Page 11 of Shelter for Shay (Broken Heroes Mended Souls #2)

“They started off sort of as therapy animals and became something more,” he said.

It was always hard to describe his bond with his chickens, but they were his and he loved them.

“Outside of them, I’ve got a team. A tight one.

Kawan, Sloan, Jupiter, Lief and our fearless leader, Thor.

We’ve bled together. That’s a kind of family, I guess.

But no one waiting for me at home. Just the chickens and a pile of letters I never send. ”

“Letters to my mom?”

“When I wrote a letter to your mother, I sent it.” He shook his head.

“These letters, well, they’re more like purging the anger that sometimes still sits on the surface of my heart.

” He patted his chest. “I suppose they’re more like a journal but written to two specific people as a way to cut through the past that sometimes sneaks up on me. ”

“Your childhood was that rough?”

“It wasn’t good.” He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. Her skin was soft and she tasted like peaches. “But we’re here to celebrate your mom, not talk about crap that will do nothing but depress us even more.”

After a beat, she reached for the photo album on the coffee table and set it between them as if to put space between him and his past. Or maybe it was to bring them together, he didn’t know.

Her hands lingered on the worn cover before opening it to a random page.

“She kept everything,” Shay said, her voice reverent.

“Every birthday card I ever made her. Notes from students. Letters from you. She shared them with me.”

“Well, that’s embarrassing.”

“I loved reading them. I kind of felt like I knew you before you got here.”

“Yeah, she told me so much about you that it was almost weird meeting you.”

Shay chuckled. “My favorite letter was the one you wrote about building the chicken coop and how the chickens kept getting out.”

He smacked his forehead. “I think I was the only dude in high school who failed shop class.” Moose leaned in, scanning the faded photographs.

One showed Margaret in her twenties, standing on a hilltop in a windbreaker with a whistle around her neck, arms thrown around a group of students. “You look just like your mom.”

“I get that a lot,” she said.

Another had Shay as a kid, toothy smile, hugging her mother in front of a school banner.

Then she flipped to the back pocket and slid out a photo he hadn’t seen in years.

His own face stared back at him—younger, rougher, suspicious of the camera. A senior portrait. Jacket and tie. Shoulders tight with discomfort.

“Look at you,” she mused.

“God, I hated that picture.”

“You look handsome.”

“I first met your mom when I was sent to her office after being suspended for lighting the chemistry lab on fire. I was angry and wanted to be expelled. I wanted the world to toss me aside. But she wouldn’t.

She kept coming for me. It was annoying at first. However, by the time I was a junior, I had found reasons to visit her office.

Hell, I would camp out first thing in the morning and stay after, begging her to give me things to do.

Anything so I didn’t have to go home.” The memories crashed into his brain like a freight train.

He welcomed some, but the ones that reminded him of his life with his parents… those he could do without.

“My mom told me you didn’t want to get your picture taken for the yearbook and that she had to bribe you,” Shay said.

“That’s true.” He nodded slowly. “But I would’ve done it without the bribe. She meant that much to me.”

Shay traced the edge of the photo, then set it down and looked at him.

“I’m so grateful you’re here,” she said. “Not just for my mom, but for me too.”

“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now.”

The moment stretched.

Then, slowly, she shifted toward him on the couch, knees brushing.

She lifted her hand and touched his face, fingers trailing gently along his jaw.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t move away. He just closed his eyes for a second—because her touch felt like peace, and he’d never felt that in Lake George.

He wasn’t sure he knew how to breathe through it.

He blinked.

She leaned in, and when her lips touched his, it wasn’t desperate. It was quiet. Warm. A merging of sorrow and comfort and a fragile hope he couldn’t name.

He kissed her back, his hand settling at her waist, grounding her. And himself.

When they pulled apart, their foreheads touched, and Shay whispered, “She’s everything I’ve ever known and everything I could ever hope to be. She’s my compass and I won’t be able to find home without her.”

“You won’t lose all of her,” he said. “She’s going to be with you.” He tapped his finger in the center of her chest. “She’ll be in your heart forever. She’ll be in everything.”

