Chapter 6: The Last Call

One year later.

That's what the calendar said, anyway. Jasmine didn't track time in birthdays or holidays. She counted repairs. The increase of acreage on her property. The new horse riding business that she recently opened. So much to do, so little time.

Falkirk didn't ask questions, but it didn't forget faces either. Jasmine's kids had made impressions—sometimes literally. It helped that Cameron had joined the school wrestling team and left half the varsity squad with bruised egos and dislocated pride. Taylor and Skyler hit the football field with the kind of ferocity only ex-street kids could bring. Raine joined track, running like she had something chasing her, making the coaches excited. Robin found her niche in the Outdoor Skills Club—a group of kids who camped in the woods, studied edible plants, and learned how to build shelters from pine branches and willpower. Robin wanted to practice what she learned in club with building a treehouse. So the whole family ended up working on a tree house where they all can play in.

Sol stayed home. School was too loud, too busy, too much. Jasmine decided to homeschooled him with Claire's help. He stayed home most days, reading or following Claire around her shop. He liked animals better than people and Jasmine made sure he had both. He thrived in the silence of the farm, memorizing the habits of animals and the names of every herb in Claire's garden.

Claire had come into the picture not long after they'd settled. Max introduced her casually one evening over supper, saying, "This is Claire—my wife. We tied the knot last month." Jasmine hadn't been sure what to make of her at first. Claire was soft-voiced and sharp-eyed, her hands always smelling of chamomile or lemon balm. But she had a quiet strength that Jasmine respected. She ran a small herbal shop tucked behind the diner. Dried flowers hung from the rafters like decorations in a witch's cottage. She smiled too easily, and that made Jasmine suspicious at first.

But Claire never pried.

She asked about Jasmine's garden instead—why her basil kept dying, if goat dung worked better than rabbit for roses. When Jasmine admitted she didn't know anything about gardening, Claire laughed and handed her a bag of cuttings. "Start with mint. Even the stubborn ones don't kill mint."

That was the beginning.

They didn't trade life stories. They traded seeds. Recipes. Advice on raising headstrong kids and tricking them into drinking tea. They bonded over plants, of all things. Claire taught Jasmine how to make salves for blisters and tonics for sleep. In return, Jasmine showed her how to disarm a knife at close range. It was, in its own way, a fair trade.

When Jasmine caught Sol eating clover off the ground, Claire didn't judge. She handed Jasmine a book on wild herbs and a bottle of hand sanitizer.

"Keep both close," she said.

Jasmine nodded. "Fair."

The town still whispered.

Rumors swirled like prairie dust—mercenary, mob widow, government asset gone rogue. Someone claimed she'd taken out a bear with a shovel. Another swore she only smiled after fights.

Jasmine didn't bother correcting any of it.

Instead, she taught her kids how to fight.

Not in anger, but in preparation.

Early mornings started with runs around the property. Evenings were for drills—hand-to-hand combat, knife throwing, archery, survival routines. She taught them how to fall without breaking bones. How to vanish in trees. How to break a wrist clean if someone grabbed them wrong.

"Are we soldiers now?" Robin asked once, arms crossed, bruised and winded after a sparring match.

Jasmine gave a half-smile. "No. But you'll survive things most won't."

And the kids didn't argue.

Respect came slowly from the town. Jasmine earned it not through kindness, but through action.

She pulled a kid out from under a fallen rafter during a barn fire. Stopped a drunk from swinging on the wrong person outside the grocery store. Helped a rancher recover stolen livestock without asking for payment. Word spread that she could be trusted to help, and more importantly—trusted not to talk.

After that, no one questioned Jasmine's place in the community. She wasn't one of them, but she was theirs now, in that quiet, watchful way Falkirk accepted people: with room at the table, and a seat near the door just in case.

No one knew what to make of her. But they knew what she could do.

Sometime in the passed year, Max who brought up a bar.

They were sitting on her porch one night, boots kicked up, beer in hand. He was talking about how he missed the old days, the good parts—brotherhood, purpose, a drink after a hard day.

"We've got no place to be off-duty here," he said. "No safe spot to just… exist. You should open something."

Jasmine raised a brow. "What, a mercenary daycare?"

"No," Max said with a smirk. "A bar."

She almost laughed—almost. But the idea stuck.

Falkirk didn't have a real bar. Just a roadhouse on the edge of town that served bad beer and worse company.

"You saying you want to open a bar?" Jasmine asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm saying," Max said, "we need neutral ground. And I know just the building."

The next day, he brought her to the edge of town—to an old four-story brick monolith, boarded up and forgotten. The basement had once been a speakeasy during Prohibition, the top floors a restaurant before the whole thing was raided and shuttered in the late '60s. It had stood empty for decades. No one wanted to tear it down. No one wanted to buy it.

Until Jasmine and Max.

The paperwork was tricky. But Max handled it like a charm, Jasmine handled the cash and they both worked on the renovations. Red had already set up the fake ID trail—anonymous LLCs, buried tax trails, no questions asked. Claire picked the flowers that went in the window boxes. It wasn't fancy—brick walls, handbuilt shelves, lights too warm to be suspicious. But it felt solid.

They called it The Last Call.

They opened on the last day of that first year.

The whole town came out. Not for her, but for the idea of it—something that felt normal, sturdy, real. The bar buzzed with soft jazz and rough laughter, Jasmine stood behind the counter, polishing a glass.

Jasmine watched her kids dance on the edge of the crowd. Sol had fallen asleep in the corner, curled up under a barstool like a cat. Robin sat by the jukebox sketching. Cameron leaned against the wall like a bouncer. Taylor and Skyler played darts, already arguing. Raine was sneaking extra soda from behind the bar. Max was at a different side of the bar serving drinks.

Claire leaned across the bar. "Still think opening this place was dumb?"

"No," Jasmine said softly. "Not dumb. Just unexpected."

Claire grinned. "The best things are."

And Jasmine smiled—real, tired, and full of something she couldn't name.

Not peace. Not yet.

But maybe the start of it.