Page 35 of The Final Cut

My shampoo.

Someone went to Blackwood House, collected my things, picked up my cat, packed my clothes, and arranged my life in this room while I sat in a hospital waiting area with Cal’s blood beneath my nails.

My fingers curl around the edge of the sink.

I want to be angry about it.

I am angry about it.

I am also grateful, and that feels like losing an argument I never wanted to have in the first place.

Beyond the bedroom, the wall of windows looks out over the marsh. Retractable blinds are stacked high, leaving the glass bare. Dark green water glints between tall reeds. A clear patch stretches between the cabin to just before the tree line.

Ever stands in that patch with an axe in his hands.

He’s shed the shirt. Sweat clings to his back, individual trails of droplets, visible even from a distance, pushing their way down the corded path of muscle and sinew. Shoulders. Arms. The knotted ridge of his spine…all of it catches my eye and refuses to let go.

The hard flex of tendon and muscle as he lifts the axe and brings it down into a log with clean, brutal force makes my mouth go dry.

Wood splits.

He sets another piece on the stump.

Swings again.

No wasted motion. No dramatic display. Only that damn control of his driven into labor, over and over, like if he chops enough wood, the image of me under a gun might finally leave his head.

It won’t. I know that because the image of Cal bleeding will never leave mine.

The axe comes down again.

Sweat slides along the side of his throat. His hair is damp, dark against his forehead. His jaw is set in a line so hard it makes my chest ache.

I stand at the window and watch him longer than I mean to. The anger inside me shifts. It doesn’t vanish, but it finds another shape.

Ever is beautiful in a way that has always felt tied to function. Built for standing between danger and the people behind him. Built for locked doors, long nights, quiet endurance. He doesn’t shine like Shiloh. He doesn’t command like Nash. He doesn’t haunt the air like Deacon.

He holds. Even when holding costs him.

The axe pauses halfway up. His head turns, and our gazes lock through the glass.

The air changes so fast I feel it in the goosebumps that break out along my skin.

He stands there with the axe in one hand, chest rising and falling, eyes fixed on me. The distance between the clearing and the bedroom window ought to make the look he gives me weaker. It doesn’t. It still hits like a physical touch.

I remember a meme Sonny sent me once. When a woman needed to apologize to her man, the most efficient means of doing so was to pull her hair back into a ponytail and…get to work.

At the time, I laughed so hard I nearly choked on my coffee.

Now I stand in a borrowed sweatshirt that smells like hospital and swamp, grief lodged under my ribs and a man outside who thinks walking away means leaving less damage behind.

Maybe I owe him words, but I’ve always been shit at words.

Eyes on Ever, I lift my hands to my hair. Ever goes very still.

There is no hair tie on my wrist. Only rubber bands. I find one that won’t rip too much of my hair out if I’m careful, gather my hair slowly, and twist it up. The movement lifts the sweatshirt, exposing a strip of skin at my stomach.

His gaze drops, and heat flashes through me, low and sharp.