“It’s all just stuff.”

“You don’t get it!” Her voice rises with frustration. “Look where we are!” She throws a hand up in the air. “In this cute little secluded apartment at your parents’ house that was just sitting here, waiting for you. I have no family to run to. No real friends that I can count on. I have no one.”

Tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear so I can see more of her face, I whisper, “You have me.”

She pulls the wool blanket up around us and, roping her arm around my waist, she rests her head against my chest and squeezes me tight. I want to squeeze her back—I want to do more than just squeeze her—but I’m hesitant, for so many reasons beyond just her injuries. So, I settle for weaving my fingers through her long hair.

“That night in the hotel . . . now that I know what it can feel like . . .” Her voice drifts. When she speaks again, it’s with a hesitant whisper. “I want to feel that way again. With you. I just can’t now. Not until all this is sorted out.”

“I’ll wait.”

We lie among the fluffy pillows, listening to the fire crackle, smelling the burning leaves—I stuffed a few handfuls into the woodstove, just because I love the smell of burning leaves.

Her breathing evens out, her heart beats steady against my side.

I absorb all of it.

As I fall fast and hard.

“What’s down here?”

“If I tell you, then it’s not a surprise.”

“And you’re sure your family won’t come out here?”

“Yup. My mom and sister are in comas and my dad’s at some charity police force luncheon. Besides, no one’s been down this way in years.” I ease the Barracuda down the old, uneven path. Normally I wouldn’t think to drive it down, but it’s too far for Alex to walk while she’s still healing. And I really want to see her dip her fingers into a lake for the first time.

Up ahead the water is sparkling in the noonday sunlight. The blue skies are what I miss most about home. Portland always feels gray in comparison.

“A lake!” Alex turns, her own eyes now sparkling brighter than any sun rays on water.

I shrug. “You said you’ve never been to a lake.”

“And you actually remembered . . .” She doesn’t wait for me; she climbs out of the car and begins walking toward the sandy clearing where my sister and I used to set up for the day, back when we’d come out here to swim in the summertime.

I follow her, the wool blanket that she can’t seem to part with tucked under my arm.

“This is just . . .” Her words drift. She stands at the water’s edge, wrapped in my old gray-and-taupe flannel jacket, inhaling the crisp air, her eyes taking in the trees and mountains facing us. “This is me. This is what I want. I could trade it all today, for this. Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever stepped into a place and just known that you were meant to be there?”

“Kind of.”

She glances over her shoulder at me, waiting.

I pick my path toward her, unfolding the wool blanket out as I approach. From behind, I wrap the blanket and my arms around her slender body, pulling her into my chest. “One night, I got out of my car to help this girl with a flat tire. I didn’t know it right then, though. But I was meant to meet her.”

She tips her head back to set a light kiss on my jawline, sending my blood racing through my body and my arms tightening around her.

A flock of snow geese that were resting across the lake suddenly take flight, their wings flapping against the water, kicking up splashes that glimmer in the sun.

Alex smiles. “That water must be cold.”

I release her from my grip long enough for her to dip her red-painted fingertips in. She pulls back immediately with an exaggerated shiver.

“See that stream over there?” I stretch an arm to point out the small branch coming off the lake. “It’s fed off the mountain thaw. So is this lake. There’s kind of a funny story to it. The stream runs all the way down into our neighbor’s property. Our neighbor, Mr. Fitzgerald—he’s gone now—didn’t like it so close to their barn. For years, he’d try to stop it. My granddad would help him. They’d dump gravel and dirt. One year, they built a dam. But every single spring, the water would find its way onto the Fitzgerald property.” I chuckle, remembering the two old men standing over the stream, scratching their beards in wonder. “Finally they just gave up and let it be. Realized there was no stopping it. The water was going to go where it was meant to go.” I feel a smile touch my lips. “My granddad used to tell us that story every spring, when we came out here after the thaw. Of course, it wasn’t just a story to him. He turned it into a life lesson about telling the truth. I had a problem with lying when I was little,” I admit, sheepishly. “He said the truth is like that water: it doesn’t matter how hard you try to bury it; it’ll always find some way back to the surface. It’s resilient.”

I feel her body relax into my chest. “I really like that story. I want to be like water, too. I want to be resilient, to go where I’m meant to go.”

I graze her cheek with my nose. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

She gasps and pulls away to turn and face me, excitement sparkling in her eyes. “I know what tattoo I want now.”

Beans. I assume that’s his nickname, given he’s tattooed the letters on his knuckles. Otherwise he’s a dumbass.

A dumbass whose wary eyes drift between the two of us, frowning every time they land on Alex’s bruised cheek. “What are we going with today?”

Alex’s bright eyes are full of determination. “A tattoo.” Once she decided that this was what she wanted to do, there was no convincing her otherwise, banged-up body and all. Luckily we’re the only ones at Get Inked—a small but reputable shop in Bend.

He smirks—we are in a tattoo parlor, after all—and then asks, “Do you know what you want it to look like?”

“I was thinking something to do with water. Like a symbol or something.”

“Hmm . . . Can’t say I’ve done one of those. Let’s see what we can find.” With a fast flick of his hand, he turns his oversized monitor to face us. He hits a few keys to open up a search engine for “water symbols.” All kinds come up.

Alex immediately zeros in on a circular symbol with waves inside. “That one.” She nods. “Here.” She touches the right side of her pelvis, where I imagine her panty line might run.

“Are you sure about this?” I ask in a low voice. “What about . . .” What is Viktor—the guy who dictates what she does, what she wears, her hair color, everything—going to say about a permanent mark on her body? And without his permission.

