Page 44 of Breaking His Exile

“I know.”

“Then stop holding your breath.”

He exhaled, long and uneven, and some of the tension bled out of him. The fire popped. The rain had grown soft, a hush against the roof instead of a hammer. Tilly settled near the stove with a heavy sigh, her dark eyes reflecting the embers.

Rainey pressed her palm flat over his heart. The beat was fast but steady, and the skin beneath her hand was hot. She felt him tense, then slowly, deliberately relax. Like a man teaching his body something it had forgotten.

“This okay?” she asked.

“Yeah.” His voice was barely there, rough as the scrape of a match. “It’s okay.”

She closed her eyes. The warmth of him, the weight of the blanket, the rhythm of rain on tin—it all blurred together into something close to safety. Not the kind she’d written songs about, all sharp edges and locked doors, but something quieter. A safety that didn’t require running.

His hand found hers where it rested on his chest. His fingers threaded through hers, careful, deliberate, and he held on like she was the only thing keeping him tethered to the cot.

“I used to think,” he said, and stopped.

She waited.

“I used to think if I stayed alone long enough, the wanting would go away.” His thumb moved over her knuckles, slow and absent. “It didn’t.”

Her chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with cracked ribs. She lifted their joined hands and pressed her lips to his knuckles, the way she’d pressed them to the bandage earlier. His breath caught, but he didn’t pull away.

“Go to sleep, Evander.”

He turned his head on the pillow, and even in the dim light of the woodstove, she could see the shadows under his eyes, the deep lines exhaustion had carved into his face. He looked younger like this, and older, both at once. Like a man who’d been fighting so long he’d forgotten what it felt like to put the weapon down.

“Rainey.”

“Yeah?”

“The song you’re writing. The one about the cabin. Play it again tomorrow?”

Her throat tightened. “If you want.”

“I want.”

She smiled in the dark. “Evander?”

“Hm?”

“You can call me songbird again. I don’t mind.”

She thought he might answer. She thought he might say something more, give her another piece of the puzzle, another crack in the wall. But he went quiet, and his breathing slowed, deepened, and after a long while she realized he’d actually fallen asleep.

She lay awake and listened to him breathe. The fire died to coals. The last of the rain stopped. The mountain night pressed against the windows, and for the first time, Rainey Beckett felt something like hope.

It was small. Fragile. Probably stupid.

But it was hers.

And she held it close, in the dark, while the man who’d killed for her slept his first real sleep in years.

twelve

Evander came awake already reaching for the rifle before his eyes opened, and his hand closed on nothing but the cold edge of the cot.

He held still and let the cabin sort itself out around him. Low ceiling. Thin morning light through the east window.