I started walking the perimeter: first the barn, then the outbuildings. Barn doors were secured with a new padlock, which was odd because the rest of the hardware looked older than I was.
I clocked that and moved on.
The air had a sweetness you couldn’t fake, not even with all the artisanal honey in Austin. Grass, manure, the wet mossy undertone from the river. But overlaying it was something sharper—a trace of woodsmoke, and beneath that, yeast and fresh bread.
I stopped in my tracks. That wasn’t nostalgia or PTSD; that was real. And it meant someone had been inside the house, probably within the last hour.
I moved toward the front porch, hand sliding down to the holster at my hip. The Glock nestled there was legal in every sense of the word, but you never broadcast it unless you wanted trouble.
My approach was slow, deliberate, every SEAL muscle memory firing off in sequence: left foot silent, right dragging a little; shoulders loose, hands open and low.
The porch had been swept clean, recent—the dirt hadn’t even resettled on the steps. The doorknob gleamed like someone polished it just for my arrival. On the railing, a terra-cotta pot overflowed with herbs that hadn’t been deadheaded; a pair of scissors rested beside it, still open.
I reached the front door and listened. My ears caught the faintest vibration from inside—maybe a fridge, maybe voices, maybe just the old bones of the house settling into evening. The hinges had been oiled, which pissed me off more than if they’d been left to squeal; it meant someone cared about the place. My place.
I circled to the back. Kitchen window was cracked open, letting out ribbons of steam and the unmistakable smell of sourdough. I peeked in. The counters gleamed. The sink was empty except for a mixing bowl and a wooden spoon. There were clean footprints—barefoot, narrow, a little duck-toed—in the flour dust on the floor.
Someone was living here.
I retreated, did a quick sweep of the outbuildings to be sure it wasn’t a family, or worse, a crew. The only sign of life was in the main house. I checked the garden beds as I moved: freshly weeded, drip hoses rerouted, a couple of new tomato cages staked down with baling wire. There was a handprint in the soil, small and delicate, right where someone had just watered.
I hesitated at the mudroom door. This one was old oak, fitted with a window the size of a playing card, original to the house. I tested the knob. Unlocked. I let my left hand rest on the butt of the Glock, then pushed the door open with my right, silent as a ghost.
Inside, the light was different. Golden, alive, warm against the blue chill creeping in from outside. The floorboards flexed, but didn’t creak; someone had learned the rhythm of the house, knew which spots to avoid.
I moved through the laundry and into the pantry, where the smell of baking was so strong it nearly staggered me. I paused there, breathing it in, remembering my mother’s hands punching down dough every Saturday morning, before she vanished from our lives and left my father with nothing to feed us but disappointment.
There was a faint scrape from the next room. I drew the Glock, finger indexed, and entered low, covering the angle to the right where the kitchen opened up. The table was set for one: a chipped plate, a blue mason jar with half-dead daisies, a slice of bread beside a knife still smeared with butter.
Someone stood at the old fashioned wood stove, back to me, stirring a pot. They wore jeans two sizes too large, rolled at the ankle, and a flannel shirt cinched tight at the waist with a length of orange twine. Hair, long and wheat-colored, was tied back in a loose ponytail.
My brain made the leap before I was ready for it: not a vagrant, not a tweaker, but a kid. Maybe twenty? No muscle, no threat. But still—someone in my house.
I stepped into the doorway, gun lowered, but visible. “Hands where I can see ‘em.”
The kid froze. The spoon clattered into the pot. They turned slowly, both hands going up, eyes huge and bright blue, flour dusted across their cheeks like war paint. The look on their face was pure terror and something else—recognition, maybe. Like they’d been waiting for me all along.
My voice came out harsher than I intended. “Who the fuck are you?”
The kid swallowed, took a shaky breath. Their hands shook, but they didn’t drop them. “I—I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone was coming. Please don’t shoot.”
I didn’t lower the gun, but I didn’t advance, either. I took in the details: no bulge at the hip, no knife in reach, feet bare and red from standing on cold linoleum. I eased off the trigger. “How long you been living here?”
They blinked, then let the words tumble out in a rush: “I just needed a place to stay, I wasn’t gonna take anything, I’ve been cleaning, I fixed the leaking sink, I can leave if you want, I just—please, don’t call the sheriff.”
The voice was higher than I expected, not a kid but definitely not a grown man. There was something soft about them, from the delicate wrists to the way they clutched their own elbows when nervous. I tried to do the math and came up short.
“Step away from the stove,” I said, “and keep your hands where I can see them.”
They did, moving to the table like someone trained to obey orders. I kept my eyes on them and holstered the Glock, but didn’t bother hiding the fact that I was still on edge.
Now that I wasn’t in threat mode, the smells in the kitchen hit me all at once: bread, wild honey, black pepper, and a faint tang of sweat and something sweeter. Not cologne, not perfume—something else. I realized with a jolt that I was standing three feet from an omega, and the scent of it was strong enough to make the air pulse.
I took a slow breath. “You got a name?”
They nodded, lips trembling. “Jojo. Joseph, I mean. Stinson.”
I let the silence drag out. “You always break into people’s houses, Jojo?”
