Crimson River (The Edens)

The moment I stepped across the threshold at the hotel, I felt a prickle of awareness. Of wrongness. There’d been a knot in my gut ever since I’d left Lyla’s house this morning.

It untied.

Not because I didn’t have to worry. But because I could stop dreading the inevitable.

Winslow Eden stood next to the mahogany reception desk, her eyes trained on me as I walked across the space.

Beside her, Eloise sat taller, her eyes narrowing. Jasper’s face was granite, his frame locked and hands fisted. He looked ready to leap in front of his wife and shield her from danger. Again.

Wasn’t that a fucking shame? That these people thought I was a threat?

When I was ten feet away from the desk, Winn pushed off its edge, closing the distance between us. Wearing a black button-down and a pair of jeans, her dark hair unbound and falling over her shoulders, she shouldn’t have been imposing. But her badge was unmistakable. And that gun.

This was a woman who was not afraid to use it.

We stopped three feet apart. She tilted up her chin to keep my gaze.

“Chief Eden.” I dipped my chin.

“Officer Sutter.” Her voice was cool. Calm. Lethal.

So she knew I was a cop. It didn’t come as a surprise but it still fucking sucked. Shit.

“I think we’d better have a conversation,” Winn said.

I glanced longingly to the lobby’s fireplace and the leather couches arranged around a coffee table. Not a chance we’d be having that conversation here, would we?

“Your car? Or mine?”

TWO HOURS after I’d arrived at the Quincy police station, I stood from the chair that had been my captor and extended a hand across Winslow’s desk.

“Appreciate you hearing me out,” I said.

She stood too, shaking my hand with a nod. “Lyla was upset when she came down earlier. She deserves the truth.”

“She does. If it’s all right, I’d like to be the one to tell her.”

“Tonight.” Winn arched an eyebrow, a silent threat. If I wanted to be the one to tell Lyla the truth, the clock was ticking.

“Tonight.” I took my coat from the back of the chair and tugged it on. Then I strapped on the backpack I’d taken hiking with me.

Winn hadn’t let me drop it off in the room. Instead, she’d hauled me directly to the station in her unmarked rig. I’d expected her to sit my ass in an interrogation room, but she’d shown me no mercy and chosen her office for this conversation instead.

Only cops understood that a chief’s or captain’s office was worse than an interrogation room.

A file with my name on it had been sitting on her desk when we’d walked in, left out in plain sight for me to see. But she hadn’t touched it since we’d come in here. Probably because we both knew what was inside.

My demons.

Cormac. The shooting.

Rather than tell me what she knew, she’d asked for my story, then she’d listened. When I was done, she’d delivered the ass chewing of all ass chewings.

I’d always thought my captain was the best at cutting a man down, but damn, Winn could give him lessons.

She’d lectured me for not contacting her in regard to Cormac. For not sharing information about a criminal. For potentially contaminating a crime scene. She’d put me in my damn place and hadn’t minced words in the process.

The fucking hell of it was, I liked her. Still. I liked her. That ass chewing had been done with respect. Poise.

I admired the hell out of her for that. I bet the cops working in the bullpen outside her office admired the hell out of her too. They’d be fools otherwise.

“I should make a phone call to your captain,” Winn said. “Then tell you to get the hell out of my town.”

“You should.” But would she?

“My jurisdiction is Quincy,” she said. “The sheriff has county as well as search and rescue.”

Meaning beyond the town’s limits, her hands were tied.

Mine were not.

Winn smirked as she shrugged a shoulder. “I can’t stop people from going hiking.”

And if I was her only resource at the moment for tracking down the man who’d harmed Lyla, she wasn’t going to stand in my way.

“What about the FBI?” I asked.

Her eyebrows came together as she thought about it for a long moment. “I’ll pass the APB along to a local agent. If they choose to investigate, then I won’t stand in their way.”

Well, fuck.

I guess it would have been too good to be true for me to be left alone. But she couldn’t exactly lecture me on following proper channels while she ignored them too.

