Chapter 8
eight
. . .
Sophie
I wake, my body sore in unfamiliar ways. It’s a good feeling, and I’m glad I waited for Logan. I blink open my eyes. I don’t have to look far to see him. He’s right next to me. Naked like I am but asleep, one arm loosely over my waist as if even in sleep, he’s keeping me close.
Satisfaction fills me. I want today to be the first of many mornings waking up next to him like this: tangled sheets, his scent on me, and the certainty I’m safe.
Outside, it’s still dark. We never shut the curtains last night. His bedroom faces east. The darkness is no longer black, but not gray yet. I take in the quiet, letting the peace of the morning settle over me.
The tree line is a dark shape against the predawn sky. I lie still, not wanting to disturb Logan, and take inventory.
I’ve done this every morning since that night in the alley. I catalogue the room, the sounds, and the distance to the nearest door. I never unlearned the habit, even after returning to Lush Hollow.
But this morning, the inventory is different.
So am I.
Logan’s sheets smell like pine and cedar. His body heat warms me better than the quilt over us. The steady rise and fall of his chest against my back feels like an anchor I didn’t know I needed.
I wait for the urge to leave. It doesn’t come. That’s also new.
Every other morning of my adult life, waking up somewhere new has been an exercise in quiet extraction. I probably could give even the best Special Forces operator a run for their money. Not that I’d ever tell that to Jesse.
But part of the difference is I feel chosen by a man who had nearly ten years of other options and didn’t take any of them. He waited for me.
My throat tightens.
Stop. Don’t cry in his bed before the sun rises.
Instead, I bury my face against the pillow and breathe through emotions, turning me into a hot mess. I’ve been running so long I forgot what staying felt like.
Maybe this is it.
Reeves and his men arrive at five. Logan acts like nothing’s out of the ordinary. The bulletproof vests under their shirts tell me differently. And those guys must have left Seattle in the wee hours of the night to get here by now.
The group sits at Logan’s kitchen table with paperwork and coffee mugs.
The warrant is not only real, but there’s a federal piece alongside the Seattle one.
Chaz Volkov is wanted on three charges, any one of which puts him in jail for at least fifteen years, and the three together would lock him away for life.
I drink coffee in the doorway, wearing Logan’s flannel shirt over my leggings, and listen to a man I’ve never met explain the legalities that’ll take care of the man who’s been stalking me for more than two years.
Reeves looks at Logan. “We can’t move on him this morning.”
Logan’s jaw tenses. “Why not?”
“He went dark.”
The kitchen goes silent. All I hear is the pounding of my heart. This isn’t what’s supposed to happen. It’s supposed to be over. Today.
My fingernails dig into my palms.
Logan’s face has turned red. “He’s been here for days.”
“Was here,” Reeves says. “Last seen parked behind a closed gas station outside Wenatchee around four this morning. We’ve got eyes on every road in and out of the county, but he’s smart enough to switch cars and lay low for at least a few hours. Maybe longer.”
Logan slams his fist on the table. “Fuck.”
“I know,” Reeves says, “but a warrant does me no good without a body to put it on.”
“He’ll come back,” Logan says, his voice certain. “He didn’t track Sophie this long to walk away. We keep her in a public place until he does.”
That’s all I need to hear. I go into the kitchen. “Then I’m going to work.”
Logan doesn’t argue. He’s already on his phone texting. No doubt my brothers and cousin. “You won’t be alone. Mason can be at the counter. Eli will have eyes on Main Street. The county is doing drive-bys.”
“We’ll be there,” Reeves says, and his team nods. “Don’t know about anyone else, but I’m hungry.”
Everyone laughs. That lightens the tension slightly.
“Then I’d better get ready.” I try to keep my voice steady when I want to crawl onto Logan’s lap and cry. An hour later, I’m behind the counter, and Logan is at the sheriff’s office. I glance at the stool where he usually sits and wish he was there, but he’s doing what needs to be done and so am I.
Mason walks in at eight-fifteen and tips his head in my direction.
