Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
ZACH
When I leave the bathroom, the scent of dry pine burning and the snap of a fire in the hearth draw me into the living room. Because I haven’t explored the rest of the house yet, I take a moment to drink in the simple, cozy surroundings.
The open living room is separated from the kitchen by the fireplace, which faces an L-shaped couch. To the right is a TV stand and a sliding glass door that opens to a small deck. Beyond it is the same forest view from Jesse’s room. From this angle, the tall trees rise to a rocky ridge. In the soft morning light, the exposed granite is a pale, dove gray.
Water running and low conversation from the kitchen draw me closer. When I step into the small space, both Sofie and her dad look up. They share so many similar features—same inquisitive eyes and long lashes, same thick brown hair, though her dad’s is flecked with gray at the temples.
“Coffee?” Rowdy asks, stepping to the opposite counter.
“Please,” I reply.
While he reaches into a cupboard for a mug, I take in the small space. Three placemats line the avocado-green Formica counter facing the kitchen, with three wooden stools beneath.
Rowdy slides me a cup of black coffee in a handsome mug with a bright blue and magenta glaze, the kind one might expect in an art gallery. I cradle the cup and bring it to my lips. The coffee’s hot and not particularly strong, the kind a person could drink all day. Maybe Rowdy loads up a thermos of it for his long days in the field.
While Rowdy and Sofie buzz around each other, loading plates with eggs and sausage and grabbing silverware from a drawer, I give the adjacent dining room a quick scan. The round table in the center looks like it’s being used more for homework and storage than for family meals.
On one of the chairs is my backpack.
I lunge for it, the pain in my side erupting up my shoulders and flattening my lungs, but I don’t care. “Where did?—?”
“Dumpster near the park on the south end of town,” Rowdy says, carrying two plates to the breakfast counter.
I set my coffee down and pick up the pack. It feels light, like it’s been emptied. I unzip the top. Sure enough, everything is gone. I even check the secret panel for the money, but it’s not there.
Over half my savings, gone.
Rowdy walks over and sets my journal in front of me. “Found this nearby. Is it yours?”
Tears blur my eyes as I caress the cover, my fingers shaking. “Yeah.”
“Sofie can take you to where I found this if you want to look for anything else. After breakfast.”
I’m overcome by a sudden rush of anger. Sofie’s dad doesn’t even know me. Why is he so keen to help me?
“Around here, we take care of our own,” he says, as if reading my mind.
Understanding passes between us. He knows it was me who pulled his kids from the lake.
“Come eat,” Sofie says, touching my lower back as if she knows I need guidance.
Rowdy’s words echo through me. I have the urge to confront him—one of their own? Would he still think this if he knew some of the things I’ve done? Knew the mess I left behind?
And does his acceptance bind me to make promises to him I can’t keep ?
I focus on my plate of warm eggs and sausage, but my fingers are still shaking.
Because I’m now inextricably tied to Finn River.
Will it be my downfall?
After Rowdy fills a dented thermos with the last of the coffee, he hugs Sofie goodbye and slips through the door. Fergie races after him. Through the kitchen window, the top edge of the horse trailer is visible. Moments later, the truck engine starts, and the trailer slips past, rattling over the pockmarks.
I think about where he’s headed, wearing that gun. Being a game warden in a place like this must be tough, even risky. Does Sofie worry about him not coming home?
Sofie scoops up both of our plates, drawing me back to the room.
“Stu Valentine wants to talk to you today,” Sofie says, continuing to the sink.
Hopefully not so he can fire me. “I need to talk to him too.” Moving off my stool sends hot pains through my right side and bites at my lung, but it’s already a little better today. More tolerable. If I could sleep, that would help a lot.
But the pain mixed with the worry that I’ve somehow landed on the wrong people’s radar has made sleep hard to come by.
I shuffle to the sink, where Sofie is rinsing the plates. “Can I help?”
“No,” she says, her tone brisk. “If you want, you can shower. I put fresh towels in the bathroom. Then we can go looking for your other things.”
She’s practically attacking the silverware, her jaw set, like she’s angry.
“Sofie.”
As if she doesn’t hear me, she turns away to drop the silverware into the dishwasher. After she shuts it, she grabs the rinse cloth from the bottom of the sink and starts scrubbing the sides.
“Hey,” I say, and cover the hand braced off the edge of the counter. There’s enough tension in her grip to rip it from the wall.
She slams the faucet handle off and inhales a sharp breath. “If they’d swung that bat a little higher,” she gets out before heaving a giant breath, “they could have killed you.”
“I know. ”
She pushes off from the sink, tearing her hand from underneath mine, but I lock into her fingers. The resulting tug up my arm creates a stabbing pain in my chest, but I don’t let go.
Still, she won’t look at me, her breaths rising and falling fast, like she’s desperate to get away.
Why?
“I keep trying not to care about you.” Her tone is strained.
“I know a little bit about what that’s like.”
She wheels on me, her eyes half wild. “How do I know you’re not full of shit?”
I let go of her hand like it’s burning my palm. “You don’t.”
“Is someone after you? Is that it?”
“I’m not?—”
She cuts me off with a flash of her palm. “I can’t—” She gulps a breath. “I won’t… care about you if you’re just going to disappear.”
I take a step toward her. She grimaces, like the closer I get, the more pain I’m causing her.