“All right.” I nodded, then opened the door and strode out of her office.

I felt eyes on me as I walked toward the exit, but I kept my gaze forward until I was outside the station.

The second the cool October air hit my face, I realized I didn’t have a vehicle. “Son of a bitch.”

Winter was coming and the days were growing shorter and shorter. It was only six but the sun had already set behind the mountains. Darkness had fallen over Quincy, and though I’d already spent most of the day hiking, I put one foot in front of the other and trudged downtown to the hotel. But instead of going inside, I dug my keys from my coat pocket and headed straight for my truck.

The lights at Lyla’s were on, glowing gold and bright from the abundance of windows. I parked in her driveway but couldn’t bring myself to shut off the engine.

Maybe I should have been angry with her for going to Winn. Maybe I should have felt betrayed.

But this was on me.

There were just too many fucking secrets.

How long had I kept them all to myself? Not even Tiff knew the full truth. We’d started dating after Cormac had disappeared, and while she’d gotten bits and pieces of the story, she’d never heard it all.

If I got out of this truck, if I knocked on Lyla’s front door, she’d understand why Cormac was so important.

Was she ready for that? Was I?

It had been four years, and fuck, I was tired of carrying this alone. I was tired of failing. I was tired of sleepless nights.

The best sleep I’d had in years had been this past week. Lyla and I had spent plenty of hours having sex, but when we’d exhausted each other, I’d crashed, not waking until her alarm went off at four.

Winn had told me to get my ass over here, but the real reason I was staring at this farmhouse was because I wasn’t ready to lose Lyla.

That would come soon enough. That would come when I returned home.

Or tonight, when she slammed the door in my face.

I shut off my truck and climbed out, tucking my hands in my pockets as I climbed the stairs to her porch. Then I pressed the doorbell and held my breath.

Footsteps sounded inside. Her face appeared in the glass insert of the door as she rose up on her toes to see who was outside. The moment she spotted me, her beautiful face hardened.

It looked strange on her lovely face. Out of place. And fuck me for being the asshole who’d made her smile disappear.

I was just as bad as Cormac for that.

Lyla hesitated, standing on her side of the door unmoving.

It felt like hours that I stood there, my shallow breaths white in the cold night air. Then finally, she flipped the dead bolt.

Thank fuck. The air rushed from my lungs as she stood in the threshold. Her feet were bare. Her toes would get cold. But I didn’t ask to come inside.

She wouldn’t let me anyway.

“Are you really a cop?” she asked.

My forehead furrowed. If that was her first question, it meant that she was questioning everything. That she thought I’d been lying to her from the start. Damn.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m a cop. I’m a deputy with the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office, in the Back Country Unit. I don’t have my badge. It would be useless in Montana, so I left it behind.”

It was more or less the truth.

Some secrets weren’t for tonight.

“I grew up in Coeur d’Alene. I’ve always loved the outdoors. Hiking. Fishing. Hunting. But I also wanted to be a cop. I guess you could say my job is the best of both worlds.”

Though maybe I should have just become a guide. Maybe I should have gone to work for an outfitting company, pandering to the wealthy tourists who came to the Pacific Northwest in search of a wilderness adventure.

Hell, maybe I shouldn’t rule that out yet. Depending on the outcome of the investigation, that might be my fallback option.

“How can I believe you?” A flash of guilt crossed her face, like she hated to even ask. Like a month ago, she wouldn’t have had to ask.

But then she’d met Cormac.

And I knew firsthand how he could destroy a person’s ability to trust.

I fished my phone from my jeans pocket, quickly pulling up a newspaper article. “This spring, two sixteen-year-old kids went hiking. A thunderstorm blew in fast and they got lost. I went out and found them.”

The paper had called me a hero. Ironic that just months later, I’d become the bad guy.

I scrolled down the article to the photo they’d taken of both Alec and me after the rescue. The two of us were dressed in tan canvas hiking pants and matching button-down shirts. My badge glinted under the summer sun as brightly as Alec’s bald head.