She sets her jaw with defiance. “Yes.”

“All right, then. Let’s get this show on the road,” Beans mutters. To him, it’s just another design to etch into a body. To her, it’s a decision she is making without consultation with or authorization from Viktor. A decision made by her, for her.

To me, it’s Alex making a permanent mark on her body with something that represents us, even in an indirect way. And the idea of that makes my chest swell.

After printing out the symbol and filling in all the required paperwork, Beans leads us into one of the rooms and instructs Alex to lie down. “You’ll need to roll your pants down and push your shirt up,” he says, while removing the needle from its sterile packaging.

“You sure you want that there? It’s going to hurt,” I warn her.

“I can handle it.” She eases herself up onto the table and lies down, adjusting her clothes as instructed, the dark bruises over her midsection and h*ps glaringly obvious under the bright lights.

She definitely can handle it. She’s already handled so much more. As dainty and fragile as Alex appears, she’s a lot stronger than I’ve given her credit for.

Beans turns around and falters at the sight of her bruises, shooting a glare my way.

“He didn’t do this to me,” Alex says, reaching out for me.

“None of my business. I’m just here to ink you,” Beans mumbles, transfer ready.

I hold her hand and her gaze the entire time—through every wince and every teeth clench, every smile—as Beans carves a small round symbol into her body. And when he’s done, I refuse to let go.

“I’m not taking you back to your house tonight, Alex,” I announce, blocking her entry into my Barracuda.

She frowns. “But we have to go back. You have work, and I—”

“I’m not taking you back there until I have to.”

She stares at me for a long time, and then she nods. “Okay, Jesse.”

TWENTY-SIX

Water

now

“You should go visit Amber,” Ginny suggests from her perch, a purple-and-blue quilt stretched out on her lap.

“I tried. She’s sleeping.” I’m pretty sure she has a hangover from last night at Roadside, since I saw Meredith driving in with her car, followed closely by Sheriff Gabe. “Why?”

“Because your fidgeting is giving me a headache.”

I slide my hands under my butt. “Sorry.” I’ve been torn between preparing Ginny and surprising her, knowing that neither will go over well. When Teresa phoned this morning to ask if she and Zoe could come out at two this afternoon, I decided on something in between. That’s why, when I hear the crackle of tires on loose gravel, I blurt out, “So I have something to tell you.” I’m not even looking at her as I continue. “I met a nice lady at the store. She told me that she was selling her twelve-year-old daughter’s horse because . . .” I relay the situation in a quick, planned speech that I practiced several times in the mirror. “It’s just the two of them and you don’t have to say yes, but I figured you could use the money and you could make this little girl very happy. She’s been crying over her horse for days.” When the red Honda Civic rounds the corner, I add, “This lady bought your quilt. The latest one, with the horses on it.”

I dare to glance at Ginny once before I get up to meet Teresa and her daughter, Zoe, a pretty, wide-eyed girl with wavy brown hair. The expression on her face is completely unreadable.

But she hasn’t reached for her broom yet, so I guess there’s that.

“Two hundred a month for her own stall, plus any veterinarian bills. And she has to use my veterinarian.” She lops on a spoonful of mashed potatoes—I made the real kind; not that awful boxed stuff—and then takes a helping of a pot roast that I thought I’d try out. “And it’s just her and her mother on this property. No one else. Not this useless hunk of an ex-husband, not any coaches or trainers. Just those two.”

I nod. I had already figured as much and warned Teresa. She seemed fine with it, and was impressed with the barn and the land. And Ginny, as cranky as she can be, seemed to take to Zoe right away, asking her questions about Lulu’s habits and which stable she might prefer.

I thought that I might get whacked over the head with that broom, but when I left her on the porch to make dinner and read a bit, she was unusually quiet and content. “So, can I call her after dinner and tell her? I know Zoe’s probably waiting anxiously.”

Ginny studies the meat on her fork intently as she chews a mouthful and swallows. “It was a stable hand.”

I frown.

“He was in his late twenties. A big, burly man. But soft, like a teddy bear. Earl was his name. He worked for my dad for three years, one month, one week.” She twists the fork around. A bead of gravy drips down and hits her plate. “Four days. I was about that girl’s age when I first met Earl. I was in those stables every single day, rain or snow, it didn’t matter, helping to muck out the stalls and care for the horses. We had so many back then, it was hard to keep up.” She frowns at the meat. “At first, he just said hi to me. Asked how school was. I was an odd child—wary of people, even then—so I kept my distance. Eventually, though, he became a friend. He taught me how to climb trees. That’s what won me over. He was an excellent tree climber.” She finally eats the piece of meat, her jaw moving slowly, precisely. “After . . . my daddy did most of the work around here, with my help. It was a lot for just the two of us. I’m no idiot. I know that what happened to me isn’t common and that I could have a thousand stable hands through here with no issues. It doesn’t change the fact that I can’t ever be around another one.”

“Yes.” I bob my head rigorously to emphasize my agreement.

“That Zoe girl, she really loves horses. She lit up around our Felixes.” Ginny’s narrowed gaze follows the horizon out over the mountains. “My daddy always said that I lit up around the horses, too.”

What is it about this blanket?

I wouldn’t describe it as soft. In fact, it’s almost abrasive. Yet, leaning against a pile of cushions in front of the burning woodstove with a book from Amber, and wrapped within my checkered wool blanket from The Salvage Yard, I feel more contented than my limited memory can recall.