He’s got an open carry permit, so I have no doubt a revolver is tucked into his jeans.
He sits at the corner of the counter with a clear sightline to the front door and the back hall.
He drinks the coffee I pour him and says nothing, because that’s what Mason does.
Gideon Mercer, Wells Granger, and Cole Hart enter next. They are ex-military and live on the ridge. Jesse says they’re the best men he knows, so my brother must’ve let them know what’s going on.
Gideon stops at the counter on his way to a booth. “Monica says you owe her a recipe. A mocktail or something.”
“Tell her I’m working on it.”
He picks up the coffee Roz has set out for him. “Anything you need today, you say it.”
“I will.”
He goes to the booth. Wells touches the brim of his hat to acknowledge me from across the room. Cole gives me a one-corner mouth move. From Cole, that’s a greeting.
Three men I barely know have come off the ridge to sit in this diner for me. The realization lands hard behind my ribs.
They sit in the booth next to the one with Reeves and his team. There must be more guns in the diner than pies.
The rest of the town seems oblivious. Mrs. Callahan complains about her hip.
A truck makes a delivery down the block.
Eli walks across Main and back twice, as if stretching his legs before customers come to the store, but I bet he’s checking the perimeter.
A county cruiser rolls past at nine-twelve and again at ten-twenty-three.
I notice both passes without meaning to.
The bell over the door chimes at ten-forty.
A man I’ve never seen before steps inside. Forties. Hiker pants. A pack slung off one shoulder. He stops inside the door, takes in the room, and I’m cataloging him: height, build, the angle of his jaw, and whether his hands are visible.
Mason’s palm goes flat on the counter without him turning his head.
The Ridge crew’s shoulders drop a quarter inch. Three coffee cups are set on the table without a sound.
The hiker scans the room one more time, sees the coffee pot, and walks to the counter with the unguarded eyes of a man who has been on the trail for three days and wants a cinnamon roll.
He orders and asks for an extra pad of butter on the cinnamon roll, then asks me for directions to Hollow Lake. I pour him a coffee and draw him a map on a napkin. My hand is steady.
When he leaves, Mason takes his hand off the counter. The Ridge crew does their silent mode of communication since they don’t talk much.
I catch my reflection in the window. For once, I don’t look like a woman alone, and I like what I see.
Mason leaves around twelve thirty. Reeves’ team shifts.
The recluses from the ridge, seemingly tamed by the new women in their lives, stay.
While Roz keeps their coffee cups full, I keep my distance.
Not that I don’t like them, I appreciate how much they support each other, including Jesse, but I don’t need more “big brother” talk today.
At one o’clock, the bell over the door chimes. Jesse strolls in with Nora. He surveys the place with an intense gaze. His hand rests at the small of his wife’s back, and it stays there until she’s sitting at the counter. He kisses her temple and walks to the booth with the other Ridge men.
He doesn’t leave the diner. That tells me everything I need to know about how he reads the situation.
Nora shifts her position on the stool. She’s close to her due date and seems more tired than when I last saw her. She orders the pie she doesn’t like.
“You sure you want that?” I ask.
“Never hurts to try something again.”
That isn’t like Nora. Jesse once woke Roz in the middle of the night because Nora couldn’t go back to sleep without a cinnamon roll from the diner. Still, I serve up the slice of pie. “Here you go, but I have a feeling you’re not here to give Banana Cream a second chance.”
She slips her fork into the pie but doesn’t take a bite. She sets the utensil on the plate. “You’re the sister I never had. You know that, right?”
Oh, this is going to be good. “Go on.”
“I might say something that makes you mad.”
I fill the mug in front of her with decaf. I wonder if she can tell I’m no longer a virgin. God, I hope not. This isn’t the place for that kind of talk. “That’s never stopped you before.”
She takes a sip. “Since you’ve returned to Lush Hollow, you’ve learned every regular’s order, overhauled Roz’s bar menu, made yourself useful to everyone you meet, and kept whatever’s been happening to yourself so your brothers and Eli wouldn’t worry.”
