Jason’s gaze softened. “And Annie…”
I smiled. “And Annie.”
~~~~~
“Have you seen Jason?” I asked first Mase and Camille, who were moseying around the Bodega Bay Riders’ Ranch collecting firewood; then Carlos, who was setting up a stall in the stable to be a comfortable living-space-slash-prison-cell for his sister while Vanessa remained locked in the neighboring stall, chatting nonstop with nobody; then Chris and Harper, who were inside the ranch house, cleaning up the gory remnants of the attack that had spurred our early departure months ago so it was at least partially habitable for the few days we would be camping there; then Gabe and Sanchez, who were unloading gear from the cart and wagon.
But nobody had seen Jason for nearly a half hour, not since we’d arrived at the ranch.
I found Zoe just outside the stable’s pasture door, rubbing down the last of the horses with Sam. Her hair was up in a short ponytail, and she was wearing her usual dark, fitted tank top, jeans, and combat boots combo, making her appear both harder and more laid-back than she’d been the last few years.
The weeks since leaving Tahoe had really been the only time we’d had together since the outbreak, and I was enjoying finding out all kinds of new things about my best friend. She was stronger, both physically and emotionally—instead of emerging shattered from a situation that would have broken most people, she’d come out more decisive, willful, and sure of herself—and she was more capable and confident than the Zoe I remembered, which made me smile. Art gallery and bartender Zoe seemed like a washed-out reflection of the vibrant, vivacious woman standing in front of me.
I leaned one shoulder against the metal door frame. “Have you seen your brother?”
Zoe’s face scrunched up, making her look constipated, before she turned away from me to continue brushing Shadow. I knew that face; it meant she was hiding something from me.
“Zo…” Squinting, I visually scanned the part of the pasture that I could see while I telepathically scanned the rest of the pastureland around the ranch for Jason’s chestnut gelding. When I didn’t feel the unnamed horse’s mind anywhere, I expanded my search. Only then did I find him—in town, heading straight for our home street. “He’s going home? Why?” And why isn’t Zo going with him?
“I don’t know?” Without looking at me, Zoe gestured inside the stable, indicating the stall immediately to the left of the doorway; it was the same stall that Wings had favored during our several-week stay on the ranch during the winter. “Just go after him already.” Zoe glanced at me over her shoulder, smirking. “You know that’s what you’re going to do anyway, and I’m not crazy enough to try to stop you, so…”
Nodding, I strode to the stall doorway, where Wings stood with her head stuffed in a bucket that I could only assume contained oats or some other tasty snack. She lifted her head just enough to look me in the eye, murmured “Yum” in my mind, and returned to eagerly stuffing her face.
I couldn’t bring myself to disturb her well-deserved rest by re-saddling her and asking her to carry me the mile or so between the ranch and Jason’s house. If I asked her, she would do it, but that didn’t make it right.
“Enjoy, Pretty Girl,” I told her before leaving her to munch on her oats in peace.
When I turned back to Zoe, I found her cinching Shadow’s saddle around his onyx belly.
“Take him,” she said. “It was a short day, anyway, and he still seems a little antsy.”
I frowned, feeling bad about delaying Shadow’s relaxation time, but after receiving his reassurance as well as Zoe’s that he would be okay with another short trip, I nodded. “Thanks, Zo.”
She flashed me a grin that looked just a tiny bit forced. “Any time.”
Several minutes later, I was riding Shadow down the gravel driveway at a walk. I left the stable through the door leading to the pasture. “Jack,” I said to my German shepherd. “I need you.”
“With Pup,” he said, showing me an image of Annie, flanked by two dogs—Jack and Cooper—while she carried on an intense telepathic conversation with a mama loon, who was floating in the pond behind the ranch house.
I briefly looped myself into their conversation, hearing the bird express her concerns about how much lower her pond was this spring than it had been the previous year.
“I’m going to be gone for an hour or two,” I told Annie, interrupting her interspecies conversation. “Stay with Cooper…and don’t go any further from the house.”
