Ghost snorted, bitter. “There he is—the VP talking. You forget we still bleed like humans, or did that ride up here train it out of you?” Buck met his stare then, and for a heartbeat Ghost remembered the man he used to follow—the one who’d shielded them under fire in Thunder Creek, dragged half the club through a blizzard with busted ribs, never once complaining. The same man now lived like the ice had crawled inside him and stayed.
“I didn’t forget anything,” Buck said. “I just learned when to stop feeding ghosts.”
Ghost gave a humorless laugh. “Funny. You feed me every time you pour me a drink.”
“At least you got the manners to come back alive,” Buck muttered.
That stung. Ghost leaned back on the stool, staring up at the low ceiling beams. “You always did talk prettier when you were mad.”
Buck grunted, half amusement and half warning. The silence grew again, thick as smoke, comfortable in a strange way—the kind of quiet shared only by men who’d bled for the same colors and the same wrong reasons. But something new moved under it tonight, something neither of them wanted to think about. Her—Wren Callahan.
Ghost had seen plenty of women over the years. Pretty, dangerous, clever, broken—he’d taken comfort and distraction where he could find it. But she wasn’t like that. She hadn’t flinched when fifty patches stared her down, hadn’t begged or pleaded or even softened her tone. She’d just stood there, small, fierce, and refusing to back down from either of them.
“You saw the way she looked at you,” Ghost said after a minute. Buck didn’t answer, but the muscle in his jaw ticked once. “She’s watching you like she’s studying a wild animal,” Ghost pressed on, a faint smile curling his mouth. “And I think you like it.”
“You’re drunk,” Buck said evenly.
“Not drunk enough,” Ghost replied. He took another drag on his cigarette, the ember flaring. He tilted his head as his eyes narrowed. “Tell me something, Buck. You ever wonder if maybe you keep saving people because you couldn’t save Rhett?” The words hung there. Sharp, cruel, but true.
Buck froze halfway through his next pour. For a moment, Ghost thought he’d crossed the line enough to earn him a punch. Instead, Buck set the bottle down and stared at it like the glass might break under his hand. “Leave the past where it is,” Buck said quietly.
Ghost exhaled a sigh. “The past ain’t what I’m worrying about.”
“Then what are you going on about, Ghost?” he asked.
He tapped his ashes into an empty bottle. “That woman upstairs. You think she’s just gonna walk away when the roadsclear? She’s got questions. She’s got Rhett’s name, government creds, and a streak of courage wide enough to get her killed. You keep her close, and every man we’ve run off this land’s going to smell that weakness on you.”
Buck turned slowly, his eyes dark and steady. “There’s no weakness in protecting what’s under our roof.”
Ghost grinned, leaning forward. “That right? Then maybe I’ll bring someone home next time.”
“That would be different,” Buck teased.
“Would it?” Ghost asked softly. “Or would it just be you, again, laying claim on what you can’t let yourself want?” The silence that followed wasn’t comfortable anymore. It was electric. The kind that stretched a heartbeat too long.
Finally, Buck spoke. “Listen close, Ghost. She’s not yours to toy with. She’s not part of this club. She’s a liability, and she’s leaving tomorrow.”
Ghost tipped what was left of his whiskey in a mock salute. “Sure thing, boss.” But he didn’t believe a word Buck was saying—not even for a second.
Buck turned back to the window, broad shoulders outlined by the glow of the wood stove. Outside, the night was wild—wind, ice, endless white. He’d always seemed more at home there, Ghost thought. With the chaos and cold. It was the quiet that scared him. It was where he kept part of himself buried.
“She’s not the enemy,” Ghost added, breaking the quiet again. “She’s just lost.”
Buck’s reply was low, final. “We’re all lost. She’s just new at it.” Ghost swallowed more whiskey, watching firelight dance across the glass. He thought about Rhett, about the woman upstairs with steel in her voice and fear she refused to show, and about the man standing near the window pretending he didn’t feel every inch of it.
They were all ghosts out here, frozen between what they’d done and what still waited for them. And Ghost had the sinking feeling that Wren Callahan had just become the thing that would thaw them—or destroy them both trying.
Buck
Morning came slowly in the north. The storm had broken sometime before dawn, leaving the world glazed in pale light and silence so deep it pressed against the windows. Every surface outside glittered with frost—bikes under snow drifts, fuel drums rimed with ice, the skeletons of the pine trees bending toward the river.
Buck watched it from the porch steps, steam rising from the mug in his hands. His breath fogged the air in faint bursts. For a few minutes, it almost looked peaceful, like the land wasn’t built on the bones of bad choices.
The screen door creaked behind him, and he heard boots hesitantly scuff across the wood floors of the porch. “You’re up early,” Wren said.
He turned to find her standing just inside the doorway, wrapped in an oversized flannel shirt that belonged to nobody in particular—probably something one of the women left behind months ago. Her hair was still damp from a hurried shower due to the water running cold. Her curls were darker now and pressed against her cheeks. She looked impossibly out of place against the rough wood walls and the patch of sunlight fighting through the clouds.
“Coffee’s on the stove,” he said.
