Wrong Girl, Right Alpha novel · Chapter 12 of 48

Chapter 12: The Jacket

Tilly was sitting on the porch steps when I got back from the ridge, with the gray jacket across her knees.

"I picked it up off the rocks yesterday," she said. "Dane left it. I thought it'd get wet."

"Thanks."

"Also, why do you walk like that? Never mind. I know why."

I took the jacket from her.

It was a plain gray wool, with a worn cuff and a torn thread at the hem.

I turned back the collar to look for the tag, the way my mother used to check the kitchen aprons.

There was a strip of white cloth sewn into the seam.

Someone had stitched two letters on it in blue thread.

R.H.

I read it three times.

The letters didn't change.

"Tilly," I said, "who has R.H. for his initials?"

She blinked at me.

"Ronan Hallett. Dane Hallett's initials are D.H. Why?"

"Dane was wearing this at the Rite."

"So? He's his brother. They borrow each other's stuff."

"It's Ronan's."

Tilly opened her mouth and then closed it.

I stood on the porch with my hand over my mouth, and the whole scene came back to me.

The gray wool.

The cuffs Dane had kept pushing up, because the sleeves were too long.

The shoulders, too wide for him.

The smell hitting me from the middle of the hall, and the way I had walked straight across the floor toward it.

I had told myself it was the best thing about him.

It was the jacket.

"Nora," Tilly said carefully. "I think I need to sit down."

"You're sitting."

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