Chapter 37
Five minutes before my alarm was set to go off, my eyes opened. I was used to waking up before my alarm. I still wasn’t used to waking up with Quinn. She lay draped over me, her silky hair teasing my chin, her legs tangled with mine. We”d been sleeping in her new room in Heartstone Manor for a little over a week. So far, it was working out.
Quinn still flinched at the top of the stairs whenever she caught sight of the door that had been hers. But after the first few days, the flinch was almost unnoticeable, and once she was in her new room she mostly seemed to forget there was anything to be afraid of. Twice since we’d moved back into the Manor, she”d woken in the night with a jerk, her breath coming fast, heart pounding against her ribs. Both times she shook off the nightmare, turning to me in the dark, her body warm and welcoming, her mouth seeking mine.
I loved touching Quinn whenever I had the chance. Touching her, making her come. Feeling her slick, tight heat around my cock. Hearing her soft moans in my ear. I loved all of it. But beyond the physical, it was this. Her trust. That she knew I was her safety. I was the big bad thing that scared off her nightmares. And she was mine. I’d give everything just to have her as she was now, at peace in my arms.
Peace never lasted long. Now that her ankle was healed enough to go back to work, she’d booked a handful of light hikes and easy fishing trips. Nothing on technical terrain, and so far, nothing longer than a half day. She was easing back into things, wary of overtaxing her ankle and slowing her recovery. Plus, until we caught the guy who”d attacked her, messed with our security system, and broke into Sawyer Outdoor Adventures, Quinn was on board with my decree that she wasn’t going anywhere by herself.
I’d been at her side since she’d been back to work, tagging along for a waterfall hike and picnic and a few fly-fishing trips. Watching her work had been an education. Quinn could answer any question about her mountains, and she loved sharing her knowledge with her clients, loved watching them laugh and have fun. She’d found her calling, and she was amazing at it.
I glanced at the clock. It was almost time for her to get out there and be amazing. I rolled to my side, taking Quinn with me, smoothing her hair back from her face as she resettled on her back.
“Time to get up, baby,” I murmured against her lips.
I loved the look in her eyes as her lids fluttered open and sleep cleared from the blue depths. In those first moments, she was completely unguarded, and the warmth that flooded her eyes when they met mine made me feel like I could conquer the world.
Quinn’s smile was sleepy, her hand coming up to cup my cheek. “It”s still dark,” she said like she always did.
I felt my lips curve as I smiled down at her. “It”ll be light soon enough.” I thought about kissing her, but I knew better.
In an hour and a half, she”d have a line of clients outside Sawyer Outdoor Adventures expecting a half-day waterfall hike and picnic. She and Sterling had prepped the picnic supplies the day before, but they still had to pack the food, get releases signed, and take care of all of the various things they did to deliver a top-notch experience.
I took a risk and dipped my head to stroke my lips over hers, loving the way she arched into me.
“Later,” she whispered, a wicked glint in her blue eyes. “After the hike. We’ll need a shower. And maybe a nap. A long, naked nap.” She reached up to press a quick kiss to my chin before she rolled out of the bed.
I stayed where I was, watching her walk to the bathroom, the camisole she’d slept in just barely grazing the top of her sweetly curved ass. I looked my fill before sliding out of bed and straightening the covers. Soon enough we’d be back from the hike, and I could strip her naked and talk her into a long, lazy bath instead of that shower. It turned out that the claw-foot, cast-iron tub in her bathroom was more than big enough for two, a fact we’d taken advantage of a few days before. I was ready for a repeat.
The tub would have to wait for now. It was time to get moving.
The long table in the dining room was sparsely occupied at just past seven in the morning. Griffen sat at the head, chewing on a piece of toast, his infant daughter at his chest in a baby carrier, fast asleep. I guessed Hope was also asleep upstairs in their bed. Tenn sat beside August, Thatcher, and Nicky. From the empty plate beside Tenn, I guessed Scarlett had shoved some food in her mouth and headed down to her glass workshop on the lower level to get an early start. Sterling was in her place at the far end, staring into her coffee cup, her eyes half closed. In the last week, I’d learned that Sterling was never fully awake until after her second cup of coffee.
