Page 98 of Breaking His Exile

She threw the crumpled note. It hit the wall and bounced into the corner.

Tilly didn’t flinch.

Rainey stood up. The anger moved through her body like something with its own pulse, warming her skin, tightening her hands. She pulled on jeans from the pile Mariah had left, found socks, shoved her feet into boots. The guitar sat in its case by the wall. The notebook lay open on the nightstand where she’d left it before falling asleep, the page still showing the crossed-out lyric.

Past the last good road, past where the signal dies.

She’d drawn a line through it yesterday while sitting on the porch with Evander three feet away. The new line sat underneath, half-formed, something about belonging she hadn’t finished because finishing it meant committing to the idea that the cabin wasn’t just somewhere to hide.

She closed the notebook. Hard. Couldn’t look at it.

He’d been lying beside her while she worked on a song about staying. He’d been listening to her rewrite a song about escape into a song about belonging, and the whole time he’d been packing a bag in his head.

Tilly whined softly at the door.

Rainey grabbed her jacket from the chair. Checked the pockets: phone, the spare key to her car that Brandt had returned, a hair tie. Not much. She didn’t need much.

She looked at Tilly. The dog stood square in the doorway, her dark eyes fixed on Rainey’s face with an intensity that felt like accusation. He left me too.

“Come on,” Rainey said.

Tilly moved.

The house was silent. No one else awake at this hour, or if they were, they were staying quiet about it. Rainey moved through the hallway, down the stairs, past the kitchen where Johanna’s coffee pot had just started its morning gurgle. The front door opened without a sound. She stepped onto the porch into air so cold it burned her lungs.

The yard sat empty. Gray light, no color yet, the mountains a dark mass against the eastern sky. No movement from the bunkhouse. No lights in the barn except the single security bulb over the main door.

She crossed the yard toward the equipment shed where Walker kept the ranch vehicles. Her breath plumed white. Tilly moved at her heel, close, her shoulder brushing Rainey’s calf with every step.

She’d take the UTV. Keys would be in it or hanging nearby. She knew the route to Evander’s cabin — not perfectly, but well enough from his descriptions. Up the east ridge, follow the game trail, cut northwest where the pines thinned. Three hours if she pushed.

She could catch him before he reached the tree line.

The equipment shed door stood half-open. Rainey reached for it.

“Hey.”

She turned. Gemma stood at the corner of the barn, wrapped in a fleece jacket, her blonde hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. She had a travel mug in one hand and the easy, alert posture of someone who’d been up for a while.

“You’re out early,” Gemma said.

Rainey didn’t answer immediately. Her hand stayed on the shed door. Tilly pressed against her leg, watching Gemma with the steady attention Rainey had come to recognize as the dog’s baseline setting for strangers.

“Evander left,” Rainey said. No point hiding it.

Gemma’s expression softened. “I know. I heard his truck.”

“Truck? He doesn’t have a truck here.”

“One of the ranch ones.” Gemma took a sip from her mug. “He took it about twenty minutes ago. Headed east.”

Rainey stared at her. “You saw him leave.”

“I was already up. Couldn’t sleep.” Gemma shrugged. “River snores like a chainsaw. Sometimes I just… wander.”

It tracked. River did snore.

“I’m going after him,” Rainey said.