Page 24 of Montana Justice

Piper

The house felt different as we walked through the door—warmer somehow, like it had been waiting for us to come home.

Lachlan flipped on the living room lamp, casting soft light across furniture that had become familiar over the past weeks.

My chest ached with something I couldn’t name, a feeling too big for the space behind my ribs.

“Sit,” Lachlan said, his hand gentle on my shoulder. “I’ll put Caleb to bed.”

“I can do it?—”

“I know you can. But I want to.” He lifted the carrier with practiced ease, Caleb still deep in sleep. “You’ve had a long day. Just relax for a few minutes.”

Relax. The word felt foreign in my mouth, like trying to speak a language I’d never learned. But I sank onto the couch anyway, watching him carry our son upstairs. His footsteps were careful on the stairs, avoiding the creaky spots I’d mapped during midnight feedings.

I should use this time to go look for something in his office, but I couldn’t do it. Not tonight.

I pulled my legs up under me, the worn fabric of my dress bunching around my knees. The material was soft from too many washes, comfortable in a way that newer clothes never were. But sitting in Rosario’s, surrounded by people in their Friday-night best, I’d felt every threadbare spot.

Until Lachlan stood up for me. Until Lucas and Emma and the others had closed ranks around me like I was worth protecting.

My throat tightened. When was the last time anyone had done that? Defended me not because they wanted something, not because it benefited them, but simply because it was right?

I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to hold back tears that seemed to live just beneath the surface these days. The weight of secrets pressed down on my shoulders, heavier than any physical burden I’d ever carried.

God, I wanted to tell him. The words lived in my throat like broken glass, cutting me every time I swallowed them down. He deserved to know. After tonight, after everything he’d done, he deserved the truth.

But the truth would destroy everything. The truth would take away the only happiness I’d found in twenty-seven years of searching.

“You okay?”

I dropped my hands to find Lachlan in the doorway, his face creased with concern. He’d loosened his collar at some point, and the casual dishevelment made him look younger, more approachable. More dangerous to my carefully maintained walls.

“Just thinking.” I tried for a smile, felt it wobble and fail. “Thank you. For tonight. For standing up for me.”

“You don’t need to thank me for that.” He moved into the room, settling on the opposite end of the couch like he was giving me space to run if I needed it. Always so careful with me, always reading the signs I didn’t know I was broadcasting.

“Yes, I do.” The words came out fierce, surprising us both. “You don’t understand what it meant. Having people defend me like that. Having you…” I had to stop, the emotion too thick to push past.

“Hey.” His voice went soft, the tone he used with spooked horses and crying babies. “Talk to me. What’s going on in that beautiful head of yours?”

I laughed, but it came out watery and wrong. “You want the truth?”

“Always.”

The word hit like a slap. Always. He always wanted the truth, and I’d done nothing but lie since the moment I’d come back into his life. Lies of omission, lies of misdirection, lies to protect lies to protect more lies.

But maybe I could give him one small truth. One piece of honesty in an ocean of deception.

“Tonight was my first date.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Your first— what ?”

“My first real date. Where someone asked me to dinner just because they wanted to spend time with me. Where we sat and talked and nobody expected anything except conversation.” I pulled at a loose thread on my dress, needing something to do with my hands. “Pretty pathetic for twenty-seven, right?”

“Piper.” He shifted closer, not touching but near enough that I could feel his warmth. “We… Last year… You weren’t…”

A laugh burst out of me, surprising and genuine. “A virgin? No. God, no. That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

I tried to find words for something I’d never really examined.

“I’ve had sex. Not a lot, but some. Usually because it was easier than saying no, or because I needed something and that was the currency expected.

” The admission tasted bitter, but I pushed through.

“But actual dating? Someone wanting to know me, not just use me? That’s new. ”

His jaw tightened, and I could see him processing the implications. Adding up the pieces of a puzzle I’d only given him corners of.

“Growing up with Ray as a father didn’t exactly model healthy relationships,” I continued, needing to fill the silence, but knowing I was running a risk.

“He taught me that people take what they want. That kindness comes with a price tag. That trusting someone just means they know exactly where to stick the knife.”

“Jesus, Piper.” He ran a hand through his hair, messing it up even more. “What about your mom? Surely she?—”

“My mother was… is sick.” The words came out flat, emotionless.

Sick was easier than weak. Sick was easier than explaining a woman who’d chosen Ray over her daughter’s safety every single time.

“Ray wasn’t exactly the caretaking type.

