Chapter 22 Payton
PAYTON
I wasn’t surprised when the four of us separated before bed last night.
For the first time since being in their company, I slept completely alone.
The bed was too big, though nothing more than a full-size.
More than that, it was too empty.
I’d already grown used to their presence, the comfort of their embraces, as I fell asleep.
Morning broke bright and clear, and I jumped from the bed, eager to see what Reed and the others would have planned for the day.
Sunlight raced across my face when I stretched my arms overhead and rotated my torso.
Wait. Sunlight. Intense and bold.
It tracked across the room, illuminating the bed and the tall dresser on the other side.
I squinted and crept toward the window, my breath locked in my lungs.
Snow covered the ground and piled up in drifts taller than me.
But the wind no longer screamed her fury, and the snow no longer fell in sheets that obscured my vision.
Disappointment pitched my stomach to my toes, where it decided to stay.
The storm was over.
My time being snowed in the Mav, Reed, and Tarron had come to an end.
I shrugged into a sweatshirt, pushing the too-long sleeves up my forearms and dragging my hair from the collar, as I made my way downstairs.
Mav’s voice trickled up to me before I made it halfway.
“Yes, sir.” He paced to the window, the satellite phone pressed to his ear.
The window gave me a view of his expression. Drawn brows. Tight mouth.
He rested his elbow on the glass and leaned forward, the other hand settling on his waist.
He pinched his belt with his fingertips, and a light tremble shook his fingers. “Yes, sir. We can manage that.”
The tense posture and expression drove me the rest of the way down the stairs.
Dad better not be giving Mav a hard time because we missed our initial extraction date. It wasn’t his fault.
We couldn’t control the weather.
“Yes, sir.” Mav sounded tired, and when he dragged a hand down the side of his face, I fell in love with him a second time. “
She’ll be there, sir. Come hell or high water, she will not miss this extraction.” His head lifted, and he caught me watching him in the window.
My heart stuttered at the determination in his gray eyes. Our gazes clashed when he turned to face me.
I palmed the ache in my heart, hoping to push it away before it ruined the days we still had together.
I hadn’t asked how long it would take us to reach Anchorage.
I hadn’t wanted to know.
But now that we were so close to saying goodbye, I lost the ability to breathe.
My ears rang, the brutal sound cutting off Mav’s words.
He nodded, the movement crisp and certain.
When he pocketed the phone without offering it to me, I nearly melted onto the bottom stair. “He didn’t want to talk to me?”
Maverick hurried over and sat beside me.
Concern darkened his eyes, and he brushed his knuckles over my cheek.
The tenderness nearly undid me, but somehow, I managed to hold it together and keep the tears at bay.
“I called him in the middle of a meeting. He said knowing you were okay was enough, and he didn’t want me to wake you for his own selfishness.”
“Oh.” That sounded like Dad.
“Is something wrong?” His knuckles skimmed my cheekbone again, then a third time.
I tried to hold back the tidal wave of words, but they poured out of me in a heaving rush.
“I’m sad that we have to leave. I know we’ve been hiding out, running for our lives, and all that.
But this place has been our haven. I’m going to miss it.
” I’m going to miss all of you. I did manage to stop before I said that last part, even though it was true.
We’d not made any kind of commitment to each other, and I had no right to ask them for one after all they’d been through for me. “I had a really nice time.”
Maverick slid a hand around the back of my neck and pulled me in for a kiss.
The firmness of his lips contrasted with the soft way he feathered his hand through my hair and down my spine.
Every touch brought a shudder of awareness that prompted me to lean closer.
His shoulders blocked my view of the room, but it didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered except this might be the last time I kissed him.
Tucker could walk through at any second, and I couldn’t care less about that either.
He’d been entertaining and helpful last night.
He loved his son and gave hugs so tight it made me feel like everything was going to be okay. All those things made him okay.
Maverick teased my lips open, taking the kiss to another level.
Our bodies shifted toward each other, and it was all I could do not to climb into his lap and beg him to take me upstairs.
He murmured against my lips and pulled away. “Just because we’re taking you home doesn’t mean this has to end here.”
The promise lingered there, the hope of his words fluttering and fanning the flames of my desire.
What had been could continue.
The adventure we’d begun while on the run had the chance to turn into something more than an unforgettable week.
“Good. Because I’m not finished with you.” I drew him down for another kiss, sealing our words. A week would never have been enough. A lifetime might not be enough.
Footsteps thudded down the stairs, the force of it rattling my spine.
“Hey.” Reed’s laughter rolled out. “Stop stealing kisses when we’re not looking.”
“No fair, Mav.” Tarron clicked his tongue disappointedly. “How could you?”
