Chapter 12
RAVEN
Unlike this morning when I woke in this bed, dressed in nothing but one of Connor’s oversized shirts with zero recollection of him stripping me out of my remaining wet clothes and tucking me in, I know exactly how I got here this time.
I crawled in after working for over eight hours on my story, almost nonstop, save for the few bathroom and food breaks and the handful of times I walked outside when I thought I heard a noise in hopes I might find the enigmatic man who seems to have disappeared.
Again.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he would run, that he would vanish rather than face what we did.
Only where can he go when I’m already in the one place he always ran to?
The fact that he cleaned the mud from my boots and left them drying in front of the stove, and that when I walked down to the river earlier today, I found a bath ready and waiting for me, even though he felt the need to escape today left my mind reeling as I finally crashed.
This considerate and sweet side of Connor McBride has been hidden for so long, since we were kids, still wondering what our futures held and what our lives would become.
That animosity I had toward him over what happened that fateful night tainted the way I saw him since then, couldn’t allow me to see past my own embarrassment and pain.
I let every interaction with him since then become an opportunity to prove what an asshole he was.
But now, everything that’s happened between us the last fifteen years—and certainly last night—is clouded in a new kind of fog I’ve been trying to sort through.
I stare at the wall of the cabin for a moment as I let my body fully wake before I realize it’s far too bright in here for as late as it must be.
And it isn’t coming from the window, stove, or the lantern…
The light has the blueish tinge that only comes from one thing.
I roll onto my back and glance over to the small table where I spent my day until the battery died—both on my laptop and my own emotional one—to find Connor sitting there staring at the lit screen.
His dark eyes move rapidly from left to right.
He’s reading my story.
I left it up on the screen right before it went dark, but somehow, he got it going again and stumbled onto my unfinished work.
My stomach tightens as I watch him, and even though he doesn’t lift his head or tear his attention away from the screen, I know that he realizes I’m awake now.
He caught the movement on the tiny bed only a handful of steps away, but he can’t seem to look away from what he’s reading to acknowledge that I’m awake or that he’s looking at something he maybe shouldn’t be.
How did he get the computer back on?
That question rattles around my head, and I almost ask, but interrupting him feels wrong somehow.
Of all the people who deserve to read that story, Connor is at the top of that list, along with Lucky.
Being stuck up here means I won’t be able to interview her to gather those few little bits of information I wanted to add regarding her experience with Brent Lorell, but given the very real danger, my story might just have to go to print without that.
Thankfully, she has discussed what happened with the bank robbery and her confrontation with him in that barn enough that I feel like I can do it justice.
But I can’t without Connor.
He’s the only one who knows, who really knows, what happened on that homestead.
Minutes tick away slowly as he reads.
It gives me time to agonize over what he must be thinking, but also an opportunity to examine him in a new light, one that isn’t tainted by those old memories and feelings and is now complicated by new ones I never expected.
My body still aches in the most glorious way from what we did last night. Sore in all the best places. The ghost of his touch still igniting goosebumps on my skin whenever I think about it. That dull throb between my legs that reminds me of how intense it was.
I shouldn’t have liked it so much, shouldn’t have wanted it at all—not with him, not like that—but it was so damn good.
He was so damn good.
And even though it felt wrong, it also somehow felt right. Like some switch had been flipped between us, that the current of hatred had been altered irrevocably and in an earth-shattering way that we would feel the reverberations of forever.
Or maybe that was just the damn thunder shaking the ground around us and the tree he had me pinned against with his hard body and even harder cock.
Heat floods between my legs, and I have to draw in a deep breath to try to get the sudden flare of need under control. Because dragging Connor into this bed with me right now would not be a good idea.
For either of us.
He needs to read what’s written there. He needs to know everything and understand the whole story, the hidden one that is only coming to light because I busted my ass to ensure it did.
The story that’s incomplete until his experience is part of it.
