Page 60 of Roulette Rodeo (Jackknife Ridge Ranch #1)

GHOSTS IN THE RAIN

~RAFE~

T he Range Rover's tires spin uselessly in the mud, high-performance engineering defeated by something as simple as rain-saturated earth. I slam my hand against the steering wheel, the horn blaring into the storm like a futile protest against nature itself.

"Fuck."

The word echoes in the leather interior, swallowed by the sound of rain hammering against the windshield.

I've made it exactly three miles from the compound before having to admit defeat. The road ahead is flooded, water rushing across in a torrent that would sweep even this heavy vehicle off into the ditch.

I reverse carefully, the backup camera showing nothing but brown water and debris. There's only one option now, and the thought of it makes my chest tight with something that might be panic or might be grief or might be both twisted together into something I don't have a name for.

The truck.

It sits in the garage like a monument to everything I've tried to forget.

A 2018 Ford F-350, black with chrome details I'd been so proud of when I bought it.

Four-wheel drive, lifted slightly, the kind of truck that says you have money but you're not afraid to get your hands dirty.

The kind of truck that can handle flooded roads and mud and whatever else this storm wants to throw at it.

The kind of truck I haven't touched in two plus years.

I pull back into the garage, the Range Rover's headlights illuminating the truck's shape under its dust cover. My hands shake slightly as I turn off the engine, and I sit there for a moment, gathering courage I shouldn't need just to switch vehicles.

It's just a truck.

Metal and glass and engineering.

It doesn't hold memories…I do.

But when I pull off the cover, the familiar shape its all my nerves.

Nothing even happened in this truck with Sophia. That's the ridiculous part.

No passionate kisses in the cab, no intimate moments in the bed, no laughter or tears or anything that should make this vehicle a shrine to grief. Just occasional goodbye kisses that felt forced, perfunctory pecks that we both seemed relieved to have over with.

Kisses that tasted like obligation rather than desire.

I stopped using it because it was what I drove the day I found out she was dead.

The memory crashes over me as I open the driver's door.

The phone call from the hospital. The numb drive through Chicago traffic.

The sterile smell of the emergency room.

The doctor's professionally sympathetic face as he explained that they'd done everything they could, but the overdose had been too severe, her system too overwhelmed.

The keys are still in the center console where I left them two years ago.

The interior smells musty, abandoned, with an undertone of the pine air freshener that's long since given up trying.

I slide into the driver's seat, and muscle memory takes over—adjusting the mirrors, checking the gauges, all the automatic movements that don't require thought.

The engine turns over on the third try, coughing to life like it's surprised to be needed. I let it idle, warming up, while I sit here surrounded by ghosts and trying to breathe normally.

I need to take a few breaths to prepare for the drive. Deep, measured inhales that my therapist— the one I saw exactly twice before deciding I didn't need help processing grief —would probably approve of.

Being around Red this last month has forced me to confront things I've successfully avoided for two years.

The way she's inserted herself into our lives with such easy grace has highlighted, in painful clarity, just how forced everything with Sophia had been.

It's weird to think about because it didn't seem that way in the beginning.

Sophia had been everything an omega was supposed to be.

Beautiful, refined, eager to please. She'd decorated her nest with expensive precision, attended every pack dinner with a smile, worn our marks like jewelry.

I'd genuinely believed we were building something real, that the awkwardness was just adjustment, that love would grow from proximity and time.

I'd genuinely felt destroyed when she died, knowing I'd pushed her to that brink. The guilt had eaten me alive, consumed every waking moment with what-ifs and if-onlys.

But watching Red navigate our pack dynamics, seeing how effortlessly she's beginning to fit, makes me understand the difference between forcing something that was never meant to be and something that just... is.

Red doesn't try to be perfect.

She steals Duke's attention, demolishes sandwiches with zero grace, makes inappropriate jokes at inappropriate times. She doesn't defer to us, doesn't perform the role of omega. She just exists in our space like she's always belonged there, like we've been holding her place without knowing it.

And I dare to admit how refreshing it is…

I put the truck in gear and start the treacherous drive toward town.

