River pushed past X and rummaged through Anson’s closet. “These are all shit, by the way.”
“I like my shirts,” Anson muttered.
Jonah appeared behind them, took one look at the situation, and slipped between River and the closet. He reached in and pulled out the dark green Henley, the one Anson wore when the burn scars on his forearms were bothering him. The slightly looser fit didn’t pull tight across the worst of them.
“This one. You look like yourself in this one.”
“That’s the point,” X argued. “He shouldn’t look like himself. He should look better than himself.”
“Maggie knows who he is,” Jonah said. “Let him be that person.”
Anson took the shirt from Jonah with a nod of thanks. The room felt too small with all of them crowded in, watching him like he was some kind of science experiment. “I need to get dressed.”
“Yep, we’re gone,” Jonah said, herding the others toward the door.
X lingered, holding out his cologne. “Just a spritz?—”
“Out,” Anson growled.
They filed out, but Jonah threw one last piece of advice over his shoulder: “Don’t overthink it. Just be the guy who wrote those letters.”
When the door finally closed, he exhaled slowly and sat on the edge of his bed. Bramble padded over and rested his head on his knee, looking up with those solemn golden eyes that had seen him through every dark night since prison. The wolfhound’s weight was a comfort, an anchor when everything else felt like it might float away.
Be the guy who wrote those letters.
Was that even possible?
Those letters were written in darkness, in the quiet of night, when his defenses were down, when he could pretend the words weren’t real because no one could see his face when he wrote them.
But Maggie would see his face now. Would read every scar, every flinch, every moment he looked away rather than meet her eyes.
“She’s coming, Bram,” he whispered, running his fingers through the dog’s coarse fur. “What the hell am I supposed to say?”
three
Maggie froze mid-step when the front door of the main house swung open. A man emerged—silver-haired, weathered face—and her throat tightened. No. This couldn’t be Anson. This man was easily in his sixties, old enough to be her father. Her fingers went numb around her keys as their eyes met across the yard.
He walked toward her with the easy gait of a cowboy, hat in hand, his sharp blue eyes assessing. A cattle dog trotted at his heels, mirroring his measured pace.
The ground shifted beneath her. Six years of letters. Six years of pouring her heart onto paper, telling this man things she’d never told anyone else. And she’d never once thought to ask how old he was.
What kind of idiot drove two thousand miles to meet a man whose face she wouldn’t recognize in a lineup?
“You must be Maggie,” he called, his voice deep and gravelled by time.
Her mouth went dry.
A woman appeared in the doorway behind him. Slender with silver-streaked brown hair that fell in soft waves around her face, she wore jeans and a loose sweater, and her expression was all warm welcome. She hurried to catch up with the man,and he paused, waiting for her. He draped his arm around her shoulders with the easy familiarity of long companionship, leaning down to place a gentle kiss on her temple.
Husband and wife.
Oh, God.
In those letters, they’d shared everything—nightmares, regrets, hopes they were afraid to voice aloud. They’d never bothered with the superficial details. What did it matter what he looked like? What did it matter how old he was? She’d thought they had connected on a deeper level.
But he had never once mentioned a wife.
How much else had he left out?