“It was easy.” Mav kissed my cheek when I giggled at their playful banter.
Reed bent and looped his arms beneath mine, pulling me to my feet. “Then it’s only fair we get our kisses too.” He kissed me breathless, and when he was done, Tarron took a turn.
I leaned into each of them one by one, enjoying the differences in each lingering kiss.
I’d know them apart in the pitch black, with nothing else to go on but the way their lips felt against mine.
My stomach grumbled, and Tarron ended our kiss, patting me on the ass as he turned me around. “Breakfast.”
“Great.” I jumped over the last step and hurried into the kitchen. “More powdered eggs and bacon.”
“And sausage.” Reed headed toward the pantry that housed the large freezer. “Maybe even biscuits if they’re not freezer burned.”
“Oh, biscuits.” I resisted the urge to rub my stomach. “That would be amazing.”
“I spoke to Mr. Rivers.” Mav waited until we were in the middle of cooking to start the conversation.
“What’s the plan?” Tucker strolled in, his hazel eyes skipping over each of us with a smile.
He stopped beside Reed and snatched a piece of bacon from the plate in front of him.
Maverick flipped the sausage. “We need to get to Anchorage. We have three days.”
“We’ll take my car.” Tucker wiped the grease from his hands and turned to the pantry. “Pretty sure there’s frozen orange juice in here.”
“Dad,” Reed called after him, what could only be panic raising his voice to a level I’d never heard from him. “You don’t have to do that.”
“No kidding, Sherlock.” Tucker reappeared with what looked like a can in his hand.
He cracked it open with a wrench of his hands and dumped it into a pitcher.
“Fill that halfway with water. Not as good as fresh, but it’ll do in a pinch.” He stole another piece of bacon, bent it in half, and popped it into his mouth. “My car is the easiest. Long drive, but you have a direct route.”
Hard to argue with that.
I waited for Mav to make the final decision. We all did. Every head turned his way.
Even Reed, the master strategist that he claimed to be, gave Mav the final say.
He finished the sausage and flipped it onto a plate. “I’d rather not risk putting you in danger, but we can’t leave you here without a car either.”
“Couldn’t talk me out of joining you if you tried. You’d be better off tying me to the roof.”
Tucker flashed that smile that reminded me of Reed.
It was filled with fun and laughter, but steel ran throughout the expression.
“We leave after breakfast.” Maverick shot a look at the front windows. “We can’t risk lingering longer than that.”
Reed followed his line of sight, and his shoulders tensed.
“What?” I looked outside and saw nothing but snow and trees.
The Alaska wilderness had put up a fight with that storm, but now she apologized to us with a gorgeous landscape.
Maverick grabbed the plate of sausage and carried it to the table.
“Nothing.” The rest of us followed him, bringing the meal together in the center of the table.
Chairs scraped. Bones creaked—mostly Tucker’s. And Mav continued to eye the front window with that apprehensive tilt to his eyebrows.
Tarron picked up a piece of bacon and chewed.
What had started out as a joyous moment turned sour.
My stomach twisted so hard it became impossible to eat.
Reed fidgeted with the strap holding a pistol to his thigh.
He unsnapped the strap that wrapped around the butt of the pistol and straightened his leg beneath the table.
“If something’s wrong, you need to tell me.” The calm atmosphere of cooking together had shattered.
Maverick rolled his head from side to side, then raised and lowered his shoulders. “It’s nothing.”
At my scoff, the hint of a smile broke free. “Nothing I can see or hear. Just a feeling.”
“Gut instinct.” Reed patted his stomach. “Like how animals sense a storm and go into hiding.”
The bite of eggs I’d taken turned to ash in my mouth.
I knew exactly what they meant.
I’d felt it in the instant before Jack took me hostage.
A wrongness tinged the air, turning it acrid and bitter.
My mouth burned, and I took a great gulp of air to ease the queasiness in my stomach.
All four men stood at the same time, bodies poised with hands on guns.
Even Tucker had a pistol strapped to his waist.
“Get down.” Maverick put a hand on my head and shoved me toward the floor.
Reed did the same thing to his father, attempting to push him beneath the table.
Glass shattered.
The entire front window blew inward, sending glass shards in every direction.
I screamed and ducked while trying to cover my face as shards whistled through the air and fell to the floor with a sharp, tinkling sound.
The air outside was still, but the sudden loss of protection allowed the frigid temperature to funnel into the room.
I gasped with the shock of it and dropped my arms to hug my ribs.
Every man around me drew his weapon.
A moment of envy curled through me.
I should have asked them to teach me how to shoot.
It was the one skill that might have saved me from the evil of men.