“Tell me why that scares you.” Is this about Jesse? Or someone who hurt her?
“Please, Zach. Don’t turn this around. Not today.”
I curse to myself. She called me elusive, and I liked it. But I’m thinking differently about it right now. “I’m sorry.”
“If you’re leaving, go ahead and do it already.”
I close the distance between us. “I can’t.”
“Because of what happened?” Her eyelids glisten with angry tears.
I think about how she brought me home and cared for me, of Henry’s visit, and Rowdy tending to my wound and finding my pack. There’s good people in this town , Henry said. Back then, I wasn’t ready to believe him.
As much as I’ve fought it, I’m starting to. And now Sofie’s worried that all that kindness doesn’t matter to me. That I’ll just be someone else who leaves her.
Gently, I swipe Sofie’s tears with my thumbs. “Because there are people here I care about.”
She grips my wrists as if she’s afraid I’m going to slip away if she doesn’t hold on tight. “Liar. ”
The daring, hard look in her eyes is shredding me from the inside out.
Fuck, this girl. I should be the angry one. I never asked for her to care about me or step inside the disaster that is my life, needling me with obnoxious questions, or rope me into her orbit, and I certainly never asked to care for her in return.
Because caring about her makes me vulnerable. And I swore to never make that mistake again.
I press my lips to hers in a soft kiss. She didn’t ask for one, but in this moment, it’s the only way I can show her she’s wrong.
Her lips are plush and so fucking soft. Up close like this, her scent reminds me of apples, but it’s tender and almost sweet, like a rose. It’s as impossible to describe as it is to resist.
She reaches for my waist. I kiss her again, savoring the tenderness between us and the effortless way this moment races into the next. She shifts closer to me, her grip on my waist tightening. Hot pain shoots up my right side, but my grunt is lost to her mouth and the echo of our kisses in the small space.
How could I have forgotten how good kissing is? How playful, spontaneous… and sexy? Or maybe it’s just her kisses—soft yet hungry, gentle yet urgent. I’m torn between wanting to stand here kissing until my knees collapse and needing to be closer to her.
Not knowing which feels like an impossible question that I would never get tired of asking.
I risk a little flick of my tongue, and she opens for me like it’s exactly what she wants. My breaths come faster, and my pulse taps harder into my throat. Her soft little tongue tangles with mine like a slow, sweet dance. Our lips touch again, hungrier now.
Kissing her like this is making my head feel buzzy and my heart like it might gallop out of my chest. It makes me feel reckless and brazen, like I’m somehow invincible. Believing it would make me a fool, but in this moment, finding the energy to care is difficult.
But the instant I try to stuff it down, it takes hold with a vengeance. I cannot get attached to Sofie Whittaker or Finn River or the problems Sheriff Olsen thinks I can solve. Maybe things will work out here, but it’s more likely they won’t .
With a silent curse, I pull back and press my lips to her forehead.
We stand there, just breathing, my arms around her shoulders and her delicate fingers hugging my waist.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she says.
“I did,” I say. “If you missed it, I could try to rephrase it.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
A sassy retort is on the tip of my tongue, but I bite it back. I need to put on the brakes. Hard. Before we end up…
She puts a hand on my chest. It’s gentle but sends a shock through me. Maybe it jostles my busted rib, or maybe it’s my heart curling up to protect itself. I’m sensing that the answers she wants aren’t ones I can give.
I thumb her lower lip, savoring the way she kissed me. Will I get a chance to do it again?
“How long are you going to keep me in the dark?” she asks, looking hurt.
Before I can come up with a defense that won’t push her further away, a blaring chime from the phone on the wall makes us both jolt.
With a grimace, Sofie slips from my embrace and reaches across the counter for the phone.
She answers with her back to me. “Hello?”
I run my left hand through my hair and huff a painful sigh at the ceiling. Why did I have to go and kiss her again? And why did she have to kiss me back?
Sofie snatches a pen and paper from near the phone and brings it to the counter. “Uh-huh.” She scribbles something down. “Where was this?”
Her handwriting is fluid yet precise. She tucks the phone into the crook of her neck. “Okay. Can I get your name, please?” After another pause where she jots down more information, she adds, “Thank you. I’ll get him the message.”
After ending the call, she reaches back across the counter to replace the receiver. The movement raises the hem of her sweatshirt, revealing a bare patch of pale skin at her waist.
My cock twitches. In the split second before she turns back to me, I attempt to adjust myself, but the contact makes the throbbing worse .
Thankfully, Sofie is oblivious to my suffering. “The house line is the same for Dad’s job, and it’s hunting season.”
“Everything all right?”
“Dad’s been tracking a poacher all season. Sounds like there’s been another one.”
“How do you know it’s the same person?”
She taps the pen on the pad as if still thinking, then turns to me. “We should get going. Hand over that shirt. I can fix it while you shower.”
I’m tempted to tease her about getting me out of my clothes, but the rules of engagement between us are already too murky, and her question about keeping her in the dark feels like a line drawn in the sand. One I won’t cross.
I reach up and slip my top button from its hole, then the next. To my delight, she squirms a little as I get to the last button. What’s even better is I don’t think she realizes she’s doing it.
When I slide the denim from my shoulders, she’s completely fixated. Though my undershirt hides my scars, I still feel exposed. I place the shirt in her outstretched palm and continue down the hallway.
But not before I catch the longing in her sigh.