Page 18 of Finding Peace
“I know."
“You should rest,” Lawson instructs, his tone still gentle. “We can talk more in the mornin’.”
“Come on, Abbie Girl,” Jas says as he reaches out to me. “Let’s get you washed up and tucked into bed.”
Beau takes my mug from my hands and sets it next to him on the coffee table before I wrap my hand in Jasper’s and let him pull me off the couch. Beau places a soft kiss on my other hand before Lincoln stands, cups the side of my face, and whispers, “Goodnight, Sweetheart. See you in the morning?”
I smile softly. “See you in the morning, Mr. Taylor.”
Jasper and I move toward the stairs, but I’m sure to stop once we reach Lawson.
“If she tries to contact you again—”
“I’ll tell you,” I promise him. “Everything. No secrets.”
He clenches his jaw before bending down so his forehead rests against mine. “You’re ours, Abigail.”
“I’m yours, Lawson,” I answer softly.
He places a long, deep kiss against my forehead before Jasper pulls me up the stairs. And once I sink deep into the tub in his bathroom while he carefully washes my hair, I can’t help but think that for the first time in my life, as I stand in the face of danger—again—I feel totally and unequivocallysafe.
Chapter seven
Jasper
Thecoldbitesagainstmy skin. But the burn doesn’t begin to compare to the feeling in my chest.
Dez snorts beneath me as we crest the low rise past the south pasture, her hooves crunching through the crusted snow. Steam pours from her nostrils, curls up around my legs, and disappears into the gray-blue air. I keep one hand light on the reins, the other buried in the pocket of my jacket, fingers curled tight around… nothing.
I didn’t sleep.
Not really.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face—too pale against the snow, lashes dark and still, breath so shallow it was almost undetectable. Every time I blinked, I felt it again—the weight of Ethan’s body, the finality of it, the way twilight swallowed him whole as Lawson and I threw him over Stillwater Ridge.
I don’t regret it.
And that’s the part that scares me.
Atlas moves steadily a few yards ahead of us, her big Dapple Gray frame sure and calm as always. Lawson sits easy in the saddle, shoulders relaxed, posture loose in a way that makes it look like he’s not the slightest bit rattled. But I know better.
Which is why the two of us woke up early to check the north fence line after the heavy snow over the past couple of days. It’s the kind of chore thatneedsdoing, whether you want to or not. Because let’s face it, that’s life on a ranch.
Lawson doesn’t look back at me.
He doesn’t have to.
He knows I’m drowning.
And I know he knows.
That’s the thing about him. He reads the storm before it breaks. He feels the shift in the air before the thunder hits. It used to piss me off when I was younger—when the urge to let my temper loose overrode my fear of being like my father. He’d read my moods before I even understood them myself. He’d step in steady and solid, when all I wanted to do was self-destruct.
But now?
Now I’m grateful for it in a way I don’t quite have words for.
We ride in silence for a while, only the sounds of the creaking of leather, the soft jingle of tack, and the rhythmic exhale of two horses cutting through the cold, allowing my thoughts to spiral in a fast and vicious circle I can’t seem to break free from.