I can tell when he reaches the spot where my battery died because his lips droop down slightly, as if the fact that the story isn’t finished yet is a disappointment.
He leans back slightly in the chair and releases a little sigh.
“I wrote more in the notebook…”
My voice sounds thick with sleep, and he still doesn’t look at me, almost as if he can’t. Slowly, he directs his gaze to the notebook beside my computer that I tried desperately to continue my train of thought in once I lost the ability to use the technology I’ve become so attached to.
He stares at it for a moment, then flips it open and starts reading again.
I chew on my bottom lip as I watch and wait.
I’ve spent years writing stories for other people—for editors of online magazines, international news sources, and various websites that focus on specific topics of interest that usually have very little interest for me, other than a needed paycheck.
I’ve waited hours, days, even weeks sometimes to receive feedback on them, to see what they love, hate, or want changed.
But I’ve never been nervous the way I am watching Connor and reading every slight change of facial expression.
Each tilt of his brows.
Every twitch of his mouth into a frown.
Even the tensing of his hands around the notebook.
I can’t help but analyze them all, trying to determine his impression of the story…and what he thinks of me and my ability to tell it.
I can tell exactly what part of the article he’s on now.
While my computer was still running, I spent pages outlining the Lorells’ sordid background to set the stage for their present-day crimes and betrayals.
So much of that information came from what Barry and my other sources relayed to me.
Ultimately leading to Lucky and what happened on McBride Mountain…
That’s where I stopped because the only person who truly knows the events of that night is sitting right there reading the article.
When he finishes, he closes the notebook slowly and sets it back on the table, then finally allows his eyes to drift over to me. His dark gaze tells me very little, though.
I can’t tell if he wants to talk about the story or not, so I start with an easier question than the one I really want to ask. “How’d you get my computer back on?”
A light thump fills the cabin, and I glance down to see the toe of his boot pressed against a black box under the table that definitely wasn’t there earlier.
“Solar generator. I pulled it from the storage shed behind the cabin and charged it today.”
I gape at him. “You asshole! You had a generator this entire time and never told me?”
The corners of his lips twitch, but he doesn’t offer an apology or explanation. Nor does he need to. I know why he didn’t tell me he had a generator—because Connor McBride is a prick.
All those years, I wasn’t imagining his rudeness or the way he loved to rile me up just to get under my skin. It was all very real. But I did the same to him, so I can’t really fault him for any of it.
He stares at me and the tension between us grows.
I shift up on the bed, still draped in his same over-sized shirt that he put me in last night and I pulled back on when I came to bed tonight, and his eyes move from mine down over it, his gaze heating.
“Where have you been all day?”
He clears his throat, this gaze flicking up to meet mine again. “Around.”
“That’s not much of an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re going to get.”
I release a heavy sigh, trying to rein in some of my frustration with this man. Even after everything we said to each other last night, everything we did, he still won’t open up to me. He still has those walls up and wants to hide behind them.
There are two very important questions on my mind, I just don’t know which one to ask first. The one that is directly tied to the most important thing I’ve ever done in my career, or the one that will so greatly affect my future outside my job as a journalist.
Journalistic instincts win out.
“What do you think of the story so far?”
Connor reaches out and almost reverently brushes his hands across the keyboard. “I think you’re far more talented than I gave you credit for.”
My heart squeezes tightly. “Was that a compliment from Connor McBride?”
The corner of his mouth curls up slightly, and I’m not even sure what to say to that or how to react to the almost grin from the stoic man.
With anyone else, the response would be obvious, but with him, nothing is that easy.
It’s hard to take anything at face value after years of reading into everything the worst possible way.
“Um… Thank you…”
He nods slowly, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. “I think that it’s incredibly well written, and that you’ve somehow managed to convey just how dangerous and volatile those assholes really are before you’ve even gotten to what they did to us.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” Still, the unease and tension in his voice makes me hesitate to even ask the obvious—and the thing I truly need from him. “Do you…want to talk about that night?”