The tears finally fell then—silently, like her body had stopped fighting the inevitable.

And Moose held her as the fire burned low, the clock ticked past midnight, and the world shifted under them both.

Shay – Lake George, New York, 4:12 a.m.

The world was silent in that strange, breathless way it gets after someone dies. Not that Shay had ever experienced that before, but she understood it, and it seeped into her bones now as if it were part of her.

The hospice nurse had left less than an hour ago. Everything had been gentle. Respectful. A quiet confirmation, a soft voice, a nod, a hand on Shay’s shoulder.

And then it was done.

Her mother—her sweet mama—was gone.

Shay had sat there for a long time. Just holding her hand and listening to nothing.

Now, she moved barefoot down the stairs toward her childhood bedroom, the floor cold beneath her feet. Her chest ached, her eyes burned, and somewhere in her body, there was a tremor she couldn’t control, no matter how still she stood.

She stopped in front of the room where Moose had been staying. She felt some guilt that she hadn’t woken him up, but there was nothing he could do. In the end, she was grateful it had just been her and her mom in that room and the nurse had slipped into the hallway, knowing it was time.

As much as Moose had meant to her mother, it was better this way, and even though she’d only known him for a couple of days, she knew him well enough that he would’ve felt like an outsider.

Even if she’d wanted him there, it would have been hard for him, and that was the last thing she wanted for the man who had given up so much to be with her mom.

That had been as much for her as it was for him. Her mother had needed to say goodbye to Moose. Knowing that the toughest kid she’d ever worked with had turned out… okay. And Moose, even though there was something slightly broken in his deep, caring eyes, was indeed okay.

She didn’t knock. She slipped inside, the shadows soft and deep, the only light coming from the cracked window where the faintest gray was beginning to hint at dawn.

He was awake.

She could tell by the way his body stilled when she entered, the subtle shift of weight as he turned beneath the blanket.

He sat up slowly, shirtless, bare shoulders catching what little light there was. “Shay? What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

She crossed the room without answering. Climbed into the bed beside him as if she’d done it a thousand times before.

As if she belonged right there—next to him—in his arms. Her hands were cold, her skin goose-pimpled.

“She’s gone,” she whispered. Her voice was stronger than she’d expected.

It didn’t crack. It didn’t shake. She simply breathed the words and somehow amid the pain, a sense of relief washed over her.

He reached for her instantly. His arms came around her like it was the most natural thing, pulling her into the solid, steady line of his chest. She curled into him, pressing her forehead to his collarbone as the first sob tore loose from her throat.

It wasn’t for her mother. She was at peace now.

Her pain was gone. She didn’t have to suffer any longer.

The tears that flowed freely from Shay’s eyes were for herself.

For the grief of what was to come with the rising sun.

He didn’t speak.

He didn’t offer platitudes or force her to say anything more.

He just held her like the world had cracked open and he was the only thing keeping her from falling through.

His hand ran slowly up and down her back.

She breathed him in—warm skin, salt, clean cotton, and something that smelled like cedar and strength.

Her fingers fisted in the blanket near his hip and she continued to cry.

She let herself purge all the sorrow that she’d held so close to her heart for so long.

His lips brushed against her temple, soft and sweet. Slow and deliberate.

When the worst of the storm passed—when the sobs faded into shuddering breaths—she lifted her head just enough to look at him.

He held her gaze as his finger traced a path across her cheek.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she said. “I don’t know how to exist in a world without her.”

“You don’t have to know,” he said. “You just take the next breath. And then the one after that.”

She touched his jaw, snuggling in closer, needing to feel his body, hard against hers. “I didn’t expect you to matter this much. I mean, I know you matter to her, but I couldn’t have made it to this part without you.”

“You would have because you had to.” His brow furrowed, voice rough. “But I understand. I didn’t expect to feel so much. Not like this. Not about you.”

She kissed him. It wasn’t urgent. It wasn’t about escape and that confused her. But what terrified her was that he kissed her back. It was soft. Slow. The kind of kiss that told her he wasn’t going anywhere.

Her hands slid up over his shoulders, fingers digging into his muscles.