Annie responded with the telepathic equivalent of a pout.
“I mean it,” I said, a warning in my mental voice.
“Okay,” she agreed without any more fuss. I wasn’t sure if she was so easy to manage because her mind was more attuned to a pack structure like the mind of a wolf because of how fully she’d embraced drifting, because she’d lived among dogs and wolves for months, or because she was simply an easygoing kid, but I wasn’t about to complain.
I let her know that I was pleased, then put our connection on the back burner, so I could speak only to Jack. “Leave Annie with Cooper and come find me.”
“Yes, Mother.”
About ten minutes later, I was swaying atop Shadow as he lazily clip-clopped down my street, the usual coastal fog hindering my view of the bay on the left, of the road up ahead, of the houses on the right…of pretty much everything.
I’d been paying attention to the location of Jason’s horse while I rode. He’d been stopped several hundred yards up ahead, presumably at Jason’s house, but suddenly started moving further away.
“That’s odd,” I mumbled. Is Jason going to my house?
The only other logical explanation I could come up with was that he was heading out to the new town center, the marina near the end of the peninsula beyond our houses, to let the Town Council know we’d arrived. I shook my head. The Council already knew we were arriving today, and had given us permission to stay at the ranch until we met with them the following day.
Which brought me back to the deduction that he was going to my house and gave rise to a hoard of questions, the first among them being—Why?
Shadow, Jack, and I continued on through the fog, following Jason’s horse. When I sensed him stop moving again, I was certain about Jason’s destination.
The shape of Jason’s horse formed in the fog as we approached my house. He was standing sentry in the front yard, his reins looped around the deck’s bannister. I dismounted a few yards away and spent several seconds attempting to puzzle out what Jason was doing at my house. And still, I came up with nothing…zip…nada.
I glanced down at Jack, who was sitting patiently beside me. “I’m going in. Can you stay out here and keep an eye on things with Shadow and Nameless?” The poor horse’s moniker, or lack thereof, had become well known among the other animals, amusing them to no end.
Jack barked as he stood and started wagging his tail.
“Let me know if you sense danger.”
He barked his affirmative.
I made my way to the deck stairs, pausing to pick a sprig of lavender from one of the bushes bordering the railing before making my way up the wooden steps. I tried the doorknob but found it locked and quickly hurried back down the stairs and around to the back of the house, where Grams kept the spare key hidden in a flowerpot on the back deck.
When the sole of my boot touched the first stair, the back door creaked open, and I stared up at it. The doorway was empty.
“Jason?” I ascended the stairs and crossed the deck to the open door, the wooden boards groaning as I took each step. I paused in the doorway, peering around the bright, cheery—and empty—kitchen and adjoining dining room. There was no sign of Jason, other than the door being opened…which had to be him, right?
I stepped over the threshold, feeling a little creeped out. The quietness was eerie, as was Jason’s apparent absence, and not even the comforting combination of cinnamon, chamomile, wax, and pine scents could ease my burst of anxiety.
&nb
sp; “Jason?” I repeated, a little louder. “Where are—”
“Upstairs, Red,” he called, his voice seeming to float down the stairs and echo in the hallway leading to the back of the house.
I jumped. Pressing my hand to my chest in a vain effort to still my now-racing heart, I hurried through the kitchen and down the hall, my footsteps sounding too loud on the linoleum and hardwood. I made my way up the carpeted stairway, taking the first few steps two at a time but slowing as I neared the top.
“Jason, wha—” I stopped in the hallway just outside my bedroom, my mouth falling open as I stared at Jason through the open doorway. The little sprig of lavender slipped out of my fingers.
There, in the center of the room, surrounded by my antique furniture and delicate ivory and lavender decor and wearing a pair of dark jeans and a white button-down shirt that looked far too pristine to be a part of his post-apocalyptic wardrobe, knelt Jason…on one knee…smiling a small, tight-lipped smile that altered the curve of his scar. It was a secret smile he only ever showed to me and, even then, only on rare occasions.
