Halfway through my shower, Tanner joins me, which means I get a welcome home that involves an orgasm, and we end up taking a little longer to join everyone, but thankfully, no one says anything. Not that I would have cared if they had.
Chapter 24
CYBIL
“Morning, sunshine.” Tanner’s warm lips press against my bare shoulder as his hand curves around my hip, and I turn toward him and burrow my face against his chest, trying to fight back the nausea that’s haunted me every morning since I got here.
“Morning.” I blink my eyes open and find that he’s dressed, in a T-shirt and a pair of cutoff sweats. “Did you already work out?”
“No, not yet, but I have something to show you before everyone else wakes up,” he says quietly against my ear, and a shiver runs down my spine as I tip my head back to meet his gaze.
“What is it?”
“You’ll see.” He smiles, kissing me softly. “Get dressed, and I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
“Okay,” I agree, watching him get out of bed; then his eyes roam over me, and he shakes his head.
“Have I told you how happy I am to have you home?”
Home . . . yes, I’m home, and that’s what it feels like being with him.
“You mentioned it.” I can’t help my smile, and he places his fists in the bed on either side of my hips.
“Well, I’m really fucking happy.” He kisses me swiftly once more, then orders “Get up, babe” before he leaves the room, giving me one last look.
I don’t get up immediately. It takes me a few minutes to summon enough energy to sit up, then a few more minutes to actually put my feet on the floor. By the time I do meet him in the kitchen, he’s got two tumblers filled with coffee and a smile on his face. “Where are we going?” I ask when he grabs a zip-up hoodie and then helps me into it.
“Do you trust me?”
“You know I do,” I say, and he gives me a look that makes me warm all over, zips up the sweatshirt, and kisses my nose.
“Good.” He gives me one of the coffees, takes my hand, and walks me out the back door, down the steps, and toward the big metal building behind his house. “Blake, Mav, and Dave helped me with this project when I got home.” He looks down at me and lets my hand go so that he can pull a key out of his pocket. “When Janet, Margret, and Cammy heard what we were doing, they wanted to add their touch, and this morning I finished setting up the last piece so I could finally show you.” My heart starts to pound as he opens the heavy metal door on the side of the shop, steps inside, and turns on the lights. I follow behind him, and my breath catches as I look around. The space is smaller than my shop back in Oregon, but it’s much nicer. Dark wood covers the floors, shelves with pretty floral wallpaper line one of the larger walls, photos I took on my trip here are on the smaller wall, and lots of empty cubbies fill the other side of the room, with a large sewing desk and chair in the middle. “I just wanted you to have a place to work, a space you could call your own.”
“Tanner.” Tears fill my eyes, and I turn to face him. “This is . . .” I glance around once more. “I don’t even know what to say. It’s beautiful, so beautiful.”
“I know you’re giving up a lot to be with me, but I want you to be happy here, baby.” He wraps his arms around me, and I tuck my face against his chest.
“I don’t need this to be happy, but I love it.” I sniffle, feeling his lips at the top of my head. “Thank you.” I gaze up at him, and he cups my cheeks. “This is amazing.”
“When we get the storage unit built on the lodge property and all the equipment moved out, I’ll put in a kitchen and restroom out here and open up the rest of the building so you can use it all.”
“You don’t have to do that.” I look around, picturing all my material and bags filling the space. “This is more than enough.”
“That might be, but I’m still going to do it.” He watches me walk over to the desk with a smile on his face.
“So how much time do you think we have before everyone wakes up?” I put my hands on the desk, testing how sturdy it is, and the heated look in his eyes makes my nipples hard.
“No one knows where we are.” He prowls toward me, lifts me off my feet, sets my bottom on the desk, and covers my mouth with his. It doesn’t take long for me to kick off the shorts I have on, and even less time for him to spread my legs and enter me in one hard thrust. Digging my nails into his biceps, I hold on tight as he sends me flying and keep holding on when his thrusts become jerky and he loses himself inside me.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come into town with us?” Maisie asks, and I plaster a fake smile on my face.
“Yeah, I just want to get some stuff unpacked and settled in,” I tell her, hoping that she doesn’t see that I’m lying.
“Okay, well, I have my phone; call if you want us to bring you anything.”
“Sure.” I accept a kiss to my cheek from her and ignore the look that Jade gives me. As my best friend, I know she knows something isn’t right, but I’m thankful that she hasn’t confronted me. That said, I know she wants to; we just haven’t had time alone for her to do it. “You guys have fun, and you should totally go to the Root for lunch.”
“We might do that.” Maisie grabs her bag while Jade picks up hers.
“We’ll be out in a couple hours.”
“I’ll be here.” I walk them to the door and wave them off before heading to the bedroom and changing out of my shorts and into a pair of jeans.
With Tanner and Bernard fishing and Jade and Maisie out exploring town, I know this might be the only moment I have alone for the next few days. After I slip on a pair of flip-flops, I grab my keys off the hook near the front door and leave the house, making a beeline for my Bronco.
Once inside, I start the engine and take comfort in the smell of the interior that reminds me of my mom before I put the gearshift into drive. I turn onto the main road into town, trying not to freak myself out, even though I’m already freaked out. My period is late, and every day, I’ve woken up more tired than I was the night before when I went to sleep, feeling nauseous. Always nauseous.
Thankfully, no one else has noticed (or no one has said anything), but if I’m right and I’m pregnant, I won’t be able to hide what’s going on for very long. When I get to Target, I head inside, not even bothering to look around, which is something I would normally do. Instead, I go straight for the pregnancy tests, and since there are so many brands, all of them proclaiming different results, I decide to grab a few.
With my hands full, I start for the checkout but stop dead when I hear a voice nearby that sends a shiver down my spine. With my heart suddenly pounding, I tiptoe to the end of the aisle and look around the corner. Standing just feet away is a man with a cart, while the woman he’s with searches through a bin in the middle of the aisle. As I study him, my heart feels like it’s going to come out of my chest.
Because without a doubt, he’s one of the men I saw in the woods weeks ago.
One of the men who killed the elk and then shot at Tanner and me.
As if he senses me, his head lifts, and his eyes meet mine.