Chapter 3
three
The track climbed until the pines closed in on both sides and the road under the tires stopped being a road at all.
Rainey braced herself against the dash as the truck pitched through a washout, her ribs lighting up with a sharp, bright pain that made her teeth clench.
Evander drove like he knew exactly how much punishment his suspension could take and had no intention of sparing it.
The headlights carved a narrow tunnel through the dark, catching the silver undersides of leaves and the pale trunks of aspen crowding close.
She didn’t ask where they were going again. He wouldn’t tell her.
The truck slowed.
Evander cut the wheel hard left, and the headlights swept across a chain link half-buried in undergrowth.
A gate.
No sign, no marker, nothing to distinguish it from the thousand other forgotten logging roads that riddled these mountains.
He reached across her for the glove box and found a key.
He shoved his door open, and the damp mountain cold poured in, carrying the smell of pine sap and soil and something mineral underneath, like the mountain itself was breathing.
She watched him through the windshield. He moved without sound.
The chain came free with a soft metallic rattle.
He pushed the gate open just wide enough for the truck to pass, then climbed back into the driver’s seat without a word.
The truck crawled through. He re-locked the gate behind them, and the chain settled back into place with a finality that made her stomach drop.
Five more minutes of driving. The track narrowed until branches scraped both sides of the truck with a sound like fingernails on slate.
Then the trees opened up.
The cabin sat in a small clearing, its silhouette black against the deeper black of the mountains behind it.
One room, as far as she could tell. A steep-pitched roof with a metal chimney.
A porch with two steps. A storage shed off to one side, its door padlocked.
A lean-to horse shelter sat on the other side, but she didn’t see a horse.
No power lines. No neighbors. No lights for miles in any direction she could see.
Evander killed the headlights and the dark came down like a hood.
“Home sweet home,” he said, and his voice had a flatness to it that told her he didn’t consider the word a joke.
She pushed the door open before he could come around for her.
Her ribs screamed when her feet hit the ground, and she bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to taste copper.
The air was cold and thin and smelled of woodsmoke and old rain.
Above the cabin, the sky opened vast and star-scattered, more stars than she’d seen in years, and the sight of them made something in her chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with cracked bone.
She stood there breathing it in while Evander unloaded the truck.
Guitar case. Her pack. A canvas duffel she hadn’t noticed before.
A plastic grocery bag with what looked like food.
He moved with the unhurried efficiency of a man who had done this ten thousand times and expected to do it ten thousand more.
Rainey didn’t help him. She was busy.
She tested the driver’s door. Locked. The keys were either in his pocket or in the ignition, and she couldn’t reach either without him noticing.
The cabin had two windows and one door, all of them fitted with what looked like heavy-duty locks.
The rifle she’d glimpsed behind the seat was gone now—he’d taken it inside with the first load.
The storage shed was padlocked. The hand pump by the porch handle squeaked when she tried it, and water came out clear and cold.
She walked the perimeter as casually as she could manage, counting her steps.
Thirty from the cabin to the tree line on the north side.
Twenty on the east. The south side dropped away into what sounded like a creek bed, too steep and too dark to navigate without a light.
West was the track they’d come in on, the only way out that didn’t involve climbing.
She pressed two fingers against her left side and breathed deep.
The fifth rib caught. The sixth might be cracked too.
Hiking out of here, even if she found the main road, would take hours she didn’t have and strength she wasn’t sure her body could muster.
The thought sat in her stomach like a stone.
No phone signal. She’d checked twice already, holding the cracked screen up to the sky as if the stars might bounce a signal down. Nothing.
She was stuck. With a man who had killed for her and now wouldn’t take her to the one person she’d crossed four states to find.
Inside, Evander had the generator running.
The single bulb hanging from the ceiling threw a yellow glow over a space that was smaller than it had looked from outside.
One room. Woodstove in the corner, already lit, throwing heat that hit her face the second she stepped through the door.
A cot against the far wall with a sleeping bag rolled on top.
A table with two chairs. A shelf with books.
A counter with a camp stove and a stack of canned goods.
