I pinch her jaw to stop her. "Because I know you were lying." I brush my thumb across her cheek. "You wouldn't have brought me coffee if you didn't care. And we wouldn't be here like this right now if you could just walk out and never look back."
Sloane blinks slowly, eyes never leaving mine, and I see her mind processing, chewing on my words.
"We're in this together, whether we want it or not."
"I want…" She purses her lips and her eyes drift away, then back. "I want you, Dane."
"You're not scared of me?"
Her expression softens and she grins. "You think I should run?"
"Most people would."
"I'm not most people." She reaches up, tracing the tattoo above my collar. "And for the record, you're right. I care what happens to you. I was angry when I said those things, but they weren't true."
"Then you understand why I need you here. Safe. Where I know Cal can't touch you." I tighten my arms around her. "I can handle losing almost anything. But I can't handle losing you. Not when I'm just starting to?—"
I cut myself off, but she hears what I don't say. Her eyes widen fractionally.
"Starting to what?" she presses.
"That L-word, I think… but don't go getting a big head." My hands tighten behind her and she bites my chest.
"So I should call you Daddy now or something?" she asks playfully, pinching one of my nipples.
"That's it, now you're gonna get it." My fingers find her sides and I commence tickling her until she's laughing, falling off the counter, and we're finding our way to the bedroom, me stumbling in my jeans still locked around my ankles and Sloane mocking me for my silvering hair.
But for a few precious moments, the war outside these walls—and even the one inside my own head—is quiet, and the only care I have in the world is whether I'm too old to keep up with a woman her age.
Because Sloane is definitely going to make me work for every second of this.
14
SLOANE
Day three of Dane being gone and I'm losing my mind. The cabin's too quiet and empty. Every creak of the floorboards sounds ominous, every gust of wind against the windows makes me reach for the shotgun he left propped by the door. I don't even know how to use the fucking thing but he insisted, and I've read every book on his shelves twice, watched the limited channels his ancient TV receives until my eyes crossed, and reorganized the kitchen cabinets just to have something to do.
I need to get out and see other people before I go stir crazy. Dane would tell me it's reckless, that staying inside is the only way to stay safe. But Dane isn't here, and if I spend one more hour staring at these four walls, I'm gonna start talking to the furniture.
The barn seems the safest option for entertainment, so I bundle up in Dane's spare jacket and head outside. The afternoon sun is weak, filtered through gray clouds that promise more snow before nightfall. Everything is white—trees, ground, roof—theworld buried beneath inches of powder that fell two nights ago and now crunches under my sneakers.
Inside the barn, the air is cold but still, sheltered from the wind. I flip on the overhead light and look around, really look, at what Dane keeps out here. I've seen his workbench stockpiled with tools and a strange assortment of animal hooves, hunting knives, and containers of various sorts of screws and bolts. And he has an old radio perched on the corner that looks like it hasn’t worked since the Eisenhower administration.
I move deeper into the space, past the organized areas into the back where shadows gather. Here, stacked against the wall, are cardboard boxes with dates scrawled on the sides in black marker. They look like they've been collecting dust since he moved in here, like he never fully unpacked.
Curiosity gets the better of me. I pull down the nearest box and open it, expecting clothes or dishes or the mundane contents of someone's previous life. Instead, I find books. Lots of them. Fiction, mostly—thrillers, mysteries, science fiction. A whole life's worth of reading material packed away and forgotten. I had no idea he was a reader.
It makes me smile.
The next box holds photo albums. I hesitate before opening one, knowing I'm crossing a line. But I'm already here, and the sudden need to understand him better overrides my guilt. I flip through pages of images—Dane as a teenager, lean and dangerous even then. Dane with other men, all of them armed, wearing expressions that tells me they're no strangers to violence. But there are no images of him with people who look like siblings or parents. I feel sad about that, and I make a mental note to ask him about his family.
I close the album and return it to the box, suddenly feeling intrusive. This is his past, and I have no right to dig through it without permission. He may be upset with me for prying. After all, he hasn't once tried to open up and tell me about anything other than his history with the Mob, so if he walked in and saw me here, I know he'd flip.
Moving on, I navigate around a tarp-covered shape near the back wall. The tarp is dusty and undisturbed, and when I pull it back I find a snowmobile. It's an older model, probably from the late nineties, but it looks well-maintained beneath the dust. The key's missing from the ignition, but it looks like it still works.
Freedom sitting right here, capable of getting me to town and back without taking his truck, without leaving obvious tracks on the road. I could get coffee, see other humans, be back before dark, and Dane would never know.
The idea starts percolating and I'm already moving. I move to the tool chest and start rifling through drawers. Screwdrivers, wrenches, nails—everything organized and labeled. The bottom drawer holds miscellaneous items, and there, tucked beneath a rag, is a key ring with several small keys. One of them has to fit the snowmobile.
