Chapter 9
No.
It can’t be.
The man pushed off his hood and slowly closed the door behind him. Harley stared at him, trying to put it together. High cheekbones, strong jaw, a tiny scar above his eyebrow—
“No.” Her voice emerged as a whisper, her brain reeling.
Too many ghosts. She was clearly seeing things.
“Harley.” He said her name softly, almost broken, as if trying it out.
And all she could think of was the box. The one in her closet.
“No!” Now the word ripped from her throat as she stood. “No. This isn’t—you’re dead.” Her voice, her entire body, started to shake. “I have your ashes.”
“Gabe?” Sunni’s voice cracked as she limped into the room, catching herself on the sofa.
“Sunni.” He crossed the room in three long strides, boots leaving wet prints on the wooden floor, past Harley right to—
His girlfriend. Gabe’s arms went around Sunni, crushing her against his snow-dampened coat.
Something wild and sharp clawed up Harley’s throat watching their embrace. “There was a toxicology report—what was that?”
“Harley.” Jericho’s voice, but it sounded far away, almost an echo, as if she’d stepped out of herself.
How could this be—how, what—“I don’t understand. How are you here? I don’t—you died!”
Winter’s feet pounded down the ladder, and Topher stood at the open door to his room. Their twin gasps cut through the roaring in Harley’s ears.
“What the—?” Topher said.
Winter landed on the floor. “Gabe?”
“I promise, there are reasons.” Gabe’s words muffled against Sunni’s hair as he held her, as she sobbed into his chest.
“You’d better start talking, and fast.” This from Jericho, his voice low. And then his steady hands slid onto Harley’s shoulders.
For a second she wanted to turn around, put her head in his strong, flannelly chest, or maybe just circle back to the pocket of time where she’d been kissing him, holding on to the other man she’d thought she’d lost.
This couldn’t be real.
Gabe released his hold on Sunni, who stepped back, gripping his jacket as if she’d never let him go. Yeah, well, Harley didn’t blame her.
“I worked for the DEA as an informant.”
Silence, and Sunni looked up at him with a somber expression.
Wait—
“I had no choice,” Gabe added. “Mars was going to kill both of you.”
“Both of who?” Harley stared at him. “Sunni? Me? You faked your death to . . . protect me?”
“I had to, Harley. Mars had already—”
“Had already what?” Heat rose in her chest, burning away the shock. “Already destroyed enough lives? Already left enough bodies? I had a memorial service for you!”
The fire in the hearth snapped. The wind hurled ice against glass. Normal sounds. Cabin sounds. But nothing about this moment felt normal.
“I know you’re angry.” Gabe helped Sunni to the sofa. “You okay?”
She shook her head, then nodded.
Yeah, exactly how Harley felt. Gabe unzipped his coat and shrugged it off, revealing a thick, ratty sweater underneath, along with insulated pants. His coat dripped melting snow, and he hung it up on the hook.
And it hit her then. “You’ve been living here.”
“Yes.”
She couldn’t move. “What about the . . . the tour guide company?”
“I rented it from them.”
Jericho’s hands held her.
“Okay, listen,” Gabe said as he walked back over to Sunni, crouched next to her, took her hand even as he looked at Harley. “I know what I did to you. Both of you. But really, I never thought it would be . . . I thought it would be over in a year, tops—”
“What would be over!” Harley’s voice shook, high now.
“Harley, maybe you should sit down.” Jericho’s calm voice and she glanced at him, stepped away from his grip.
“How?” The word tore out of her. “How are you standing here? How did you fake a death certificate? A body?”
The brother in her memories had been lean, almost fragile.
This man filled the space differently—broad, thick shoulders, fit and strong.
No hint of tragedy, or years of drug use, his hands roughened by work.
Sure, he wore lines etched around his eyes and in the firelight she saw the weariness carved into him.
Okay, take a breath. He’s suffered too.
Then Gabe got up and took a step toward her. “Harley.”
Orlando’s growl started low, threatening. Jericho caught the dog’s collar, murmured something soft.
She held up her hand. “No . . . just . . . stay there. I can’t . . .”
In her periphery, she saw Winter move to the woodstove, the hinges creaking as she added another log. The smell of the leftover barley soup filled the air.
Topher had grabbed a couple split logs and now fed them into the fireplace, sparks spiraling up the chimney.
And it hit her, that niggling inside her—“Wait, Sunni, you don’t look that surprised. I mean, not like ‘Hey, my boyfriend has come back from the dead after five years’ surprised.”
Sunni looked away.
Harley shot Gabe a fresh accusing look. “What am I missing?”
“She knew I wasn’t dead.” He made a face. “We only made it look that way.”
She shoved against his chest. “We?”