A rifle rack on the wall beside the door, empty now because the rifle was leaning against the woodbox within easy reach of wherever he decided to sit.
It was the cabin of a man who expected to be alone.
She set her guitar case against the wall and dropped her pack beside it. Tilly circled the room once, sniffing the corners, then settled near the stove with her chin on her paws. Her dark eyes tracked Rainey without moving.
“Generator’s for lights and the fridge,” Evander said. He was putting cans away on the shelf, his back to her. “Stove runs on propane. Hand pump outside for water. Outhouse around back if you need it.”
“Charming.”
“You wanted a hotel, you should’ve stayed on the highway.”
She leaned against the counter and crossed her arms, wincing at the sharp pain in her ribs. “How do you know my brother?”
He didn’t turn around. “Told you. Valor Ridge.”
“How long were you there?”
“Not long.”
“When?”
He reached for another can. “Years ago.”
“Were you friends?”
That got him to pause. Just for a heartbeat, his shoulders going still under his jacket before he set the can on the shelf. “We knew each other.”
“Why did you leave?”
“Didn’t suit me.”
“Does River know about this place?”
“No.”
“Does Walker Nash?”
“No.”
“Does anyone?”
He turned then, finally, and the look on his face was enough to make her take half a step back. “What difference does it make?”
“My brother has never once mentioned you, and now you’re telling me you lived at the same ranch he’s been at for years, and you knew each other, and somehow that adds up to you driving me to a cabin in the middle of nowhere instead of taking me to him.”
His shoulders tightened. It was such a tiny reaction, but enough to tell her this man and her brother had history. “What’s your last name?”
He didn’t answer.
“Won’t give me even that much?”
“Cole. Evander Cole.” He turned back to the shelf. “And that’s all you’re getting tonight.”
She pushed off the counter. Her ribs pulled and she hissed through her teeth.
“You killed a man for me. A man who happened to be the president of a motorcycle club that’s been hunting me for a month.
You drove me four hours into the mountains to a cabin nobody knows about.
And you expect me to believe the sum total of your connection to my brother is that you shared a roof for a short time years ago? ”
“Believe what you want.” He closed the cabinet and faced her. “The facts don’t change.”
“The facts are you’re hiding something.”
“Everyone’s hiding something, Rainey. You walked into a roadhouse with a guitar and a cracked rib and a club on your tail. You want to trade secrets, you go first.”
She held his gaze. The woodstove popped. Outside, wind moved through the pines with a sound like distant traffic.
She looked away first.
Her gaze fell on Tilly. The dog had lifted her head, watching the exchange with the quiet attention of an animal who understood more than she had any right to. Rainey hadn’t had a dog since she was twelve. Her father had taken the puppy away after it barked at one of his friends.
“Fine.” She dropped her voice, aiming it at the dog instead of the man. “What’s her name?”
Evander looked almost suspicious. His eyes narrowed a fraction, like he was waiting for the trap. “Matilda. Tilly.”
“Tilly. That’s a perfect name for such a big, beautiful lady.” Rainey crouched carefully, keeping her weight off her left side, and held out her hand palm-down. “Hey, Tilly. You want to tell me why your human is such a terrible conversationalist?”
Tilly’s ears perked. She sniffed Rainey’s fingers once, twice, her wet nose wet and cool. Then she leaned forward and pressed the broad flat plane of her skull against Rainey’s thigh. The weight of her was solid and warm and alive in a way that made Rainey’s throat close.
She scratched behind Tilly’s ears. The dog’s eyes half-closed.
“I bet you know all kinds of useful secrets, don’t you?” Rainey kept her voice soft. “Like where he hides the good food. Or whether he’s always this grumpy, or if I’m just special.”
From the corner of her eye, she caught it—the faintest shift in Evander’s expression.
Not quite a smile. Something smaller. The ghost of something he’d buried a long time ago.
He turned away and busied himself with the stove, filling a pot with water from a jug, but his shoulders had lost some of their rigidity.
Tilly leaned harder against her leg. Rainey sank her fingers into the thick fur at the dog’s neck and held on.
“I need to see River,” she said, quieter now.
