I step back, my gaze unwavering. “You can stay here. You can wait. You can cool off.”
Boone bristles again. “We’re not taking orders from?—”
Caleb raises a hand. “Boone. Shut up.”
Boone’s mouth snaps shut.
Caleb looks at me with heavy eyes. “Bring her back.”
“I’ll bring her back if she wants to come,” I reply. “Not because you demanded it.”
Weston exhales. “Tex?—”
I don't let him finish. I turn and head into the snow, boots crunching hard, because Jane is out there, and I’m not letting her run until she freezes solid. Not when she ran because she was hurt. Not when she bolted because the people who love her the most still don’t know how to hold her gently.
The field opens up behind the cabin, white and bright, the wind cutting across it like a blade.
Jane’s footprints are easy to follow. She doesn’t hide. She wants to be found. Not dragged back. Not fixed. Found.
That realization hits me in the gut as I walk slowly and steadily, closing the distance like a promise.
I find her near the fence line where we first kissed.
She’s standing with her hands on the top rail, staring out at nothing, her breath fogging in the air. Her shoulders are stiff, her chin lifted as if she refuses to crumble. But I can see the tremor running through her; cold and fear and hurt all tangled together.
But I can also see it in the way her fingers grip the wood too tightly.
She hears me behind her but doesn't turn. “Go back,” she says flatly.
“No.”
A sharp inhale. “Tex?—”
“No,” I repeat gently. “I’m not leavin’ you out here.”
Her laugh is bitter. “You should. I’m apparently a mess everyone has to clean up.”
I stop a few feet behind her. Close enough for her to feel me, but not so close that I crowd her. “You’re not a problem.”
She shakes her head, her curls bouncing. “They came all the way here. They found out. They—” Her voice cracks, but she forces it steady again. “Boone said I’m a mess.”
My jaw tightens. “I heard.”
Jane finally turns. Her eyes blaze with shame and anger and something softer underneath—hurt so deep that it makes my chest ache.
“I should go with them,” she says. “It would be easier.”
I take a slow step closer. “Don’t you know by now that I don’t want easy?”
Her lips tremble. “You didn’t want me either.”
The words hit hard.
I step right in front of her, close enough now to take her hands if she’ll let me. “I want you. I chose you. You are, and will always be, my choice.”
Her breath shakes. “Even with my brothers thinking you’re some kind of?—”
“I don’t care what they think,” I cut in.
