Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 41327 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 207(@200wpm)___ 165(@250wpm)___ 138(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41327 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 207(@200wpm)___ 165(@250wpm)___ 138(@300wpm)
"Like what?"
"Like you don't put yourself in danger." His arm tightens around me. "You don't leave the mountain without telling me where you're going. If you're scared or uncertain about anything, you come to me first." He tilts my chin up, eyes serious. "Not because I want to control you. Because I need to know you're safe."
I nod, understanding the difference now between David's controlling demands and Jack's protective boundaries.
"There's something else you should know," he continues, voice dropping lower. "Billy from the ranger station mentioned someone's been asking around about a young woman matching your description. Red hair. Early twenties."
Ice forms in my stomach. "David."
"Possibly." Jack's expression hardens. "Billy said the guy claimed to be your brother, looking for his 'mentally ill sister' who needed medication."
"I don't have a brother." My fingers tighten around the stuffed wolf. "How would he even know to look here?"
Jack's jaw tightens. "Don’t know. You said you had stuff from your dad. Something that had my name on it."
The memory hits me—David "helping" me sort through Dad's belongings, insisting on organizing his office while I dealt with clothes and personal items. "Yes. He helped me pack up Dad's things."
"Your father was a saver. Sentimental. Old letters. Photos." Jack's eyes narrow. "If this guy went through his stuff, he might have found references to me. To this place. Might have gone back to your place…found more specifics."
The safe feeling from moments before fractures, reality intruding like cold water. "He won't stop looking," I whisper. "He can't risk me sharing those recordings. I should go. I don’t want to get you involved in—"
Jack's hand cups my cheek, thumb brushing away a tear I didn't know I'd shed. "Let him come," he says, voice deadly quiet.
The fierce protectiveness in his tone should frighten me. Instead, it wraps around me like armor, stronger than any lock or weapon.
"Now," he says, shifting to a lighter tone. "Tell me more about rocks, baby. The Petoskey ones."
I blink at the subject change. "Why?"
"Because they matter to you." He settles more comfortably against the pillows, drawing me against his chest. "And anything that matters to you, I want to know about. Everything about you, Delaney. The good, the bad, the fucking rock collection. All of it."
So I tell him—about fossil hunting with my father, about the geology classes I took in the summers, the books I read about how the earth formed, about the dream I'd once had of working in natural history museums. He listens with surprising interest, asking questions that show he's truly paying attention.
"You could go back to school," he says when I finish. "Online, maybe. Or at the community college in town."
"Maybe." The possibility feels distant but not impossible. "I'd need to figure out the debt from my dad's medical bills first."
Jack's expression shifts. "How much debt?"
I tell him, the number still staggering to me. He doesn't flinch.
"We'll figure it out," he says simply, like erasing six figures of debt is a minor inconvenience. "Together."
The word settles between us as I let his heartbeat carry me away from the problems of the outside world.
"Together," I agree, the stuffed wolf still clutched in my hands, a talisman against all the shadows that might come for us.
And for the first time since my father died, the future doesn't look like something to run from—it looks like something to build. One stone, one day, one rule at a time.
Eight
Jack
"It's just ice cream, Jack. Not a firing squad."
Delaney's voice floats up from beside me, almost childlike in its lightness. Her hand—Christ, so fucking tiny—disappears completely in my grip, her delicate bones fragile enough to snap if I'm not careful.
We're walking down Wildfire’s main street, and I can feel every pair of eyes on us. It’s like they know.
You fucked that little girl rotten, you filthy old man.
She’s still filthy with me. Sore and red and walking with a slight trepidation.
But she looked at me like I’d just given her a lifetime pass to the amusement park. Her legs wide, ‘more, more,’ she’d rattled in that sex rough voice, calling me Daddy and giving me the keys to the fucking kingdom with that title.
Clearly, I’d do anything for this girl, because she dragged my ass not only off the mountain but into town. God, I fucking hate town. Small towns aren’t the fodder for romance novels most think.
They’re incestuous and judgmental. Quirky, yes. But they’re full of people who seem to think we’re all one big found family and instead most of them are just a pain in the ass.
It started with a question over breakfast—"Is there anywhere to get ice cream around here?"—and suddenly I was making a list in my head of everything she needed. Clothes. Toiletries. All that female shit I've never had to think about before. Practical necessities. Because if she is staying—and she is fucking staying, even if I have to chain her to my bed—she can’t keep living out of that one pathetic backpack and my shirts that swallow her whole.