Page 76 of Breaking His Exile

The morning unspooled from there. Nessie came back with food — the cinnamon rolls from Maggie’s bag, eggs from the kitchen, more coffee. They arranged themselves in the room with the easy, unself-conscious comfort of women who knew each other well and had collectively decided to extend that comfort to a stranger without making a production of it. No one asked Rainey to talk about the mountain. No one asked about Evander, not directly. They just occupied the space around her, warm and solid, and let her sit in the middle of it.

Tilly stayed at Rainey’s feet through all of it. When the room got loud — Greta and Maggie arguing amiably about some trail route, Nessie talking about whether the cake had survived last night’s chaos — Rainey dropped a hand to the dog’s neck and felt her settle.

Evander. Present through the dog, through the borrowed flannel she’d folded into the pack, through the muscle memory of reaching sideways in the dark and finding him there.

She hadn’t gone to see him.

She told herself it was because she’d been asleep before she could. She told herself it was because Bear was with him, because he needed to rest, because she’d only be in the way. She sat with Tilly’s weight against her leg and let herself believe all of it.

Nessie sat down beside her on the bed, close but not crowding, and said in that warm, no-nonsense voice, “You holding up?”

“Mostly.”

“River means well.”

“I know.”

“But.”

Rainey exhaled slowly through her nose. “Eight years is a long time. I can’t just— one hug doesn’t fix what eight years did to me. Does that make me⁠—”

“No,” Nessie said.

“I haven’t finished the sentence.”

“Doesn’t matter what’s at the end of it. No.” She picked at a thread on her sleeve. “When Jax and I first got together, I spent three months waiting for him to be a lie. He’d done everything right. He kept showing up, patient as anything, and I kept bracing for the part where he turned out to be what I was afraid of.” She paused. “Trust doesn’t rebuild because someone wants it to. It rebuilds because time passes without another betrayal. River wanting to fix it tonight doesn’t mean you have to let him.”

Rainey stared at the guitar case in the corner. “I don’t know where to start with him.”

“You don’t have to know yet. You just survived something. Give yourself a day before you start rebuilding the rest of your life.”

Gemma arrived mid-morning with a basket of toiletries she’d apparently assembled from various women around the ranch and set on the dresser beside Mariah’s clothes. She had an easy, warm energy — the kind that filled a room without demanding anything from it — and she settled herself on the chair Naomi had vacated with a cup of coffee and an uncomplicated smile.

“He talked about you constantly,” Gemma said. “River. From almost the day I arrived here. I knew your name before I knew half the people on this ranch.”

Rainey looked at her. “What did he say?”

“That you were tough. That you could play guitar well enough to make people cry. That he regretted leaving you behind every single day and didn’t know how to say it.” She tilted her cup toward the window. “He’s not good at saying things directly. I’ve noticed.”

“He never was.”

“He lights up when he talks about you.” Gemma’s voice was easy and genuine. “I thought you should know. Whatever complicated thing exists between you two — he’s not pretending it doesn’t matter. He’s just afraid you won’t forgive him.”

Rainey turned that over. She watched Gemma’s face and found nothing but honesty there. She looked good with River. Not just aesthetically — there was a steadiness in how she talked about him that made Rainey believe she actually saw him. All of him, the funny and the fractured both.

River deserved to be seen like that.

The ugly twist she’d felt last night looking at them loosened slightly. Not gone. But loosened.

“Does he know you came in here and pitched him?” Rainey asked.

Gemma laughed. “God, no. He’d die.”

Greta was leaning against the windowsill with her coffee, half-listening, and she caught Rainey’s eye and offered a small, sideways smile.

“He told me about you,” Rainey said to her. “Evander. At the cabin. He mentioned you’d been on backcountry trips together.”

“Eight years’ worth.” Greta looked out the window. “He’s the only person I know who actually understands the silence out there. Most people get uncomfortable with it. Evander treats it like furniture.” A beat. “We’ve never been anything except friends, by the way. If you were wondering.”