BooksBarbecue
Back The Edge of Us
Chapters (45)
  1. Contents
  2. chapter one
  3. chapter two
  4. chapter three
  5. chapter four
  6. chapter five
  7. chapter six
  8. chapter seven
  9. chapter eight
  10. chapter nine
  11. chapter ten
  12. chapter eleven
  13. chapter twelve
  14. chapter thirteen
  15. chapter fourteen
  16. chapter fifteen
  17. chapter sixteen
  18. chapter seventeen
  19. chapter eighteen
  20. chapter nineteen
  21. chapter twenty
  22. chapter twenty-one
  23. chapter twenty-two
  24. chapter twenty-three
  25. chapter twenty-four
  26. chapter twenty-five
  27. chapter twenty-six
  28. chapter twenty-seven
  29. chapter twenty-eight
  30. chapter twenty-nine
  31. chapter thirty
  32. chapter thirty-one
  33. chapter thirty-two
  34. chapter thirty-three
  35. chapter thirty-four
  36. chapter thirty-five
  37. chapter thirty-six
  38. chapter thirty-seven
  39. chapter thirty-eight
  40. chapter thirty-nine
  41. epilogue
  42. other books by jamie mcguire
  43. about the author
  44. acknowledgements
  45. out of the woods

They switched phones, and I could tell Sugar was aching to do the same with Spenser but couldn’t quite say it. I thought she would initiate like she had in the past, but she seemed disappointed—or maybe she decided she didn’t like Sugar after all.

We said our goodbyes, then Spenser, Kansas, and I loaded up in the FJ and headed home. They wouldn’t shut up. It was like middle school all over again. Sugar’s muscles, Watts’ hair and eyes.

“He’s just so….” Kansas said from the back seat.

“Pretty,” I said.

“Yes! He is so pretty,” she said, as if it was a good thing.

“What about you?” Spenser asked. “Zeke’s nice.”

“Yes,” I said simply.

“And?” Kansas asked.

“That’s it,” I said. “He’s nice.”

“Naomi,” Spenser said. She made a show of turning in her seat to face me. “It’s okay to be happy.”

“I’m married,” I said.

“You’re a widow,” Kansas said.

I sighed. “I know.”

“Do you think he’d want you to move on? To be happy without him?”

“It doesn’t matter what he wants. He’s not here,” I said.

My cousins were quiet until I pulled into the drive and turned off the engine.

“Just…” Spenser said, grabbing my arm with her firm grip before I could reach for the handle. “Just think about it, okay?”

“I am,” I said. “I will.”

They both smiled, and we made our way inside.

chapter sixteen

someone left to tell

Zeke

W

ith the fire at our backs, we hiked higher up the Cheyenne Mountain. It was rockier, more unstable than our previous location and a bitch to navigate, but if the winds changed that facility would be consumed.

“So it’s like … top secret? Think if we save it they’ll let us inside to look around?” Runt asked.

“No, genius,” Watts said, hanging on to his Pulaski. “The government won’t give us top security clearance for doing our jobs.”

“Just askin’,” he said with a shrug.

Runt was talented, but in so many ways he was still a kid. He had brown hair and brown eyes like me, but he was whiter than white and had a splash of freckles over his nose. One of his talents was his youth—he was quick and fearless, having no knowledge of his own mortality. I was sad for the impending loss because guys were injured or killed often in our line of work, and the one known element of our days was that we would all at some point suffer loss or be lost.