“There,” Riley points to a bar called The Antler. “That looks promising.”
“It looks like every other mountain town bar,” I observe.
“Exactly. Which means the food will be good and the beer will be cold. Come on.”
I follow them inside, trying to ignore the nervous flutter in my stomach. It’s a bar. Just dinner. Nothing to worry about.
We’re halfway to a table when I hear it. A familiar laugh. Deep and rich, and the sound makes my entire body freeze.
No.
No, it can’t be.
I turn slowly, and there, at a corner table surrounded by what must be his brothers, is Jax.
He looks tired. There are shadows under his eyes. And when he laughs at something one of his brothers says, it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
He looks miserable.
And then he sees me.
Our eyes lock across the crowded bar, and everything else fades away. The noise, the people, Riley and Maggie beside me. All of it disappears. It’s just him and me and the week of silence between us.
He stands up slowly, and I can see his brothers turning to look at what caught his attention. Can see the exact moment they realize who I am.
“Well,” Riley says quietly beside me. “This just got interesting.”
15
JAX
The past week has been hell. I’ve thrown myself into work, taking every shift, every call, every opportunity to not think about her. I’ve worked on the farm until my body ached. I’ve avoided my phone, my family’s questions, anything that might remind me of dark eyes, a vanilla scent, and the feeling of being completely, utterly seen.
It hasn’t worked.
She’s everywhere. In the Christmas movie my grandmother tried to get me to watch. In the Monopoly game gathering dust on my shelf. In every sandwich I make, remembering her teasing me about condiment placement.
“You’re being pathetic,” Wilder, the second youngest brother, who’s a firefighter too, announces, slamming a beer down in front of me. “It’s been a week. Either call her or move on.”
“I don’t have her number,” I mutter.
“Then find it,” my oldest brother and cop, Ford, says. “You’re Search and Rescue. You’re literally trained to find people.”
“She doesn’t want to be found.” I moan.
“Did she say that?” the youngest brother, Colt, who is also a cop, asks. “Or are you assuming?”
I don’t say anything.
“That’s code for ‘I’m an idiot,’” my brother, Everett, the second oldest and the helicopter pilot corrects. “You found the girl of your dreams, and you let her walk away because her ex showed up and caused a scene?”
“It was more complicated than that.” I roll my eyes at them. These idiots wouldn’t know the first thing about love.
“It always is,” my other brother, Mason, who is just below me and is also a firefighter, adds. “But the question is … do you regret it?”
Do I regret it? Being with her, hell no. Letting her go … I regret it every second of every day. I regret not giving her my number, for not fighting harder. I regret the look on her face when I walked away.
“I miss her.”
