A Montana Whiteout
By Josie Jade
Chapter 1
Strays
Audra Sinclair
(Engaged to Beckett Sinclair)
The lodge was chaos, and I loved every second of it.
A toddler barreled past my legs, shrieking with delight, followed closely by a golden retriever and Evelyn’s exasperated voice calling, “Zeke! We don’t run near the?—”
A crash from somewhere near the dessert table. Someone laughed. One of the kids wailed briefly, then stopped.
This was family dinner at Resting Warrior Ranch. Multiplied by Christmas Eve and about forty thousand cookies.
Beckett’s hand found mine under the table, his thumb tracing slow circles against my palm. An anchor. A reminder.You’re here. You’re safe. This is real.
I still needed those reminders sometimes.
“More wine?” Jada appeared at my elbow, bottle in hand, her warm smile already in place.
“I shouldn’t.”
“It’s Christmas Eve.” She was already pouring. “Live dangerously.”
Across the massive dining table—which still wasn’t big enough for everyone, people spilling onto couches and chairs and corners of the floor—Lachlan was trying to convince his daughter that mashed potatoes were not, in fact, a weapon. Sadie disagreed. Loudly. Caleb, her twin, had already smeared his portion across his high chair tray and was working on his hair.
“She gets that from you,” Piper told her husband, wiping potato from her sleeve with the resigned efficiency of a woman who’d stopped caring about clean clothes eighteen months ago.
“The stubbornness or the aim?” Lachlan asked.
“Both.”
Lachlan grinned, that easy smile I’d seen transform his whole face whenever he looked at his family. The sheriff of Garnet Bend, the man who’d arrested my stalker, who’d stood in that interrogation room and made sure justice was served—reduced to a mess of heart-eyes by a toddler with vegetable-covered fingers.
I understood. God, I understood.
Last Christmas Eve, I’d been in a motel outside Reno. I hadn’t slept. Just sat in a hard plastic chair by the window, watching the parking lot, waiting for headlights that might mean death. My hand had kept drifting to the burn scar on the back of my neck—still healing then, still raw—and I’d wondered if I’d ever stop running.
Now I had an engagement ring on my finger. Two months engaged to a man who’d stood between me and a monster, who’d pulled me from a frozen river, who’d looked at all my broken pieces and decided to stay anyway.
I had friends who texted me just to check in. Who’d invited me to help with the holiday craft fair booth. Who passed their baby pictures around like I’d always been part of their circle.
I had Jet pressed against my leg under the table, his warmth a constant comfort, his ridiculous “Hero Dog: Now Specializing in Hugs” vest slightly crooked because he’d been playing with the kids earlier.
I had this. All of this.
The scar on my neck didn’t throb anymore. It was just a scar now. A reminder of what I’d survived, not what defined me.
“You’re doing it again.” Beckett’s voice was low, meant only for me.
“Doing what?”
“That thing where you look around like you’re memorizing everything. Like it might disappear.”