My breath was nonexistent.
Jason’s eyes seemed deeper, bluer, more intense than usual as he stared back at me. “The world’s gone to shit, and the only time I feel anything anymore is when I’m with you.” He chuckled, letting his dimple show. “The messed up part is, I feel better, happier, around you than I ever did back when the world was whole. I never thought I was capable of this—this…” He shook his head. “Of caring about someone so much that I would do anything for them, be anything for them…give up anything for them. But that’s how I feel every time I look at you.”
Those sapphire eyes blazed into me. “As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “there’s you and me…and then there’s everyone else. You’re the only one I refuse to live without.”
I swallowed, opening my mouth and shutting it again without saying a word.
“Which is why I want to give you this,” he said, extending his fist. He turned his hand over and uncurled his fingers, revealing a tiny wooden circle resting on the center of his palm.
A ring. Does that mean—
“I can’t stand the idea of another day, another minute going by without you knowing—I mean really, truly knowing, deep in your bones—that I love you.” He fell silent, seeming to wait for me to do something, to say something.
When I did neither, simply stood in the doorway, utterly dumbfounded, he rose and slowly made his way toward me. He stopped in front of me and gazed down at me, his eyes filled with so much warmth and hope and love and passion—too much.
Tears welled in my eyes from the intensity of the emotions shining in those blue blue depths. “I—I…” I couldn’t find the right words, probably because I couldn’t wrap my mind around anything he’d just confessed.
He reached his hand up to stroke the backs of his fingers down the side of my face. “Happy tears, I hope…”
I nodded dumbly. They were the happiest tears that ever existed. They were the kind of tears that would run circles around smiles and giggles and laughter.
Jason smiled, just a bit, and lowered his hand. “I’ve never been religious, and I know it’s not your thing either, but I also know how much you value your grandma’s culture”—he touched the Claddagh medallion lying snug and warm against my chest, then lowered his hand to brush his fingertips over the black Celtic knot tattooed on my wrist—“so I thought this would mean more to you than any ceremony or vows.” He raised his hand and once again opened it, giving me a better view of the ring.
Made from a pale golden wood that was almost the color of honey and striated with slivers of brown, the ring had been carved by a deft hand into a more intricate and delicate piece of jewelry than I would have thought possible. Just like the silver medallion I wore around my neck at all times—a gift from my grandpa to Grams on their wedding night—the wooden ring had been carved into the shape of two hands holding a crowned heart. A Claddagh ring.
I stared at it, wide-eyed and even more astonished than I’d been when I’d first caught sight of Jason down on one knee. “Jason, I—did you…did you make that?”
“I did.” His voice was a quiet, low rumble, barely more than a whisper. “And this one.” Again, he raised his left hand, but this time he stopped short of touching my face. Another ring, twin to the one sitting on his palm in every way other than its larger size, had been fitted around his ring finger. The heart pointed inward, signifying that he was taken, that his heart belonged to someone. To me.
Slowly shaking my head, I raised my eyes to meet his. “But when did you…?”
“I had to do something during all those nights I was on watch.” He shrugged, dismissing what was easily the kindest, most generous and thoughtful gift anyone had ever given me as unimportant. “Might as well have been making something to show you that when I say I love you, I mean it…that when I tell you I want to be with you forever, not just right now, I mean it.”
I wet my lips with my tongue, swallowing roughly before speaking. “God, I love you…and I want to be with you forever, too.” I raised my right hand, reaching for the little wooden ring with shaking fingers. I was breathing harder than usual, my heart beating faster than was necessary, as I slipped it onto my left ring finger, the heart pointing inward. It fit perfectly.
The happiest tears on earth spilled over the brims of my eyelids, streaking down my cheeks as I smiled at Jason. I reached up, placing my hands on either side of his face, drinking in the wondrous sight of him, reddish scar and all. “And I want to be with you right now,” I whispered, standing on tiptoes as I pulled his head down.
