Except the moment my boots hit Montana soil, the nausea had stopped. Had vanished completely, like it had never been there at all. One minute I was dry-heaving into a trash can at the Billings airport, and the next I was breathing normally, stomach settled, the uncomfortable pressure behind my sternum gone for the first time in weeks.
I hadn’t mentioned it to Sterling. Hadn’t mentioned it to anyone. Just filed it with the hundred other facts I was carrying, waiting for context to make sense of them.
The road to Jackson’s place was empty—just me and the truck and the mountains rising in the distance, the valley spread out on either side of the gravel drive.
I took the curves faster than I should have, the truck’s suspension absorbing most of the impact, the rest traveling up my spine in a sequence that matched my heartbeat.
Three minutes of driving, maximum. Less time than it took to run a standard perimeter check or clear a two-story building or do any of the things that had filled the past six weeks while Jackson’s phone stayed silent.
The farmhouse came into view as I rounded the last curve—low and solid against the eastern ridge, porch facing the valley, greenhouses stretched behind it in a straight line.
I slowed the truck without meaning to, taking in the property the way I always took in a space—noting exits, sight lines, the pattern of movement that told you who was home and who wasn’t.
The greenhouses were running—all four of them, glass panels catching the morning light, interior lights visible through the eastern windows. The fourth one showed fresh drainage work—a new pipe visible where it joined the main line, the ground around it still dark from recent digging.
An unfamiliar truck was parked near the bunkhouse—not Rawley’s or Decker’s or any of the ranch vehicles I recognized. Older model, Montana plates, a tool rack visible in the bed through the back window.
Two male voices carried from somewhere behind the barn—too distant to make out words, just the rhythm of conversation, the sounds of men who worked together regularly.
I filed all of it without consciously deciding to, the same way I’d filed a hundred different operational details over the past six weeks. The way I’d filed Jackson’s silence, and the look on his face when I’d kissed him goodbye, and the weight that had been sitting behind my sternum since day three of the mission.
I pulled up the drive and parked in my usual spot—not right by the porch, not close enough to suggest I was planning to stay, but not so far that Jackson would have to come looking for me. A neutral position. The kind that gave both of us options.
The morning had fully arrived now—sun high enough to burn the frost from the grass, light spilling across the eastern pasture in a sweep that turned everything gold.
Below the porch, the valley spread out in all directions—mountains to the east, the main ranch house visible as a cluster of buildings half a mile distant.
I killed the engine and sat for a moment, listening to the tick of the cooling metal, feeling of being exactly where I’d been headed since the moment Sterling had told me we were wheels up for Montana.
Six weeks of silence. One conversation I couldn’t put off any longer.
I got out of the truck eventually, the door closing behind me with a solid thunk that carried across the yard. The air was cold—proper Montana October cold, the kind that turned your breath to fog and numbed your fingertips through gloves—but I barely felt it.
Just started walking toward the porch, each step measured and deliberate, my eyes on the front door the whole time.
The steps creaked under my weight—the third one from the top, I’d noticed the first time—but I didn’t slow down. Didn’t hesitate. Didn’t do anything but put one foot in front of the other until I was standing at the front door, hand raised to knock.
The moment stretched between one heartbeat and the next—Montana quiet around me, the farmhouse silent ahead, the weight of everything unsaid pressing against my chest. Then I knocked, three firm raps that carried in the still air, and waited for whatever came next.
The door opened before the echo of the knock had fully faded. Jackson stood in the threshold, one shoulder braced against the frame, looking at me with an expression I couldn’t immediately place. Not surprise—he’d have heard the truck, would have seen me coming up the drive. Not anger, either, orrelief, or any of the reactions I’d prepared myself for during the drive from the main house. Something quieter. Something that made my chest tight in a way I hadn’t expected.
He looked different. Not in the obvious ways—same height, same build, same careful attention in the way he held himself—but in the set of his shoulders, the way he carried his weight.
He looked rested in a slow, settled way that had nothing to do with mission recovery—the kind that came from actual sleep rather than just the absence of being awake.
He was wearing a flannel shirt unbuttoned over a thermal, sleeves rolled to the elbows the way he always wore them. One hand on the door frame, fingers spread against the wood. One arm angled slightly across the front of his body, not quite protective, not quite casual—something in between that caught in my eye without resolving.
“Cruz,” he said, my name coming out level and controlled, the way he said everything.
“Jackson,” I replied, and the moment stretched between us—Montana quiet around the porch, the valley spread out below, six weeks of silence suddenly too present to ignore.
He stepped back without speaking, creating a space for me to enter. I moved past him into the house, my shoulder brushing his in the narrow doorway, close enough that I could smell the mix of soap and something greener that was just Jackson.
The kitchen hit me like a physical thing—clean and warm and full of the kind of details that belonged to a life being lived rather than a space being occupied. Coffee smell from the pot on the counter. Something baking in the oven, the yeasty scent of bread rising. Dish towels folded with military precision on the rack by the sink. A mug sitting on the table, half-full, steam still rising from the surface.
None of which I’d expected from a man who’d been stonewalling me for six weeks. None of which matched theimage I’d built of Jackson sitting alone at his kitchen table, phone face-down, making whatever decision had led to the silence.
I turned to face him in the middle of the room, questions already forming, and the morning light coming through the kitchen window shifted the angle just enough.