Griffen looked up as we entered, his free hand coming up to rub the sleeping baby’s back through the carrier. “You have a hike today?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
“The waterfall again,” Quinn said. “Another picnic. I’ve got some repeats on this one. It should be a good group.”
That was all anyone said, aside from the kids bickering on the other side of the table about some game they’d played with their classmates. Quinn and I filled our plates at the buffet and ate. I still wasn’t used to sitting at the long, formal table in the family dining room. I wasn’t family—I was help. Griffen wouldn’t have liked the distinction, but he was the boss, and he could afford to blur those lines. A few months ago, it was my hill to die on. There was family, and there was help. No one crossed the line. Full stop.
Then Finn had married Savannah, smashing through any line that might keep them apart. And I’d fallen fully, completely, and helplessly in love with Quinn. And somehow, she seemed to think she loved me back. There was no way I was going to ask her to hide away in the kitchens to eat when she wanted to be with her family. And I knew without asking that if I tried to leave her in the formal dining room and take my place belowstairs, she’d march down and drag me back to her side. Since at her side was exactly where I wanted to be, my only choice was to let it go.
Apparently, family and help could mix without the world imploding. Prentice Sawyer was probably rolling over in his grave, but that wouldn’t bother anyone here.
Quinn was sipping the last of her coffee when my phone beeped, the distinctive ping of the Heartstone security system. I straightened, looking down at the screen and tapping the still frame from one of the cameras. It was a shot of the trail to the hunting cabin, one of the new cameras we’d installed after the attack. I wasn’t sure what I expected to see. A bear, or maybe a buck. It had to be something big to set off the camera’s alert. There was nothing there but an empty trail.
Before I could call Kane to check it out, my phone pinged a second time, this one in Quinn’s clearing. Another of the new cameras. And again, it showed nothing.
“Everything okay?” Griffen asked, his voice still pitched low enough not to disturb the sleeping baby in his arms.
“I don’t know,” I said slowly, tapping yet another alert, this one a tamper alarm at the gate.
My screen flashed a message from Kane.
Are you seeing this? Looks like the same as before.
I didn”t have a chance to answer before my phone rang with a call from Lucas Jackson.
“Jackson,” I said.
“I left him an opening,” Lucas said, “and he waltzed right in.”
“Same guy?” I asked.
“Looks like it,” Lucas confirmed. “Same method of entry into the system. This time we were ready for him.”
“Who is it?” I asked, more than ready to end this for good.
“Don”t know,” Lucas said, “but I do know where he is. I traced the IP address. Does 752 Main Street mean anything to you? Why have I heard that address before?”
Holy shit.“That’s Harvey Benson’s office. The Sawyer family lawyer.”
“Didn’t you add coverage to his office?” Lucas asked.
“Office and home, yeah. But I didn’t get an alert coming from either place. Only within the boundaries of the estate. You sure it”s coming from Harvey”s office?”
“I’m sure,” Lucas confirmed.
“One second.” I pulled up the cameras on Harvey’s home and office. Nothing. Nothing on the cameras, nothing tripping the sensors. I lifted the phone back to my ear. “I”m not showing anything unusual,” I said. “Could he be spoofing the IP address?”
“It’s possible,” Lucas admitted. “Whoever he is, this guy is good. But still, I doubt it. I’d get that police chief of yours over to Harvey’s office. My guess is our guy is there. Or he was.”
“I’ll keep you posted,” I said before I hung up. I immediately called West, looking up to meet Griffen’s eyes and raising a finger. He nodded, by all appearances relaxed as he sipped his coffee. I’d known him long enough to spot the tension in his shoulders.
“Yeah,” West answered with a grunt. I caught the rustle of wind against the phone mic and guessed he was either out for a run or on his way into the station. I was hoping it was option number two. I filled him in.
West huffed out a breath, clearly like me, equal parts excited to catch this fucker and confused about the end game. “I’ll be there in less than ten,” West said. “I’ll call Harvey on my way and make sure he’s not planning on coming in early. Where are you?”