Our lips touched without any hesitancy, igniting a kiss that was filled with so much love and passion and wanting, that was so sustaining, so fulfilling, that I didn’t think either of us even needed air. Jason’s hands were on my cheeks and jaw, behind my neck, on my shoulders, snaking around my waist, moving wherever he needed them to be to pull me closer to him.
We moved a few steps in some direction and suddenly a wall was against my back, and I was being sandwiched between it and the hard heat that was Jason’s body. His kiss was relentless, demanding more from me. Always more. His hands traveled down the sides of my body, blazing hot trails of desire that pooled low in my abdomen, smoldering, aching, needing. Those hands ended up on my backside, and with a solid grip, Jason lifted me, guiding my legs around his hips.
We’d been here before, like this before, but we’d been interrupted by approaching Crazies. There were no more Crazies in the town, and I would be damned if I was about to let anything else get in the way of us consummating the epic exchange we’d just shared.
“If you…stop,” I told him between gasping breaths and hungry kisses, “I will…kill you…so many…many…times.”
Jason pulled me away from the wall and spun me around, carrying me further into the bedroom. I already had his shirt almost all the way unbuttoned by the time he lowered me onto the bed, only missing the bottom two buttons, which had been wedged between us. I quickly undid the final two, and he shrugged the shirt off, tugging his undershirt over his head in one smooth motion.
That simple unveiling sparked a flurry of disrobing, our hands fighting to unbutton, to unzip, to pull off…until finally, there was no more clothing between us.
As Jason lay atop me, nothing separated us anymore—not fabric, not secrets, not unexpressed emotions.
“God, I love you so fucking much, Red,” Jason said, his voice hoarse. “So fucking much.” With a grunt, he shifted his hips, and there was no more speaking, no more thought. There was only the two of us and the feeling of our bodies being joined together. Nothing else—nobody else—mattered. Just him and me. Together.
~~~~~
“So…what do I call you now?” I asked, snuggling closer against Jason’s side as he wrapped the pale, vine-embroidered comforter and ivory sheets more tightly around us both. I felt like every bone and muscle in my body had been replaced with jelly—ha
ppy, tingly, satisfied jelly.
“Hmmm…” Laughing softly, he pressed his lips to the top of my head. “I know it’s crazy, but…how about ‘Jason’?”
I turned my face up to his, pretending to glare. “You know what I mean.” Lowering my head, I rested my cheek on the firm muscle below his collarbone. “Are you still just my boyfriend, or are you my uber-boyfriend? My perma-boyfriend? My partner?” I wrinkled my nose, not liking the sound of the last.
“Husband?” Jason said, his voice so quiet that the single word was barely audible.
I gulped, and my heart rate quadrupled. “Husband,” I repeated just as quietly. “Which would make me—”
“My wife,” Jason said, louder and sounding more sure of himself.
I glanced up at him, and when I saw the sheer contentment softening his features, my heart soared. I couldn’t stop smiling. I grinned so wide and for so long that my facial muscles ached and my lips trembled.
Minutes passed with nothing but the muffled sounds of our hearts beating and our slowing breaths, until finally, Jason sighed. “We’ve been gone for hours, and it’ll be getting dark soon. We should get back.”
I looked up at his face, resting my chin on his shoulder. “Can’t we stay here for the night? I mean, isn’t this technically our wedding night?” I giggled. “Shouldn’t we stay here and do wedding night things?”
Closing his eyes and tensing his features into a pained expression, Jason groaned. “If only we could. But what if something happened to the others while we were—”
“No, no…you’re right. Of course you’re right.” I frowned, disappointed that our moment of alone time would be so short-lived…memorable, but short-lived. I kissed his shoulder, then his neck and his jawline, and finally his lips. “Come on,” I said, sitting up and tugging the blankets off of Jason in the process. “Let’s go.”
Out Of The Ashes (The Ending Series, #3) Page 30