Page 69 of Grumpy Lumberjack’s Secret

She nodded. Slowly. And then she let out a breath that seemed to carry the weight of seven years of running, seven years of looking over her shoulder, seven years of holding it all together for a little girl who deserved better than a life lived in fear.

I stood up. Walked around the table. Pulled her out of the chair and into my arms. She came willingly, her face pressed against my chest, her hands gripping the back of my shirt, and I held her. Tight. The kind of hold that said I am here and I am not going anywhere and whoever comes through that door will have to go through me first.

“We are safe here,” I said into her hair. “Josh’s parents’ place. Nobody outside of town knows this house. We will figure out the next step in the morning. The police will do their job. Josh and I will do the rest.”

She nodded against my chest.

“I am tired of running,” she said quietly. “I am so tired of running.”

“Then stop. Plant your feet right here. I will stand beside you.”

She held on tighter. I held on tighter. And we stood in the kitchen of a house that was not ours but would do for now, with our daughter safe and sleeping and the doors locked and the mountains keeping watch outside, and I made another promise. Not to Chloe. Not to Emma. To myself.

Whatever Jonathan Marshall was planning, he was not prepared for what was coming. Because the thing about threatening a man’s family is that it does not make him afraid.

It makes him dangerous.

25

CHLOE

Iwoke up to lips on my neck.

Warm. Slow. Deliberate. Tracing a path from the spot behind my ear down to the curve of my shoulder, each kiss placed with a patience that made my skin prickle and my breath catch before I was fully awake. His stubble scraped against my skin and the friction of it sent a current of heat down my spine that pooled low in my belly.

“Behave,” I murmured into the pillow.

He did not behave. His mouth moved to the sensitive dip where my neck met my shoulder and he pressed an open-mouthed kiss there, his tongue tracing a line that made my toes curl. His hand was on my hip, his thumb drawing circles against the bare skin where my shirt had ridden up in the night, and the combination of his mouth and his hand and the warmth of his body pressed against my back was making it very difficult to maintain my position as a responsible adult.

“Let’s take a shower together,” he said against my skin. His voice was low and rough with sleep and something else. Something that made my stomach flip. “Conserve water.”

I laughed. The sound came out breathless, more gasp than laugh, because he was still kissing my neck and his hand had moved from my hip to the flat of my stomach, fingers spread wide, pulling me back against him, and I could feel exactly how awake he was.

“Conserve water?” I said. “That is your line?”

“It is practical.”

“It is ridiculous.”

“Is that a no?”

I turned in his arms. Faced him. His hair was a mess, dark and disheveled, and his eyes were still half-lidded with sleep but the green in them was bright and focused and looking at me with an intensity that made coherent thought difficult. The morning light was coming through the curtains, soft and gray, painting shadows across the planes of his face.

I should have said no. Emma was down the hall. We were in someone else’s house. There was a man out there who had destroyed our home and carved a warning into the wall and the rational, responsible part of my brain was telling me that this was not the time for showers.

But Sawyer was looking at me. And his hand was warm on my skin. And after everything, after the cabin and the message and the fear and the long night of lying awake listening for sounds that did not come, I needed him. Not the way you need comfort or reassurance or the steady presence of someone strong. The way you need air. The way you need water. The way your body needs something so fundamentally that refusing it feels like refusing to breathe.

I nodded.

He was on his feet before I could change my mind. He pulled me up, his hand wrapped around mine, and led me to the bathroom. The house was quiet. Emma’s door was closed, the early hour working in our favor, and I sent a silent prayer to every deity I could think of that my daughter would stay asleep for the next however long this was going to take.

Sawyer closed the bathroom door. Locked it. The click of the lock was quiet but deliberate, and the sound of it did something to the air between us, charged it, made it heavier.

He turned to me.

The bathroom was small. A tub with a shower curtain, a sink, a mirror that was slightly foggy from the morning chill. He filled the space the way he filled every space, completely, his shoulders nearly brushing the walls on either side, and the way he was looking at me, steady and hungry and patient like a man who had all the time in the world and intended to use every second of it, made my pulse hammer in my throat.

He reached behind me and turned on the water. Steam began to rise, curling between us, warm and wet and smelling faintly of the cedar soap that Josh had left in the shower.