Directly inside across from the entrance was a giant penny brick hearth, big enough to boil pots of water inside. To the left was a dining table he likely hammered together himself. To the right was the kitchen with all natural wood cabinets, countertops, and appliances that almost seemed out of place they were so new and stainless. A large eight-layer dehydrator was on the counter, running steadily.
“That doesn’t eat up all your solar?” I asked, waving at it.
“What? Oh, probably. I don’t use a lot of electric. Get up early. Go to bed when it’s dark. No need for all the solar I got. Especially now with the roof.”
“The roof?”
“Yeah, that’s the new Tesla roof shit. Doesn’t look like it, but it is solar. Got the batteries on the wall of the closet.”
“What are you drying?”
“Blueberries.”
“I was expecting jerky.”
“Not really hunting season right now,” he informed me, going to the cabinet to drag down two mugs, waving a hand to the coffee pot and the whiskey, silently asking which I’d prefer. It was late enough for it, so I waved at the whiskey.
“Not exactly blueberry season either,” I reasoned.
“Got a couple bushes in a greenhouse a few acres back.”
Ranger would likely be the only person in Jersey – outside of maybe Hailstorm – that would survive the end of the world as we know it. Hell, he probably wouldn’t even know shit had gone down.
Aside from things he couldn’t grow himself like coffee and booze, he lived pretty much entirely off the land. He hunted occasionally. Fished. Grew fruit and vegetables. And now, apparently, had animals for eggs and dairy.
He had medical supplies, and the training that went along with them.
Solar and wind power.
A well.
The lakes.
Everything.
He could live out his life here permanently. In fact, that was likely his plan. He only came out when he had to. He only dealt with other human beings when he happened upon them in the woods, when Quin demanded he come into the office, or when we threw a client on his doorstep.
“So, what happened?” Ranger asked, waving toward the center of the room where a couch and a chair were situated around a coffee table covered in books.
We moved in that direction, him dropping down on the couch, me the chair facing the front window where a line of dog beds were butted up against one another, big bones on each of them for gnawing down those massive teeth of theirs in their leisure time.
“You know what happened.”
“Don’t get a lot of conversation out here, humor me.”
“Got to Carson City…”
“Kept your hands to yourself that long?”
“Fucking superhuman self-control,” I admitted.
I would never consider myself someone who had a problem controlling his urges. Acting on them when I wanted to? Sure. But never struggling to keep my hands to myself.
Sloane changed all that.
Every moment of every goddamn day, all I could think about was touching her, reaching across the center console and putting my hand on her thigh, backing her up against the wall in the elevator, popping her up on the bathroom counter and getting a taste of her, waking her up with my tongue and fingers.
It was fucking constant.
Never-ending.
I had never needed to work so hard to avoid touching a woman before.
It was a goddamn miracle I held out as long as I had.
“And then?” he prompted as we both threw back our drinks.
“And then I lost control,” I admitted as Ranger got up to walk across the room, bringing back the bottle of whiskey, pouring us each another round.
“And?”
I couldn’t even meet his eyes as I admitted the truth, doing it while addressing my drink instead. “I left.”
“Oh, you fuck,” he said on a sigh.
“Yeah,” I agreed, tipping up my second drink.
“Not a word about leaving?”
“Nope.”
“Christ. Feeling guilty yet?”
“Felt guilty as I was fucking doing it.”
“It’s not just about a fuck.”
“It was never about a fuck,” I agreed.
“You got under those guards,” he assumed.
“Yeah.”
“Warm under there,” he went on.
“Mhmm,” I agreed, reaching for the bottle again.
It was surprising, actually, what a depth of warmth and sweetness that was under all that ambition, those guards, that coldness she wore to keep people from getting too close, from learning her secrets.
“Sucks,” he told me, nodding, acknowledging the situation for what it was. And, somehow, it helped ease the anger I was feeling, the resentment toward the situation as a whole. No one would ever really accuse me of being the sharing sort, but I suddenly understood its merits. Not to have to hold everything in. Not to internalize disappointment, and end up turning it into rage.
I got it.
And what was my next thought, you might ask?
That I hoped Sloane could get that too, that she could find connections, that she could feel safe enough to open up, to let people in, to purge all that pain and disappointment, to see what good shit it could be replaced with.