Evander set the pot on the burner. The propane hissed. “I know.”
“Then take me there.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
He turned. The stove light caught the planes of his face, throwing the scars into relief—the old ones on his forearms, the fresher mark on his cheekbone from the fight. His eyes were dark and steady and utterly without compromise.
“The Sons of Sin know who you are and it’s all but guaranteed they also know who your brother is.
They know where he lives. The first place they’ll look for you is Valor Ridge.
The second place is River’s bunk. The third is every road between here and there.
” He crossed his arms. “You show up at that ranch tonight, you might as well paint a target on every man living there. You want that on your conscience?”
She didn’t. She hated that she didn’t.
“They have resources,” he continued. “They have connections. They have men who will sit on a road for days waiting for a white Ford truck to drive by. The only advantage we have right now is that they don’t know where you are. The second we give that up, we lose.”
Rainey stared at the floor. Tilly’s warm weight against her leg was the only thing keeping her upright.
“So what’s the plan, then?” she asked. “We hide here until they forget about me?”
“No. We hide here until I can get a message to Walker without tipping our hand. He’ll know what to do.”
“Walker?”
“The man who runs the ranch. Or Boone, his second in command.”
She wanted to argue. Every instinct told her to keep moving, to find River, to put miles between herself and the Dead Marshall and the body on its stage. But Evander’s logic was sound.
“Fine.” She pushed herself upright, wincing. “But the second you can get a message to River without leading the club to his door, you do it. That’s not a request.”
“Noted.”
He reached into the duffel and came out with a bottle of ibuprofen. Tossed it to her. She caught it one-handed.
“Take three. Food’s coming.”
He had bread. Cheese. Apples. And other simple things that wouldn’t spoil.
He cut the apple with a folding knife and laid out slices on two plates, added the bread and cheese, and pushed one across the table to her.
She ate standing up because sitting hurt too much.
The bread was stale. The cheese was good.
She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until the first bite hit her stomach and her whole body seemed to wake up at once, demanding more.
Evander ate his portion in four bites, washed it down with water from a metal cup, and started clearing the plates before she’d finished half of hers.
“Shirt,” he said and shoved it into her hands. “Clean. You can change in the outhouse or behind the blanket. Your call.”
She took the shirt. It was gray with long sleeves, and soft from too many washes, and it smelled of pine smoke. “Uh, blanket.”
The idea of going into an outhouse in the dark held no appeal.
“Okay.” He strung a blanket across a corner of the room, making a makeshift changing room, and she ducked inside. She changed as quickly as her ribs would allow. His shirt hung to mid-thigh. She rolled the sleeves twice, and still they fell past her knuckles.
The cot had a sleeping bag and a pillow that looked like it had been stuffed with something that wasn’t feathers.
She sat on the edge and tested it.
Firm.
Unforgiving.
Exactly what she’d expected.
Evander claimed a spot on the floor, beside the door, his back to the wall, the rifle within easy reach. He’d rolled out a thin pad and a blanket that looked military-issue, and he sat with his knees drawn up and his forearms resting on them, perfectly still.
She bet he could hold that position until dawn and not think twice about it.
Tilly stood between them, looking from Evander to Rainey and back again. Her tail gave a single uncertain sweep. Then she crossed the room and settled on the floor beside the cot, close enough that Rainey could reach down and rest her fingertips against the warm ridge of the dog’s skull.
If Evander was annoyed his dog chose her, he didn’t show it.
Rainey lay down. The sleeping bag rustled. The cot creaked. Her ribs settled into a dull, persistent ache. The ibuprofen had taken the edge off, but the pain was nowhere near eliminated. She stared at the ceiling and wondered how the hell he expected her to sleep.
Rux Granger was dead, which meant Malachi was now in charge of the club. With Rux, she might have had a chance to talk some sense into him. With Mal, there was none. He’d want revenge, times two—for his father and for her daring to leave him.
And she was lying in a stranger’s bed wearing a stranger’s shirt with a stranger’s dog guarding her and the stranger himself sitting between her and whatever might come through the door at night.
And she could not for the life of her decide whether she was a victim or a fugitive… or his captive.