“Beautiful,” Maisie says, giving him a hug and a pat on the cheek. “You have a beautiful home.”

  “Thank you,” Tanner says softly as she lets him go.

  “I thought Oregon was God’s country. Seems I was wrong.” Bernard gives him a handshake with one of those manly guy-hugs that includes a pat on the back. “Maisie and I might just have to talk to a real estate agent while we’re here.”

  “Wait, you and Mom would actually consider moving here?” Jade cuts in, sounding horrified, and Maisie grabs her hand.

  “Don’t worry; we’re not moving.” She shrugs. “Or at least not until Daddy retires in a couple of years.”

  “But you love Oregon,” Jade says, looking between her parents.

  “Who’s hungry?” Tanner asks, and I want to kiss him for his interruption. Jade has been having a hard enough time with me moving away. I don’t think she would be able to handle her parents even considering moving too.

  “I’m starving,”

  “You’re not feeling sick anymore?” Jade asks, and I feel all eyes come to me.

  “You were feeling sick?” Tanner and Maisie ask at the same time.

  “I’m fine—I just got carsick a couple of times on the drive.” I shrug off their concern. “I’m fine now.”

  “Are you sure?” Bernard asks, his eyes scanning me in one quick glance.

  “I’m sure.” I look up at Tanner when his hand grabs hold of mine, seeing worry in his gaze. “I promise I’m fine.”

  With a nod, he pulls his eyes off me and looks to everyone. “I was thinking we could go to the Edge for dinner. They have good food and a covered patio, so we can eat outside.”

  “That works,” Bernard says. “I just want to get all the bags unpacked before we head out so we won’t have to do it later.”

  “I’ll help you.” Tanner lets my hand go with a squeeze before he follows Bernard out of the house. With the guys outside unpacking our suitcases, I show Jade and Maisie the two spare rooms with a Jack-and-Jill bathroom between them. When the guys come back in, we all agree to shower or freshen up before we head out to dinner.

  Halfway through my shower, Tanner joins me, which means I get a welcome home that involves an orgasm, and we end up taking a little longer to join everyone, but thankfully, no one says anything. Not that I would have cared if they had.

  Chapter 24

  CYBIL

  “Morning, sunshine.” Tanner’s warm lips press against my bare shoulder as his hand curves around my hip, and I turn toward him and burrow my face against his chest, trying to fight back the nausea that’s haunted me every morning since I got here.

  “Morning.” I blink my eyes open and find that he’s dressed, in a T-shirt and a pair of cutoff sweats. “Did you already work out?”

  “No, not yet, but I have something to show you before everyone else wakes up,” he says quietly against my ear, and a shiver runs down my spine as I tip my head back to meet his gaze.

  “What is it?”

  “You’ll see.” He smiles, kissing me softly. “Get dressed, and I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

  “Okay,” I agree, watching him get out of bed; then his eyes roam over me, and he shakes his head.

  “Have I told you how happy I am to have you home?”

  Home . . . yes, I’m home, and that’s what it feels like being with him.

  “You mentioned it.” I can’t help my smile, and he places his fists in the bed on either side of my hips.

  “Well, I’m really fucking happy.” He kisses me swiftly once more, then orders “Get up, babe” before he leaves the room, giving me one last look.

  I don’t get up immediately. It takes me a few minutes to summon enough energy to sit up, then a few more minutes to actually put my feet on the floor. By the time I do meet him in the kitchen, he’s got two tumblers filled with coffee and a smile on his face. “Where are we going?” I ask when he grabs a zip-up hoodie and then helps me into it.

  “Do you trust me?”

  “You know I do,” I say, and he gives me a look that makes me warm all over, zips up the sweatshirt, and kisses my nose.

