I almost walk away. Almost shut down. But the truth is too big to swallow.
“She might go back,” I say, voice rougher than I expect. “She sees them, sees what she came from… maybe she chooses that. Chooses them. I lose my only chance at happiness. At a future.”
Silas leans his hip against the chopping block, arms folding across his chest. “And you think that’d be wrong for her to go back?”
My teeth grind. “No,” I admit. “But it’d tear me in half.”
Silas nods slowly, waiting for me to say it out loud. “There it is.”
I look away, staring at the tree line, at anything that isn’t my own damn fear.
“She feels like mine,” I whisper, hating how true it sounds. “Not to own. Not to keep. Just… mine to protect. Mine to hold. Mine to care for.”
Silas is quiet for a long beat. “Rafe… you didn’t steal her from her life. You saved her from dying in it.”
I close my eyes.
“But she deserves the truth,” he continues. “And you deserve to hear what she chooses. Don’t cheat either of you out of that.”
A muscle jumps in my jaw. “I’m not ready.”
“No man ever is,” Silas says. “But you’re not the kind who lies to a woman to keep her close.”
My stomach twists because he’s right.
And I hate it.
“You tell her when you’re calm,” Silas says. “Not from fear. Not from panic. From love. She’ll hear it.”
I grip the back of my neck. “I don’t want to lose her.”
Not now. Not when she just started choosing me.
Silas gives a rough laugh. “Rafe, she looks at you like you hung her damn moon. That girl isn’t leaving unless she wants to. And you don’t get to decide that for her.”
I nod once, the truth settling in my chest. “I just…” The words scrape. “I want one more night where she’s not scared. Where I’m not scared.”
Silas claps a hand to my shoulder. “Then go home. Hold her. And tomorrow… you tell her.”
I get back in my truck and turn toward home—heart pounding, hands shaking, the flyer burning warm against my thigh.
By the time my cabin comes into view, my pulse is a hammer behind my ribs. I tell myself to keep it together. To steady my steps. To not let her see what I’m carrying in my pocket.
But the moment the door swings open, all that falls apart.
Briar bolts out before I reach the porch. Barefoot. Fast. Terror in her eyes until she spots me—then everything in her softens so quickly it nearly stops my heart. She runs straight into my chest, arms slamming around my middle.
I lift her without thinking, one arm around her hips, the other cradling the back of her head. She buries her face in my neck, her whole body pressed to mine like she’s trying to climb inside my skin.
“Hey,” I whisper. “Sweet girl, I’m here. I’m here.”
She pulls back enough to look at me. Her hands come up to my jaw, palms warm and trembling. Her eyes search me, panic flickering, expecting something wrong.
She grabs the paper and pencil from her pocket, and scribbles fast:
BAD? HURT? DANGER?
My chest cracks open.