He stepped back, jaw tight. “Witness Protection. Long story, but after you left town the first time, I got clean and I started working with Dad . . . sort of undercover, rooting out the Sorros brothers’ operation.”
She stared. “What?”
“It wasn’t Dad’s idea . . . I came to him with evidence that they were running drugs . . . Anyway, he put it all together and got Brand and his boys in a sting.”
“What—you helped put them away?”
“I testified against them first time around, right before Mom and Dad died.”
Her mouth opened, closed. “What?”
“It’s a long story, but I did it by video because the trial was in Juneau. You were working in Anchorage at the time.”
“I heard about the trial, but I didn’t know you testified.”
“It was sealed to protect me. Clearly it didn’t work.
Mom and Dad died about a month later. I got sort of messed up again, and went to treatment, and Sunni was there.
We got back together and I restarted my life.
I’m not sure how they found out, but the DEA approached me about a month before the ‘overdose.’ I’d been clean again for a couple years, but they told me Mars was out, and they needed to send him back and asked if I could help them. ”
He glanced at Sunni. “I wanted to put them away for good. But I also needed to protect Sunni and . . .” His eyes cut to Sunni on the couch. “Daniel.”
The name hung in the air between them.
Sunni made a small sound. “Gabe, don’t—”
“Our son.” The words fell like stones. “He’s five now.”
The room tilted sideways. Harley’s hand found the back of the couch. “Your . . . son?” She had a nephew? Even the howling wind outside couldn’t compete with the roaring in her ears. “When was he born?”
“It was after Gabe’s ‘death.’” Sunni finger-quoted the word. “I was only a few month’s pregnant at the memorial—”
Harley stared at Sunni. “How did I not see—you said nothing.”
“I told her not to,” Gabe said.
She rounded on him. “How could you not tell me that you had a kid?” She pressed her hand to her mouth. “How could you—”
“It wasn’t supposed to be forever.”
“It’s been five years! Five. Years!”
“It was supposed to be five months! Mars gave me drugs, yes, and I was set to testify again, but then he vanished. Disappeared to Anchorage, or maybe Juneau, and I had no choice. I had to die.”
She had nothing.
“Five years I’ve been hiding, while Sunni raised our son and, of course, she helped me, so she knew I wasn’t dead.”
“But you let me think you were dead—”
“You were gone, Harley! You barely stayed in town long enough to attend Mom and Dad’s funerals, and you didn’t look back. And if it weren’t for Sunni—and God—I would have been back to using and maybe dead for real. So, yeah, I didn’t tell you. Because”—his voice fell—“you would have looked for me.”
She stilled, her throat thick. Shoot, he was right. She would have turned the world over looking for him. “So you told Sunni and then what?”
“I vanished. Showed up now and again, avoiding Mars, keeping an eye on her. I drove the ice highway, did some work on the slope, sent her money. Sometimes we worked it out to see each other, but I mostly stayed away. And then, Conan was arrested a couple weeks ago, and I thought, Now. Now I can reclaim my life.”
He walked over to Sunni. “Except Mars is still out there, and I know Sunni isn’t safe.
” He crouched next to her. Took her hand.
“So I sent her the berries a few days ago. It was my way of telling her that I was still watching.” He looked at Sunni, so much love in his expression, it made Harley ache.
And then, wait—“You sent me flowers on my birthday last year.”
His mouth pinched. “Yes, I did. I just . . . you were . . .” He glanced at Jericho, back to her. “You were so alone.”
Jericho stood solid, a sort of sentry, arms folded, mouth tight. And now, he looked away from her, as if the words hit him too.
She had been alone. Terribly, brutally, achingly alone.
“Harley?” Gabe said.
She couldn’t—no . . . no . . .
She whirled and headed for the door.
“Harley?” Jericho’s voice, then Gabe’s.
“Sis—”
She shook her head, took a step back, then turned and stumbled into the coatrack. Grabbed her jacket. Shoved her feet into her boots.
“Harley, stop.” Winter now, heading toward her.
The door handle bit into her palm, cold.
“Harley! Calm down.” Jericho, his low voice reaching out.
She ignored him, shoved outside, and stood on the stoop, huddled into her coat, the hood up, the wind howling, the cold reaching into her bones and turning them brittle. The trees creaked, and the night pitched so thick around her, she could get lost ten steps from the lighted house.
Oh, she wanted to run.
“Harley.”
The door had opened. Just Gabe’s voice now. “Don’t be this way.”
She rounded on him. “Seriously? Don’t be . . . what?”
He stood, his mouth a tight line.
“Five years, Gabe. Five years of thinking you were dead.” Her voice cracked. “Of blaming myself for not rescuing you.”
He looked away then, frowned. “I didn’t think that you’d blame yourself—”