  “Good.” He gives me one of the coffees, takes my hand, and walks me out the back door, down the steps, and toward the big metal building behind his house. “Blake, Mav, and Dave helped me with this project when I got home.” He looks down at me and lets my hand go so that he can pull a key out of his pocket. “When Janet, Margret, and Cammy heard what we were doing, they wanted to add their touch, and this morning I finished setting up the last piece so I could finally show you.” My heart starts to pound as he opens the heavy metal door on the side of the shop, steps inside, and turns on the lights. I follow behind him, and my breath catches as I look around. The space is smaller than my shop back in Oregon, but it’s much nicer. Dark wood covers the floors, shelves with pretty floral wallpaper line one of the larger walls, photos I took on my trip here are on the smaller wall, and lots of empty cubbies fill the other side of the room, with a large sewing desk and chair in the middle. “I just wanted you to have a place to work, a space you could call your own.”

  “Tanner.” Tears fill my eyes, and I turn to face him. “This is . . .” I glance around once more. “I don’t even know what to say. It’s beautiful, so beautiful.”

  “I know you’re giving up a lot to be with me, but I want you to be happy here, baby.” He wraps his arms around me, and I tuck my face against his chest.

  “I don’t need this to be happy, but I love it.” I sniffle, feeling his lips at the top of my head. “Thank you.” I gaze up at him, and he cups my cheeks. “This is amazing.”

  “When we get the storage unit built on the lodge property and all the equipment moved out, I’ll put in a kitchen and restroom out here and open up the rest of the building so you can use it all.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” I look around, picturing all my material and bags filling the space. “This is more than enough.”

  “That might be, but I’m still going to do it.” He watches me walk over to the desk with a smile on his face.

  “So how much time do you think we have before everyone wakes up?” I put my hands on the desk, testing how sturdy it is, and the heated look in his eyes makes my nipples hard.

  “No one knows where we are.” He prowls toward me, lifts me off my feet, sets my bottom on the desk, and covers my mouth with his. It doesn’t take long for me to kick off the shorts I have on, and even less time for him to spread my legs and enter me in one hard thrust. Digging my nails into his biceps, I hold on tight as he sends me flying and keep holding on when his thrusts become jerky and he loses himself inside me.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come into town with us?” Maisie asks, and I plaster a fake smile on my face.

  “Yeah, I just want to get some stuff unpacked and settled in,” I tell her, hoping that she doesn’t see that I’m lying.

  “Okay, well, I have my phone; call if you want us to bring you anything.”

  “Sure.” I accept a kiss to my cheek from her and ignore the look that Jade gives me. As my best friend, I know she knows something isn’t right, but I’m thankful that she hasn’t confronted me. That said, I know she wants to; we just haven’t had time alone for her to do it. “You guys have fun, and you should totally go to the Root for lunch.”

  “We might do that.” Maisie grabs her bag while Jade picks up hers.

  “We’ll be out in a couple hours.”

  “I’ll be here.” I walk them to the door and wave them off before heading to the bedroom and changing out of my shorts and into a pair of jeans.

  With Tanner and Bernard fishing and Jade and Maisie out exploring town, I know this might be the only moment I have alone for the next few days. After I slip on a pair of flip-flops, I grab my keys off the hook near the front door and leave the house, making a beeline for my Bronco.

  Once inside, I start the engine and take comfort in the smell of the interior that reminds me of my mom before I put the gearshift into drive. I turn onto the main road into town, trying not to freak myself out, even though I’m already freaked out. My period is late, and every day, I’ve woken up more tired than I was the night before when I went to sleep, feeling nauseous. Always nauseous.

  Thankfully, no one else has noticed (or no one has said anything), but if I’m right and I’m pregnant, I won’t be able to hide what’s going on for very long. When I get to Target, I head inside, not even bothering to look around, which is something I would normally do. Instead, I go straight for the pregnancy tests, and since there are so many brands, all of them proclaiming different results, I decide to grab a few.

  With my hands full, I start for the checkout but stop dead when I hear a voice nearby that sends a shiver down my spine. With my heart suddenly pounding, I tiptoe to the end of the aisle and look around the corner. Standing just feet away is a man with a cart, while the woman he’s with searches through a bin in the middle of the aisle. As I study him, my heart feels like it’s going to come out of my chest.

