Page 110 of Lost Then Found
She shrugs. “Tried it once. Didn’t love it.”
I shake my head, still grinning, but she doesn’t let it drop. Her expression shifts just slightly, something quieter settling in her gaze.
“Something’s bothering you,” she says, nodding toward my journal. “And when’d you start writing? Is that a diary?”
Damn her and her creepy intuition.
I flip the cover closed with one hand, slipping it back into my coat pocket,heat crawling up my neck. “It’s ajournal. And it’s none of your damn business.”
Her lips twitch, like she’s debating whether to push or let it go. For now, she leans back in her chair again, letting the silence stretch between us.
Nobody in my family knows about Jack.
They don’t know how funny he was, how he could make a room full of exhausted men laugh like hell even when we were running on fumes. Not about how he always had my back, always knew the right thing to say when the weight of it all got too fucking heavy.
They don’t know how he used to steal extra MREs for me when I forgot to eat, how he’d sit next to me in the quiet moments, passing a flask between us under the desert sky, talking about nothing and everything.
They don’t know about the way Jack used to lean back against the barracks wall, arms crossed over his broad chest, shaking his head as I went on about the ranch—about the way the sky stretched wide and endless over the pastures, about the scent of fresh-cut hay after a storm.
And it’s not that I didn’t want to tell them. I just didn’t know how. Not without feeling the loss of him down to my core.
Not without mentioning how I was the one who got him killed.
Not without admitting that I spend every single day carrying the guilt of it, wondering if I’ll ever be able to set it down.
A boot nudges against my shin, jolting me from my thoughts.
Wren doesn’t say anything at first, just watches me with sharp blue eyes. Then she tips her head, like she’s trying to get a better read on me. “You still haven’t told me why you look like a sack of shit.”
I rub a hand down my face before dragging it through my hair.
Wren smirks. “Let me guess—Lark. Trouble in paradise, huh?”
I snort, shaking my head. “Something like that.”
She leans back in her chair, kicking one leg over the other. “What happened?”
For a second, I debate brushing it off, making some excuse, keeping it all locked up where it’s safer. But this is Wren. She’s been up in my business since she was a kid, following me around the ranch, asking too many damnquestions, never letting me off easy.
I stare at Old Faithful for a long moment, the wood dark and rotted in places, the whole structure leaning just slightly.
“She just…she doesn’t trust me,” I say finally.
Wren doesn’t react right away. Just tilts her head, waiting.
I shrug, kicking at a rock with the toe of my boot. “Maybe she shouldn’t.”
Her brows pull together. “Why not?”
“Because I left her, Wren.” The words come out flat, heavy, like they’ve been sitting in my chest for too damn long. “I could’ve stayed. Could’ve built a life here, with her, like I always told her I would. But I didn’t.” I shake my head. “I wanted to go. I wanted to see what else was out there, away from all of this. And I left her behind to do it.”
Wren considers that, chewing the inside of her cheek.
I let out a bitter laugh, shaking my head. “She said she can’t be with someone who might leave her again. And she’s right. What proof does she have that I won’t?”
She leans forward, resting her arms on her thighs. “Boone, you left when you were eighteen. Everybody’s an idiot at eighteen, for starters. And you didn’t leave because you didn’t love her. You needed to know what else there was. You needed to get away from this place for a bit, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
I stare at my hands, flexing them against my knees. “That doesn’t change the fact that I still walked away from her.”
