Page 56 of Finding His Redemption

It became their ritual. Every night after Oliver was asleep, Jax would call. Sometimes they talked for hours, sometimesjust a few minutes. Sometimes about serious things—his time in prison, her struggles as a single mom—but more often about the small, ordinary details that made up a life. Favorite foods. Childhood memories. Books they’d read. Movies they’d seen.

And each night, as they talked, the feeling of being watched gradually receded. It never quite disappeared, but it became manageable, a low-level hum rather than a screaming alarm.

Until the night it came back with a vengeance.

chapter

sixteen

Nessie didn’t receivemany requests to rent out the bakery’s dining space after hours, but occasionally, someone would ask, and she always accepted. It meant an extremely long workday, followed by a night of very little sleep, but she just couldn’t afford to turn down the extra money.

Oliver was upstairs with Tate and Mariah, who had offered to watch him while Nessie hosted the paint-and-sip bachelorette party. The future bride was pregnant, so the sips had to be caffeine-free, which had been a fun challenge to create. She’d also made dick shaped cookies, because, duh, what else did you eat at a bachelorette party?

It’d been fun, and made her nostalgic about her days as a waitress, when she was part of a sisterhood of other twenty-somethings whose biggest worries were hangovers and whether they’d have enough money for rent. Before Oliver. Before Alek. Before everything fell apart, she had to rebuild herself from scratch.

The last of the women had left twenty minutes ago, giggling and clutching their masterpieces—abstract paintings that looked more like colorful vomit than art, but they’d been proud of them. Nessie had collected the empty cups and plates, wiped down thetables, and was now stacking chairs, her back aching from being on her feet for nearly twenty hours straight.

She should have been exhausted. Was exhausted. But something kept her moving, kept her from heading upstairs to collapse into bed. Maybe it was the lingering energy from the party, or maybe it was the fact that she hadn’t heard from Jax in two days.

Two days.

It shouldn’t matter. She shouldn’t care. But their nightly phone calls had become such a constant in her life that their absence felt like a missing tooth, something she kept poking at with her tongue, unable to ignore the empty space.

She’d never had a friendship quite like this one, built on late-night phone calls and shared vulnerabilities, on the kind of honesty that only seemed possible in the dark. She’d told him things she’d never told anyone, about the loneliness of single motherhood, about the fear that sometimes kept her awake at night. And he’d shared pieces of himself too, carefully measured fragments about his time overseas, about the puppy that had saved his sanity in prison, about the guilt that ate at him like acid.

But now, silence.

She grabbed another chair, flipping it onto the table with more force than necessary. The crash echoed through the empty bakery, and she winced, glancing toward the ceiling where Oliver was hopefully asleep.

Maybe Jax was busy. Maybe Walker had him working longer hours. Maybe the sheriff had finally made his move and?—

No. She couldn’t think like that. If something had happened to him, she would have heard about it. Solace was too small for secrets, especially ones involving the Ridge.

The bakery felt different at night, bigger somehow, with shadows pooling in the corners and the familiar daytime soundsreplaced by the hum of the refrigerator and the occasional creak of the old building settling. She’d grown used to the nighttime quiet, but tonight it felt heavier, more oppressive.

Through the front windows, she could see the empty street, the darkened storefronts, the distant glow of the Rusty Spur at the edge of town.

Normal. Quiet. Safe.

But as she checked the deadbolt lock, the hair on the back of her neck stood up. She froze and scanned the street through the window again.

Nothing. Just shadows and streetlights and the occasional car passing on Main Street.

Shaking her head at her paranoia, she finished locking up and headed for the kitchen and the stairs that led to her apartment. But with each step, the sensation intensified—eyes boring into her back, watching, waiting. She quickened her pace, heart pounding as she double-checked that the back door was locked. It was. She leaned against the prep counter, breathing hard, telling herself not to have a panic attack.

This wasn’t her imagination. This wasn’t paranoia. Someone had been watching her. She was sure of it.

Her hands shook as she pulled out her phone and dialed Jax’s number.

“Hey,” he answered, sounding cautious, uncertain.

“Jax.” His name came out in a breathless rush. “I think someone’s out there.”

The change in his tone was immediate. “Where are you?”

“Home. I just locked up the bakery and—” She broke off, moving to the window to peer out at the empty street. “I swear someone was watching me.”

“Are you alone?”

---