her. His heart pounded like it didn’t know how to beat for this kind of joy.

The years of self-loathing, the helpless nights spent staring at the ceiling, the constant, grinding fear—she burned it all away with the heat of her body and the quiet, stubborn force of her love.

He leaned down and kissed her, slow and deep.

Somehow, after everything, he’d found his way here.

To this .

To her.

To home.

She told him not to let her down.

Now Naomi Lefthand is missing, and Owen “Ghost” Booker is the only one who believes it wasn’t a choice.

In a town where corruption runs deep and trust is a liability, a haunted former operative will stop at nothing to find the woman who challenged him to step out of the shadows.

But the deeper he digs, the more dangerous the truth becomes…

and the harder it is to ignore what she’s come to mean to him.

Don’t miss Earning Her Trust , the next explosive installment of the Valor Ridge series.