  Because without a doubt, he’s one of the men I saw in the woods weeks ago.

  One of the men who killed the elk and then shot at Tanner and me.

  As if he senses me, his head lifts, and his eyes meet mine.

  “Shit,” I hear him say, and without thinking, I take off, still carrying an armful of pregnancy tests. When I hear his feet pounding the ground behind me, I run faster and head right for the automatic doors and out, ignoring the alarms going off as I run outside.

  “Stop!” I hear someone shout, and tears fill my eyes as I book it toward my Bronco. When I finally reach my door, I fumble with the handle, the tests in my hands falling to the ground while someone crashes into me from behind. The impact causes the air in my lungs to leave on a whoosh.

  “I won’t tell anyone I saw you. I swear I won’t tell!” I scream as I spin around, ready to fight to the death if I have to.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but the cops are on the way,” a kid younger than me, wearing a red polo shirt, says and then grabs my upper arm.

  I blink. “What?” I pant for breath, scanning the area for the guy who I swear was chasing me.

  “The cops are coming,” he says again as I hear the sound of sirens getting closer.

  “I . . . I thought—”

  “You have to come with me.” He latches onto my wrist, then bends to pick up the boxes on the ground at our feet.

  “This is a mistake. I didn’t try to steal those. I . . . there was a guy chasing me.”

  “Yeah, I was chasing you.” He drags me back into the store and into a small office where there are dozens of TV monitors lining the walls.

  Chapter 25

  TANNER

  With Bernard at my back, I head into the lodge so I can show him around, even though I’m ready to be home with Cybil after spending the day on the river fishing with him. Cybil said I shouldn’t bring up him and Maisie moving here, but after having them around this last week and seeing how happy she’s been, I’ve made a point to show all of them everything this area has to offer. I’m also hoping that if they decide to move this way, Jade will follow.

  “Gotta say I’m impressed, son,” Bernard says as we step into the great room in the center of the lodge. “You and your friends have done good for yourselves.”

  “Thanks,” I say as my cell phone in my pocket rings. When I pull it out, a number I don’t recognize is on the screen. Not sure if it’s a client, I put it to my ear. “Hello?”

  “Is this Tanner Carson?”

  “It is.” I meet Bernard’s gaze, and he raises a brow.

  “This is Officer Thomas Swans. I’m sorry to call you, but I have a woman with me who asked that I phone you before I take her down to the station—”

  “Cybil?” I cut him off as I start moving toward the front door of the lodge, swearing I hear someone crying in the background.

  “Yes, she said you’d be able to explain why she tried to steal four pregnancy tests.”

  I stumble and just catch myself by latching onto the railing before I can fall down the steps outside the lodge. “What?”

  “Sorry, she’s very incoherent. She also said something about a shooting and an elk.”

  “Where is she?” I bark into the phone as I run toward my truck, hoping Bernard is keeping up, because if not, he’s going to get left behind.

  “We’re in the Target parking lot.”

  “Do not leave.”

  “Sir, I can’t—”

  “She must have seen the person who shot at us, the person who poached an elk almost two months ago. Call the sheriff and warden. They’ll confirm my story.”

  “Fuck,” he mutters before sighing. “All right.”

  “I’ll be there in twenty, tops. Please don’t leave.” I hang up as I start the engine of my truck.

  “What’s going on?” Bernard asks, and I grit my teeth. I forgot he was here. Fuck.

  Not wanting to repeat what the cop said about Cybil trying to steal pregnancy tests, I tell him a half truth. “I think Cybil saw the person who shot at us, and she’s with the cops.”

  He doesn’t say a word, and I’m thankful for the silence as I drive, because my mind is whirling with thoughts of Cybil pregnant with our child and scared out of her mind in the back seat of a cop car.

  When we pull into the Target parking lot, it takes less than two seconds to spot Cybil. She’s not in the back of a cruiser but instead being held under the arm of the sheriff who spoke to her the night we were shot at. I don’t even bother finding a parking spot. I pull up right in front of the line of official vehicles outside the store and somehow manage to shut down the engine of my truck before I hop out and run around the hood. When Cybil sees me, her eyes fill with concern and relief.

