20. Hunter
Chapter twenty
Hunter
I’m in the shed, working on a toy horse for the nursery, when I get a call from Connor. My throat feels suddenly dry, thinking of my parents’ warning about Dylan. I set down the electric sander and wipe off my hands before answering.
“What do you have for me?” I ask.
“We’ve still got digging to do, but I thought I’d call you with a little update,” he says. “A bit of news, if you will.”
“No hedging, Connor. Just tell me.”
Connor, the drama king, pauses for a long moment as he takes a deep breath and finally says, “He changed his name.”
A tingling of awareness skitters down my neck—new knowledge gained that might give us a more complete picture.
“Tell me everything you know.”
“Ezekiel Parrish became Dylan Robinson in 2018 just before he applied to school at the University of Tennessee. Zero trace of his former self since then.”
I sit on my papaw’s old stool and absorb this new information. “Any record before he became Robinson?”
“That’s the digging we still gotta do. There’s something sealed, a juvenile record of some sort.”
My stomach clenches, thinking about this guy being married to Ellie. He’s a criminal. I know it. I stand and wipe the dust off the seat of the horse.
“Call me the moment you know more.”
“Will do, Captain.”
My chest tightens when he calls me by my military rank. I won’t be a Captain much longer. I barely am right now. A thought skitters through my mind: who am I if I’m not that anymore?
I shake my head as we hang up. I toss the phone onto the worktable and groan. I don’t have time to worry about who I am outside of the Marines. The only thing that matters right now is keeping Ellie safe.
The conversation with Connor swirls around in my head as I think of the implications. In some ways, it begets more questions than it answers. Why would Dylan want to change his name? And did it have something to do with his juvenile record?
As I continue sanding the toy horse, I wonder if I should ask Ellie about it. Or if that would just make things worse for her. I sand and sand until the horse is so smooth, it might not even be wood anymore. And then I go inside and search for anything I can find about Ezekiel Parrish.
On Sunday we’re at my parents’ house for lunch after church.
I’m still mulling over my conversation with Connor, trying to decide if I should talk to Ellie about it.
She’s been so happy lately, I’m hesitant to bring her down.
But the concern over Dylan sits heavily on me, like I’m wearing a weighted vest full-time.
It’s an unseasonably warm day, so my mom fixes lunch on the deck for us. Ellie and Rosie are still inside, talking about whatever it is they talk about, so I assume she’ll eat in there. But when she comes outside, balancing a plate piled high with food, there’s nowhere for her to sit.
I’m about to get up from my seat to give it to Ellie when DeeDee—bless her heart—shouts, “Just sit in his lap, Ellie girl!”
As if in unison, my entire family swivels their heads to look at Ellie and me. Ellie’s mouth is poised in a soft “O” and her eyes find mine, searching.
I start to get out of my seat until Ellie says, “I’m way too fat for that, DeeDee,” with a wave of her hand.
Ellie gives me a sheepish look—we both know she can sit in my lap, she did it the other day.
I know she’s just saying this to get out of sitting on me in front of my family—still, a flame of indignation flicks through me.
I don’t like that she’s acting like there’s something wrong with her body and the hard work it’s doing.
I take her hand in mine, tugging her into my lap. She settles in, laughing a surprised giggle.
“Ellie James,” I say, my voice low but firm. “I never want to hear you call yourself fat.”
Her eyes find mine, growing serious.
“Ever again. Hear me?”
She nods silently.
I place a gentle hand on her belly. “You’re growing a life. Your body is perfect. It’s miraculous.” Even I can hear the reverence in my voice. I can only hope Ellie does, too. “Do we have a deal?”
Her arms go around my neck, her fingers going to play with the hair there. I absentmindedly think that I never want a military buzz ever again if Ellie’s going to keep doing this to my hair.
“Deal,” she says, her voice a little ragged with some unnamed emotion. “But one thing, Hunter.”
“Hmm?”
“It’s not Ellie James anymore,” she says, a coy little smile on her very kissable lips. “It’s Ellie Dawson.”
And I don’t know if it’s because of her closeness, her words, or the tangle of her hands in my hair, but I run my nose along her jaw and then whisper in her ear, “I like the sound of that.” And I don’t think I’m hallucinating when I feel a shiver go through her.
When I look up, I see that the entire Dawson clan still has their eyes on us. DeeDee smiles serenely. My parents have their hands twined together and they give me a small smile before grinning at each other. Even Wyatt, who knows the truth, looks content.
Which is probably for the best—we are married and we need to look married, right?
The problem is, I want Ellie to be in my lap, while I whisper sweet nothings to her because she’s all mine—not because we need to put on a show for my family.
And then Ellie plants a soft kiss on my cheek, very close to my lips. And I’m suddenly okay with this arrangement.
I’ll take Ellie James—ahem, Ellie Dawson—any way I can have her.
It’s Monday afternoon and I’m at Wyatt’s house. He’s practicing his third shot drops on the pickleball machine in his garage and I’m just watching. Because pickleball isn’t really my thing.
It’s a sport called pickleball. Need I say more?
But here I am, because Wyatt is the only one who really knows what’s going on with me and Ellie. My mind is a jumble I need to sort out. I want to fill him in on the investigation into Dylan, but I decide I need to gather more information before I start spreading it around.
“You and Ellie looked pretty close the other day,” he says.
I grunt, wanting to say it was just because DeeDee forced us into it. But that doesn’t feel all the way true either. “I’m not totally sure what’s going on,” I confess. And then I fill him in on Ellie’s weird snuggling of me the other night.
“I don’t know, man,” he says, hitting the ball so it makes a loud pop. “Pregnant women with their hormones—they’re all over the place. I would just tread carefully.”
“‘Tread carefully.’ That’s my middle name with Ellie.” I scoff. “I’m not sure where that’s ever gotten me.”
“Might I remind you that you’re married to her?”
I glare at him, because he knows the truth of it just as much as I do. Maybe even more than me because he’s not living in La La Land, thinking that every touch and snuggle might mean something to her.
“Okay, what about this,” Wyatt asks, whacking another ball out of the air. “Why don’t you try dropping some hints or something? See how she responds? That’ll give you a clue to her real feelings without blowing things up.”
I pick up a ball that’s landed on the floor at my feet, and fiddle with it. I sigh. “I guess that’s as good a plan as any.”
Having a plan has always made me feel more confident—but something tells me that, with Ellie, something as simple as a plan isn’t going to be enough.