Someone had to make sure she ate, took her medications, didn’t just fade away completely. ”

“So you stayed. After high school, when you could have left, you stayed.”

“Where was I going to go? No money for college, no job skills except reading people and staying invisible. At least with them, I knew what to expect. I could run interference, keep Ray’s temper focused on me instead of her.

” I shrugged like it didn’t matter, like those years hadn’t carved pieces out of my soul.

“It wasn’t much of a life, but it was the only one I knew. ”

“You were at the library all the time when you lived here as a kid,” he said suddenly. “I remember seeing you there, surrounded by books. You were always studying something.”

My chest tightened at the memory. “I loved that library. It was quiet, safe. Mrs. Henderson would let me stay past closing sometimes, pretend she didn’t see me reading in the back corner.”

“What were you reading?”

“Everything. Fiction, nonfiction. Then as I got older, college brochures, textbooks people had donated, scholarship applications I’d never be able to submit.

” I smiled at the memory, bittersweet. “I had this whole plan mapped out. Community college first, then transfer to a four-year school. Business degree, maybe marketing. Something that would let me use what I’d learned about reading people for good instead of just survival. ”

“It’s not too late.” His voice was gentle but insistent. “Lots of people go back to school later. Especially new moms—online classes are perfect for working around baby schedules.”

“Maybe.” The lie came easily, practiced. Because we both knew I’d never make it to registration. Ray would make sure of that. And even if he didn’t, I was realistic about my future. Best-case scenario, I’d be in prison. Worst-case… I didn’t let myself think about worst-case.

“I mean it,” Lachlan pressed. “You’re smart, Piper. Scary smart. And now you have stability, support. There’s no reason you can’t?—”

“I should get to bed.” I started to stand, needing to escape before his faith in me made me shatter completely. “Thank you again for tonight.”

“Wait.” He caught my hand, gentle but firm. “If this was your first real date, we can’t end it yet.”

“Lachlan—”

“Stay here.” He was already heading toward the kitchen. “Don’t move.”

I sank back onto the couch, too emotionally wrung out to argue. The sounds of him moving around the kitchen were oddly soothing—the freezer opening, spoons clinking against bowls, the soft thud of cabinets closing.

He returned with two bowls of chocolate ice cream and a grin that made him look like a kid. “Can’t have a proper first date without ice cream and a movie.”

“It’s late?—”

“So?” He handed me a bowl, the cold ceramic shocking against my palms. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. I’ll get up with Caleb. We can afford to stay up past our bedtime.”

He grabbed the remote and started scrolling through options on the TV. “What do you like? Action? Comedy? Please don’t say horror—I’m man enough to admit those things give me nightmares.”

A surprised laugh escaped me. “The tough sheriff is afraid of scary movies?”

“Have you seen horror movies lately? They’re terrifying. Give me a good old-fashioned shootout any day over creepy kids and jump scares.” He paused on a romantic comedy, glancing at me sideways. “This okay?”

“Perfect.”

He started the movie, then surprised me by pulling an old quilt from the back of the couch. “My grandmother made this. Said every couch needs a proper cuddle blanket.”

“Cuddle blanket?”

“Her words, not mine.” But he spread it over both of us, creating a cocoon of warmth that smelled faintly of cedar and home.

I ate my ice cream slowly, hyperaware of every place our bodies touched beneath the blanket.

His thigh against mine. His shoulder solid and warm when I let myself lean just a little.

The movie played on the screen, but I couldn’t focus on the plot.

My entire attention was caught by this moment—ordinary and perfect and completely outside my experience.

“Thank you,” I whispered, not sure if I meant for the ice cream or the movie or the blanket or just for being him.

He shifted his arm along the back of the couch, an invitation I couldn’t resist. I curled into his side, my head finding the hollow of his shoulder like it had been made to fit there. His arm came around me, holding me close but not tight, and I felt something in my chest finally, finally unclench.

“Better?” he murmured against my hair.

“Yeah.” My eyes were getting heavy, the combination of emotional exhaustion and unexpected safety pulling me under. “This is nice.”

I was already drifting, suspended between waking and sleeping, held safe in the circle of his arms. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I fell asleep without fear. Without planning escape routes or listening for danger or calculating the cost of kindness.

I fell asleep feeling protected. Feeling wanted. Feeling like, maybe, in another life, I could have been the kind of woman who deserved this.

The last thing I heard was Lachlan’s voice, so soft I might have imagined it. “I’ve got you, Piper. You’re safe.”

If only that were true.