He glances at me, then back at her. “And if either of you want to see her before she’s ready to come down, you can come up. I’ll show you the way myself. Or come get you. Whatever she wants. Whatever makes it easier.”
My mother’s face crumples all over again.
Rafe keeps his voice low and steady. “She doesn’t have to lose one home to keep another.”
Something inside me goes so still it almost hurts.
My mother grips his forearm. “Thank you.”
He shakes his head once. “She’s got people on that mountain. But she’s still got people here too.”
My mom nods, satisfied, and kisses my forehead before going back inside. My sister waves through her tears, calling out, “Love you!”
The door closes.
The porch goes quiet as I shake. With something lighter than fear, something unsteady but alive.
Rafe moves to open the truck door for me, but I stop him. I reach for his hand first. My fingers slip into his. I climb in with his help—no hesitation, no freeze, no flinch. When he joins me inside,I lean into his side without needing to think about it. The cab smells like pine, leather, and him. Safe.
He starts the engine, but he doesn’t drive yet. He looks at me like he’s searching for any sign I regret choosing him.
“Sweet girl,” he says, voice thick, “if you want to stay here a little longer, we can. You could stay the night. I’ll come back for you in the morning. You don’t have to rush back up the mountain. There is nothing that I wouldn’t do for you.”
I shake my head and rest my fingers on his wrist. His pulse jumps under my touch as I point toward the service road.
The word builds in my chest—heavy, tight, new. It hurts, but it’s a good hurt. A breaking-open kind of hurt.
I swallow. Push air through the tightness.
And whisper, soft but certain: “Home.”
Rafe’s hand trembles under mine. His jaw works like he’s fighting tears he refuses to shed in front of anyone but me. Slowly, he turns his wrist and laces our fingers together, gripping tightly.
“Yeah,” he says. “Home.”
He kisses the back of my hand, gentle as butterfly wings, and pulls the truck onto the road. I keep my head on his shoulder thewhole way up the mountain. My body loosens more with each mile.
For the first time in years, the road doesn’t feel like a path to nowhere.
It feels like a return.
To him. To myself.
To the life I’m choosing.
Chapter Thirteen
Rafe
The truck ticks as it cools outside the cabin, the sound sharp in the quiet. I kill the engine and sit there for a second with both hands still on the wheel, breathing hard like I’ve just outrun a bear, even though the raw emotion is behind us and the mountain is ours again.
Briar stays beside me, silent, small, not in the old way. Not folded in on herself. Just wrung out. Her eyes are fixed on the cabin porch like she’s seeing it for the first time.
Maybe she is.
This place was refuge when I brought her here. Shelter. A place to hide and heal and learn how to sleep without shaking herself apart.
Now it’s something else.