Handing the phone to Lyla, I waited as she scanned the article and inspected the picture. Her shoulders slumped as she reached the end.

“Thanks.” She returned my phone, then crossed her arms. “I told Winn who you are.”

“I just came from the station.”

Another flash of guilt crossed her face.

“It’s okay,” I told her.

Lyla glanced past my shoulder, staring into the darkness. She looked anywhere but at my face.

“Are your toes cold?”

She dropped her gaze, like she’d forgotten her own feet. “Yes.”

“Grab some socks. I’ll wait.”

With a nod, she turned, partially closing the door. She returned a minute later, her feet covered in thick wool socks. She’d pulled on a sweater too.

She’d bundled herself from the cold because I was not invited into her house.

Damn.

At least I could give her the truth she deserved, then leave her alone to find her peace with it.

“Alec is the guy in the photo with me, from that article,” I said. “The backcountry unit is a small part of the sheriff’s department, so most of the time, I work alone. But in a sense, you could consider him my partner. He’s only been around for four years. Before that, my partner was a guy from Alaska.”

Lyla shifted, leaning against the door’s frame as she listened, like this day had worn her out so entirely that she needed the support.

“His love for the outdoors was tenfold mine. He was into survivalist stuff. He talked about applying to be on that show Alone. Have you seen it?”

“Yes,” she murmured.

“He had a lot of skills. He taught me a lot. More than I’d ever learned as an Eagle Scout.”

“You were an Eagle Scout?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Other guys did basketball or football in high school. I was a Boy Scout.”

Literally. Figuratively.

No one was surprised when I’d decided to go into law enforcement.

“That man from Alaska was Cormac. He was my partner.”

Lyla’s gasp rang loud in the still night.

“Not just my partner. He was my best friend. My mentor.”

Her gaze snapped to mine. “That’s how you know so much about him.”

“He was a good man. I looked up to him. I learned from him. In a way, he was who I wanted to become.”

“Vance . . .”

“It doesn’t make sense. The Cormac I knew adored his wife. He doted on his children and treated his family like they were his entire world. He was a good man.” Or so I’d thought. “It’s been four years. How did I not see the monster he became? How did I miss that? How could I be so wrong?”

Those bright blue eyes were so sincere. So honest. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” I gave her a sad smile. “If I don’t find him, no one will. He’s too good. Too careful. But I have to know what happened that night. I have to know why he . . .” Murdered them.

Lyla’s face softened as desperation cracked my voice. “Did I ruin everything today? Going to Winn?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I should have gone to her from the start.”

“What did she say?”

“She said she couldn’t stop a guy from hiking.”

A ghost of a smile crossed Lyla’s lips. “Really?”

“She wants Cormac found for what he did to you. I’m her best chance.”

“And mine.” She closed her eyes, drawing in a long breath. Then as she exhaled, she stood tall. “Thanks for telling me.”

“Sorry I didn’t sooner.”

“It’s probably not the easiest thing to relive.”

Of course she’d understand why I’d kept it to myself. There was something uniquely special about Lyla Eden. Her heart.

She was the woman waiting in the coffee shop with a kind smile. The woman so steady, so constant, that not telling her everything had taken effort.

“Good night.” I turned to leave. My boots thudded on the porch boards, but before I could jog down the stairs, Lyla called my name.

“Vance?”

I twisted. Those pretty eyes waited.

She took a step back into the house, then opened the door wide. “Come inside.”

“You sure?”

“Please.”

The corner of my mouth turned up.

It felt like a lifetime ago, but it had just been this morning when I’d promised to make her say please.

Time to make good on that promise.

So I crossed the porch and walked inside, closing the door. Then, right there in the entryway, I sealed my lips over hers and stripped her out of that sweater and those socks. The rest of her clothes came off too.

And when she was pressed against the wall, my cock buried inside her, I bent my lips to her ear. “Say please if you want to come.”

A shiver rolled over her shoulders as her pussy fluttered around my length. “Please.”