  “Sunshine,” I say low, and she rushes toward me as I open my arms. As soon as I have hold of her, she sobs, gripping onto my tee. “Shhh, it’s okay.” I rock her back and forth, then look over the top of her head as the sheriff walks toward us.

  “Security’s going over the tapes with a couple of officers. We’re hoping we got the man who shot at the two of you on tape.” The sheriff’s eyes drop to Cybil. “You should probably get her home. We’ll call and let you know when we find something.”

  “Thanks.” I turn to lead her to my truck and see Bernard a couple of feet away. “Sunshine, did you drive here?” When she nods, I take her purse off her shoulder and look at Bernard. “Do you mind driving Cybil’s Bronco home?”

  “Not at all.” He takes her bag when I hand it over and digs through for her keys. Once he has them, he hands me her purse and looks at Cybil as she wipes her cheeks. “Are you okay, honey?”

  “Yeah,” she mumbles, and even though he doesn’t look convinced, he lets it go and mutters that he’ll follow us back to the house.

  I usher Cybil to my truck and place her in the passenger seat, making sure to take extra care when I buckle her in while ignoring her body stiffening when my knuckles graze her stomach.

  “Talk to me, sunshine,” I whisper after I get in behind the wheel and grab her hand.

  “I heard the cop talking to you. I know you know about the pregnancy tests.”

  “Are you pregnant?” I ask, the idea thrilling and scaring the shit out of me.

  “I don’t know,” she says, sounding so defeated. “Probably. My period is late, and I’ve been feeling sick every morning and so tired all the time.”

  “I wish you would have told me.”

  “I was going to if I found out I was.”

  I smile at the anger in her tone. “I know you would have, but you’re not alone, sunshine. I’m here with you no matter what.”

  “I know.” She starts to fiddle with my fingers.

  “Whatever happens, we will work through it.” I lift her hand to my lips, kissing her fingers. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” she agrees before resting her head on my shoulder.

  For the rest of the drive home, I don’t say anything, and when we get back to the house, I lead her to the bedroom and order her to lie down and take a nap. Surprisingly, she doesn’t fight me, or maybe she’s so exhausted she can’t.

  Two hours later, with Maisie and Jade back at the house and Bernard on edge, the sheriff calls to say he’s going to stop by with a few pictures for her to look at, which means I have to wake her up.

  I hold her hand as he shows her pictures of the man from the Target footage, a man who did chase after her as she ran from the store, and a man the cops know, judging by the mug shots they have of him. They also show her the photos of two other men he was closely associated with, and after she confirms they’re the men who were with him that day, the sheriff assures us that the three of them will soon be dealt with.

  After the sheriff leaves, Maisie and Jade take Cybil outside to the back deck, and the three of them curl up on the couch to watch a movie, while Bernard sprawls out in the living room with a beer in front of the TV.

  Knowing everyone needs to eat, I gather orders and head into town to pick up dinner from a local Chinese place and stop at a drugstore to buy a couple of pregnancy tests. It’s obvious that Cybil has been worried about possibly being pregnant, and I want her to know that we’re a team, no matter what happens. When I get home, I place the tests in the bathroom, then sit down with everyone to eat dinner. By the time we’re all ready for bed, Cybil is exhausted, and I don’t blame her—it’s been a very busy day, with lots of excitement.

  “You bought tests?” She picks up one of the boxes off the counter and flips it over to read the back.

  “You don’t have to take it now.” I wrap my arms around her from behind and rest my jaw against the side of her head. “But before you take it, sunshine, I want you to know that a positive or negative result doesn’t change anything. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she agrees, and I kiss her cheek. She steps away from me without another word, then heads into the room where the toilet is. A few minutes later, when she comes out, she sets the test on top of the box on the counter, then washes her hands. “We have to wait three minutes.”