Page 20 of Jason Bourne
She spun on me, hair sticking up in six directions. “He willeatthe boot, Jason. And then you’ll be buying me new ones because some half-feral goat digested my good leather!”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. “They were old anyway—”
Her glare could have melted pine bark. “Say that again.Say it.”
I wisely shut up.
Just then, a battered old pickup rattled up the drive. Mrs. Winslow — my closest neighbor and a retired librarian with more attitude than a SEAL squad — stuck her head out the window, grin wide.
“Well I’ll be damned! Youareback! And you brought a girl! Oh, honey, bless your heart, you’re exactly what this place needed.”
Lane squinted at her. “Hi, Mrs. Who?”
“Mrs. Winslow. I brought muffins!”
She heaved a tin foil–wrapped plate at me like a frisbee. I caught it midair.
Lane folded her arms. “Wonderful. Now, Mrs. Winslow, would you like your goat back?”
Mrs. Winslow blinked. “Oh, Gus? He’s not mine anymore. He belongs to Steve down the hill. Good luck getting him back, though — he’s stubborn as your man here.” She winked at Jason and cranked the window shut before Lane could fire back.
The pickup rattled away, leaving a swirl of dust and a plate of blueberry muffins balanced on my palm.
Lane flung her hands up. “Fantastic. Ghost goats. Muffin bombers. What next?”
As if the universe had been waiting for that exact moment, a chicken strutted out from under the porch. A big, fat, shameless hen with a red band around its leg — pecking the dirt like it owned the damn mountain.
Lane pointed at it, voice rising. “Is that— is that a chicken?!”
I set down the muffins, doubled over laughing. “Meet Peaches. She roams the neighborhood.”
“Peaches.” Lane was losing it. Her eye twitched. “Do not tell me Peaches lays eggs on my porch.”
“Sometimes she does. Free breakfast—”
She slapped my arm. “I hate you. I hate this mountain. I hate that I don’t even hate you enough to leave!”
Thor bounded back into the yard then, tail high, Gus’s muddy collar strap dangling from his mouth like a victory flag. No boot, of course. Gus was nowhere in sight.
Lane threw her arms skyward and yelled at the treetops, “I used to wear heels! I used to have a job! Now I live with livestock and a man who thinks Peaches is aperk! WHY?!”
I stepped behind her, arms wrapping tight around her waist. She stiffened for half a second, then melted back into my chest, growling under her breath.
I kissed her temple, grinning like a fool. “Because you love me.”
She sighed, defeated and glorious. “God help me, Jason Bourne — I really, really do.”
Peaches clucked, Thor dropped the goat collar at Lane’s bare foot, and somewhere deep in the pines, Gus probably planned his next crime.
Welcome home, sweetheart.
21
Jason
Lane didn’t get five minutes to wash the goat mud off her bare feet before the first knock hit the door.
A rapid-fire tap-tap-tap that made Thor lift his head from his sunny spot on the floor and huff like,not again.