“At Heartstone with Quinn,” I said. “We’re about to head into town. She has a hike this morning with clients. We need to get moving. Keep me posted.”
“I will. Don’t leave town without hearing from me,” West said.
“I won’t.” I hung up again, looking up to see every eye on me, all of them filled with a combination of worry and curiosity, except Griffen. He looked like he was ready to tear off someone’s head with his bare hands. I knew that look. Griffen had been fierce in defense of our clients when we’d worked together. That was nothing compared to the way he felt about keeping his family safe. He’d lost them for years. The idea that he might lose any of them again, that someone might threaten his wife or his daughter, was untenable.
And suddenly it occurred to me exactly how much Griffen trusted me. Like Quinn’s, his trust humbled me. It was everything. When I’d been at my lowest, Griffen had been there. We weren’t blood, but he was my family all the same, which made the Sawyers mine. Nothing was going to happen to this family. One way or another, this had to end.
“Is Chief West going to get the bad guy?” August asked, his eyes wide.
“Chief West always gets the bad guy,” Sterling said, sending August a wink. “That’s why he’s the police chief.”
“He’s on it,” I assured the kids. “If the bad guy is there, Chief West will get him.”
“Do you think this is him?” Quinn asked.
“We don”t know yet.” I glanced at Griffen, then back to Quinn. “We need to head into town. You have a hike in less than an hour.” I leaned forward to catch Sterling’s eye. “You’ll ride with us. Gives me less to keep track of.” She nodded, standing to push back her chair.
Quinn did the same. “Let”s get moving. Maybe West will call with good news.”
“Keep your eyes open out there,” Griffen said.
Quinn gave him a grin and a salute. “I always do,” she said.
She did. I”d been impressed by how at ease and comfortable Quinn was in the woods. But even with that, she was always alert, always careful. She respected the environment as much as she loved it.
We rode to town in silence, Quinn”s eyes bouncing between the dark screen of my phone and the trees flashing by the windows. We were pulling in to park behind the bungalow that housed Sawyer Outdoor Adventures when West called back.
“We got him,” West said, a note of relief in his voice. “The deputy’s putting on the cuffs now. Guy fits your description, right down to how he”s dressed. Brown camo versus white, but that makes sense since the snow is gone.”
“What was he doing when you caught him?” I asked.
“The back door was open and he was tearing Harvey’s desk apart. Not like before. This was messy in the extreme. He was yanking out drawers and tossing them, tore the cushions off the sofa. The laptop on the desk was open. I’m sending you a pic of the screen. I can’t interpret it, but maybe Jackson can.”
My phone chimed with a text, and the picture filled the screen. The background was a generic field of grass under blue sky, but open in the center was a black window filled with white text. Lines of what looked like code. I wasn’t a hacker any more than West was. I knew the basics, enough to handle the security systems we designed and monitored at Sinclair Security, but as I zoomed in on the picture, I knew this was far above my pay grade.
“I’m forwarding it to Jackson,” I said.
Thirty seconds later, I got a text in return.
I can follow it right up to where I booted his ass out. I don”t know why he set up in the lawyer”s office to do it, but whoever broke into the system was using that laptop.
I relayed Lucas”s message to West, who said, “We”ve got him on breaking and entering at a minimum. I”m going to bring him in and see if we can get him to talk. Where are you now?”
“I”m at Sawyer Outdoor Adventures.” I looked up to see Quinn striding forward, her hand out to shake that of a middle-aged man. A woman around his age stood beside him, the pair flanked by two kids, a boy and a girl who looked like they might be twins. “Quinn’s first set of clients is here.”
“Look,” West said, “can you put some of your team on Quinn for this hike? You two are the only ones who’ve seen this guy face-to-face. You’ve heard his voice. Fought with him. I need to question him, and since Quinn is otherwise occupied, I want you observing.”
I’d been focused on Quinn for so long my knee-jerk reaction was to tell him no, that I wasn’t leaving her side. But I had to use my brain. All signs pointed to this being our guy. Only Quinn and I could ID him, and I wasn’t going to ask her to cancel her trip and come into the station to look this man in the eye. She’d been through enough at his hands already. I had extra people on the team since Lucas’s visit. We could spare two people to guard her, and I wanted to see this guy myself. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust West—he was smart and damn good at his job. But as he’d said, I’d fought this guy. If we had him, I needed see him with my own eyes.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” I said. “As soon as I get things settled here.”