Nora’s not wrong. She usually isn’t. I wipe the counter. At least the topic isn’t sex. That’s a relief.
“Those aren’t bad things,” Nora continues. “But after you came back, you made yourself small so everyone else could be big. That’s not belonging, Sophie. That’s hiding in plain sight.”
The rag stops moving. Everything in me does too.
“I did the same thing,” Nora says, quieter. “When I first came up the mountain. I made myself useful. Easy. Because if you are those things, people don’t look too closely. In my case, that way they can’t decide they don’t want you.”
I take a breath. And another. My fingers rub against the damp rag.
“You’re allowed to need help,” she says. “Asking isn’t a weakness. Jesse taught me that. You can let Logan…” She stops. “You’re allowed to let people in without it costing you everything.”
I don’t speak. I can’t.
She eats the pie she doesn’t like and finishes her decaf, then leaves a twenty on the counter and stands. Jesse’s at her side in an instant.
“Take care, Soph,” Nora says.
“You, too.” I force out the words.
Jesse meets my eyes once over the top of Nora’s head. He doesn’t say anything but gives me a look that says I have her. You handle your end.
Then he escorts his wife out.
Through the front window, I watch him help her into his truck and fasten her seatbelt for her. My brother is a different man—a better one—since Nora came into his life. I imagine my future with Logan. Could that be us someday?
Roz catches my eye from the kitchen doorway. She holds a coffee cup in her hand and a question on her face: You good?
I am about to say fine. It’s what I’ve said since I returned, and what I’ll keep saying without thinking. But I’m tired, and I’m not fine.
Instead of speaking, I go around the counter and sit on the first stool.
Roz blinks. Sitting during a shift is not what Sophie Wilde does, and she’s known me long enough to know it.
“Five minutes,” I say. That sounds so much better than I’m fine.
She brings me a glass of ice water and a cup of coffee, then goes into the kitchen. I sit at the counter for five minutes, and the world doesn’t end.
Mason returns. Of course, he does. He must have help at the store today.
At the end of my shift, Logan picks me up at the back door. He doesn’t ask how the day went. He’s been getting briefings from Mason and likely everyone else in the diner all day.
He drives the long way.
Not by much. Two extra blocks, and he turns onto Birch instead of the direct route to the road that leads up to the cabin. He reaches across the bench and finds my hand without looking.
“I heard Nora came by,” he says.
“Yes, she sat at the counter. Said a few things I needed to hear.”
He turns onto his road but doesn’t let go of my hand.
The cab is warm. The radio is off. My hand is in his, we pass the trees on either side of the road, and for the first time today, my shoulders aren’t holding anything up.
At the cabin, Reeves sits alone at Logan’s kitchen table with three field maps and a piece of paper that wasn’t there at five this morning. His team must be at the lodge or taking a break somewhere.
“State trooper clocked the rental on Highway Two at four-fifty,” Reeves says. “He swapped the plate somewhere between Wenatchee and the pass.”
“So that gives us what? Two hours?” Logan asks.
My stomach clenches. Volkov is on his way back.
“If he doesn’t stop.”
Logan puts his hand at the small of my back. Light. Anchoring. The same touch Jesse gave Nora earlier. I lean into him. As Nora told me, I’m allowed.
We talk through the contingencies. Reeves leaves two hours later. The county units are positioned. A cruiser sits in Logan’s driveway with the radio on. The locks are checked. The porch light is on.
Logan stops me at the bedroom door. “If he moves in the morning, you stay where I put you. No improvising.”
“I’m not running, Logan. That’s different from doing what you tell me. I want that part on the record.”
The corner of his mouth curves. “Noted.”
I’m still sore from last night, but I want to be close to him. I motion to the bed. “Are we going to…”
“Not tonight.” He kisses my forehead. “We both need to sleep. And I don’t want you to be too sore. But I want to hold you. Sound good?”
A smile spreads everywhere inside me. “Sounds perfect.”