The ride back into town was quiet, at least on the surface. Engines sounded low, headlights shone through the dark, and the desert stretched wide and endless around them. Ashley leaned into Nolan's back, her arms locked around her duffel. She couldn't stop thinking about Cole's words, or the heat in his touch, or the look Nolan had given her when she glanced his way earlier.
She kept replaying the night in fragments... flashes of steel, the pop of gunfire, the weight of death hanging in the air. The more she tried to shove it down, the more her body betrayed her, heart pounding harder each time the image of Jax's knife cutting through a throat surfaced. Nolan's solid frame beneath her arms was the only thing holding her in place. She pressed her forehead briefly to his back, breathing