The wheels grip where the Range Rover's would have spun, the higher clearance clearing water that would have flooded a lower vehicle. This truck was built for this, for harsh conditions and difficult terrain.

Just like Red was built for us—not the polished version we thought we wanted, but the real us.

The damaged, dangerous men trying to play at being normal.

The windshield wipers work overtime, barely keeping up with the deluge. I navigate by memory more than sight, twenty years of driving these roads serving me well. The radio crackles with weather warnings, flash flood alerts, recommendations to stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary.

But Red's alone in that coffee shop, and something about that knowledge sits wrong in my chest.

Not just protective instinct, though that's there too. Something deeper, more primal. The same feeling that made me shoot down three million in profitable trades just to drive her to book club.

How smooth things have been since she arrived surprises me, even though I've fought it every step of the way.

I wasn't surprised when Red gave Shiloh her virginity. Had been expecting it from the moment I saw them together, the way she looked at him like he was salvation and damnation combined.

The jealousy that burned through me was unexpected but manageable.

It only makes sense she'd choose him first. He found her, saved her, claimed her before the rest of us even knew she existed. But what's really been eye-opening is how Shiloh's changed since then.

All this while— two years since Sophia, five years since I've known him— he's operated like a robot on military time.

Wake at 0500, workout until 0700, breakfast at 0730, then whatever tasks needed doing, executed with mechanical precision. He did what needed to be done for the sake of doing it, because routine was safer than thought, motion better than stillness.

Now?

He has purpose in his movements. Still efficient, still precise, but there's life in it.

He rushes through his security rounds not because he's on a schedule but because he wants to get home.

Wants to be in the same space as Red, even if they're in different rooms, just existing in proximity like that's enough.

The same shift has happened with Talon and Corwin.

Talon used to spend eighteen-hour days at the garage, coming home covered in grease and exhausted, only to go back the next morning like work was the only thing keeping him sane.

Now he does what's mechanically necessary and comes home at a reasonable hour, usually with some ridiculous gift for Red—fuzzy socks, specialty coffee, a book he thinks she'd like based on zero evidence.

Corwin's the same. He still sees all his patients, still provides the medical care this town desperately needs, but he's not hiding in the clinic anymore.

Not using other people's problems to avoid examining his own.

He comes home for lunch sometimes now, just to see if Red's eaten, to make sure she's taking care of herself.

Hell, even I've changed, though I've fought it every step of the way.

The town's noticed.

No surprise there. In a place this small, every change is catalogued, discussed, dissected over coffee and gossip.

The whispers follow us everywhere: the Lucky Ace Pack and their new omega, the one who seems to have lit a fire under them to actually come home .

It's almost comical, but the reality is more than one person has said she's an omega who genuinely seems to like us.

Respect us.

Not our money, not our reputation, not what we can provide.

The distinction shouldn't matter as much as it does, but after Sophia...

Mrs. Henderson cornered me at the bank last week, her weathered face creased with what might have been concern or might have been nosiness.

"That new omega of yours," she'd said without preamble. "Red."

"What about her?" I'd kept my tone neutral, professional.

"She's different from the last one." A statement, not a question.

"Yes."

Mrs. Henderson had studied me with eyes that have seen seven decades of small-town dramas.

"Different in a good way. That girl looks at you boys like you hung the moon, but she also looks ready to take you down a peg if needed. Balance. That's what you've been missing."

Balance.

Such a simple word for something so complex. But she wasn't wrong.

Red balances us in ways Sophia never could, maybe never wanted to. She doesn't try to be our center; she just exists in our orbit while maintaining her own gravity.

She gives Shiloh softness, Talon focus, Corwin purpose.

And me?

She gives me hell, which might be exactly what I need.

Thunder crashes overhead, pulling me from my thoughts.

The coffee shop is just ahead, completely dark against the storm. My foot hits the brake instinctively, body reacting before my mind processes what's happening.

A car skids through the intersection in front of me, tires hydroplaning on the flooded road.

Shit!

It corrects at the last second, avoiding the ditch by inches.

A very familiar car.