“Meet me at the station,” West said and hung up.
Sterling stood behind me, her platinum hair back in a utilitarian braid, her eyes bright with curiosity. “Did West get him?”
“It looks like it,” I said. “Hold on a second.” I called Kane. “West has the guy. It looks like he”s a match, but we want to make sure. Can you send Holly and James?” They’d come in with Lucas, and they were top-notch. Moving to the back of the building, out of sight of the arriving clients, I continued, “I want them to join the hike like they”re just another pair of tourists so they can keep an eye on Quinn and Sterling.”
“You don’t think West has our man?” Kane asked.
I thought it was highly likely, but I’d been burned before. Badly. “He checks all the boxes, especially when we add in the code Lucas recognized on the laptop on Harvey’s desk. But?—”
“You don”t want to count your chickens,” Kane finished.
“Not when Quinn is at stake,” I said.
“I’ll have them there in fifteen. Keep me posted.”
“Will do,” I said. I shoved the phone in my pocket and glanced around for Quinn.
She was smiling at two older men wearing hiking pants and carrying trekking poles. I caught her eye and she excused herself, heading to the back of the shop.
“Everybody”s here,” she said. “I think we”re almost ready to go. Did you hear from West? Was it the guy?”
I didn”t want to crush the light in her eyes, but I couldn’t bring myself to shade the truth and give her the yes she wanted. I wasn’t going to lie to Quinn. “We think so,” I said. “He looks good for it, but West needs me to come in. I”m the only one other than you who”s seen the guy in person.”
“Do I need to go with you?” Quinn asked, her eyes dimming as they flicked to the clients clustered in the front of the shop, some of them rifling through the goods she’d restocked. “I don”t want to cancel, but if West needs me?—”
“I’ll go now so I can observe while West questions the guy. There”ll be plenty of time for you to come in after the hike if he needs you. Holly and James are headed in. You remember them?”
Quinn smiled. “Yeah, they’re great. Are they going to pretend to be clients?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t leave you if I didn’t think it was safe. I just need to be sure.” I ran my hand down her arm.
“I know you wouldn’t.”
There was that trust again. The best gift of my life, aside from her love.
I could taste freedom on our horizon. If West had the guy, it was over. And once the threat was eliminated, we could settle into life. Into being together. I wanted that, wanted our life to be ours.
I hadn’t felt like this since my first few years in the army, this sense of anticipation, of eagerness for adventure. I wanted that feeling again, this time with Quinn. She was a woman to adventure with. Wrapped in each other under the covers, we’d talked about trips we wanted to take. Hiking a glacier and sleeping in a tent hung from the side of a cliff. Kayaking out West and tackling the Appalachian Trail. I wanted all of it, as long as she was there. It was so close I could feel it.
I stayed long enough for Holly and James to get there. They walked in holding hands, Holly”s hair in a low ponytail and James wearing a ball cap, both of them dressed for a spring hike in the mountains. Holly looked twenty-five but was in her early thirties. Her husband was currently deployed, so she hadn’t minded the temporary shift from Atlanta to Sawyers Bend. James was in his late twenties but looked older thanks to the gray at his temples. He smiled at Holly with the indulgent affection of an adoring spouse, though he was currently fighting with his boyfriend in Atlanta, who did not like that his man was in the boonies so he could guard the one percent.
Looking at the two of them, you”d never guess they weren’t madly in love. They caught my eye and we exchanged nods. “I”m headed to the station,” I told Quinn in a low voice. “Stick close to Holly and James and keep your eyes open.”
“I always do.” Quinn didn’t do PDA in front of clients, but she caught my hand in a tight squeeze and lifted to her toes to kiss my cheek. “You too,” she said. “I mean, keep your eyes open.”
I felt my lips curve at the thought that she was cautioning me to be safe. I wasn’t the one heading out into the woods. I was going to the safest place in town, the police station.