12. TANNER

12

TANNER

W eeks passed, the winter started, and life in Silver Ridge returned to its usual quiet rhythm. I saw Rae from time to time when I came down to town for supplies.

When I’d left her cabin after I’d gone after her again, there had been no agreement, no plans to see each other again. We’d just both known that this wasn’t the end.

There was no snow. It was very cold, the ground frozen over, and a lot of the wildlife had disappeared. It meant I had to draw from my bank accounts rather than living off the land, but it also meant going into town more often for food.

Our interactions were tentative, like we were both afraid to break the fragile truce we had created. Each meeting was careful, but our lovemaking was passionate, sometimes wild, and it conveyed everything we were too scared to put into words.

No matter how much I tried to tell myself we were just taking it day by day, seeing her was a reminder of the feelings I’d tried to bury.

I’d been a fool to think that I could stop loving her and move on. I’d been an idiot to think my heart would play along just because my head had decided that was what was going to happen.

I kept busy with my usual routines—chopping wood, hunting where I could, maintaining the cabin—but my thoughts always drifted back to Rae. I wanted to go to her, to see if we could find a way to make things work, but doubts still gnawed at me.

I still didn’t know where she’d come from.

Why was she here?

Why had she suddenly appeared in my life again?

I’d never believed in coincidence. There had to be a reason for everything. But what was the reason for this? There was so much more to the story, and she wouldn’t tell me.

And I didn’t want to ask.

I finished stacking the wood and headed inside, the warmth of the cabin a stark contrast to the chill in my thoughts. I made a pot of coffee, the familiar routine calming me a little.

Was I being paranoid about her?

These days, I was paranoid about everything. Maybe Rae was here for the same reasons I was—to escape, to find peace. But the doubts kept coming back, gnawing at the edges of my mind. I couldn’t afford to be careless, not with my past still casting long shadows over my present.

I lay in bed, covered in furs, and tired after a day’s hard physical labor, but sleep wouldn’t come. My thoughts kept circling back to Rae, to the mystery of her sudden reappearance in my life. I wanted to trust her, to believe that we could find our way back to each other, but I couldn’t ignore the nagging suspicion that there was something big I would get tangled up in, and without knowing what it was, I couldn’t completely relax, until I knew that everything between us would be okay.

Until I was sure the past was in the past, and until I knew the truth, I couldn’t let my guard down completely. No matter how much I wanted to.

One night, as I sat by the fire, someone knocked on my door.

When I opened it, it was Bear.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, just dropping in.”

I let him in. The biting cold outside was deadly at night. I didn’t know why the ex-military-turned-mountain-man was roaming the trees at this hour, but nothing he did made sense.

And I knew better than to question him.

“Something to drink?”

“What do you have?”

“Something strong. Looks like you could use some and whiskey always warms the veins.”

Bear grinned at me through his thick beard.

“Twist my rubber arm.”

I chuckled and took out two tumblers. I poured us each a good amount—what was the point of only pouring a little when we would just go back for more?

We sat down around the fire.

“You’re working hard these days,” Bear said when we sat.

I nodded. “Always stocking up.”

“You’re going to work yourself to death if you’re not careful.”

I sipped my whiskey. “Come on, we both know that’s not how it works up here. Being passive is what will kill ya in this weather. Snow’s late, and that worries me. It might be piling up for a banger later.”

Bear watched me without commenting on the statement I’d made about the weather.

“What?” I finally asked.

“How’s Rae doing?”

I hesitated. “Fine, as far as I can tell.”

“You see her often enough to be able to tell.”

I sighed. “Yeah, well. I can’t stay away. She does something to me.”

Bear nodded. “And you’re still scared of yourself.”

“How can I not be? I can’t do to her again what I did before. I don’t think either of us will survive that. Besides, now that the past is so far in the past… I’m starting to think that maybe, just maybe, we could start over. Build a life without all that bullshit, you know?”

Bear studied me. “Do you think you can do that?”

“Start a new life?”

“Leave the past in the past.”

I shook my head. “It’s been years.”

“And yet, you’re still having nightmares about it like it happened yesterday.”

I sat back with a groan. “That doesn’t mean that it will happen again.”

“If you can’t forgive yourself for the past, you’re never going to be able to build a future.”

“Whiskey makes you deep, Bear,” I said. “Like a fucking fortune cookie.”

Bear chuckled. “I’m just sharing my thoughts with you.”

I grinned, and we sat together, drinking whiskey and staring into the fire. My past came back at me, hitting me like a bus. Maybe it was the alcohol loosening the memories. Maybe it was the fact that Bear was right. If I didn’t let go, how could I start over?

I’d worked for a man named Vito, a crime boss with a reputation for ruthlessness. No mercy, killing was his game, and even though I didn’t always agree with his methods, I understood my place in that world. I was good at what I did, and I’d worked my way up in the ranks until I was Vito’s right-hand man.

My job was simple: set up meetings, make connections, keep things running smoothly. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t need to know the details.

“How am I supposed to forget?” I asked Bear.

“You can’t forget,” he said. “But you can forgive.”

I shook my head. “Those are mutually exclusive.”

One night, everything had changed. I’d found out, too late, that one of the meetings I’d arranged was a setup for a hit. A family, innocent people, had been caught in the crossfire.

A child had died.

The guilt was overwhelming, suffocating. I couldn’t live with myself, knowing I had played a part in their deaths.

I was as good as a killer with their blood on my hands. It didn’t matter that Vito was the one who’d asked me to arrange the meeting, or that one of his other henchmen had actually done the killing.

It didn’t matter that I hadn’t known what it would come to.

If it hadn’t been for me, they would still be alive, and that made me a killer, a person who deserved to be punished forever for what I’d done.

I hadn’t been able to just let it slide after that. Everything Vito had asked me to do in the following days had come with a question.

What if I’m setting up another killing?

No matter how much I tried to convince myself that it had been fine until now, that they weren’t all like that, I couldn’t be sure of that, either.

What if that family wasn’t the first? What if a whole bunch of innocents had already died at my hands and I didn’t even know?

After a couple of days, I’d cracked. I hadn’t been able to keep going with that anymore. I hadn’t been able to arrange meetings and not know who the people were, know if they deserved to die.

Hell, all people deserved a shot at life, right? A second chance to change things and make a difference…

I’d confronted Vito, anger and despair driving me. “Why? Why did you do it?”

He looked at me with cold eyes, unfeeling and unrepentant. “It was necessary. They were in the way.”

I’d realized then that I’d overstepped, that I was in over my head. Vito was a man who didn’t tolerate disobedience, and I had crossed a line. “I can’t be a part of this,” I’d said, my voice shaking.

“You don’t have a choice,” he replied, his tone menacing. “You’re in too deep, Tanner. You try to leave, and you’ll be next.”

I knew then that I had to run. But more importantly, I had to protect Rae. She didn’t know the extent of my involvement, and I couldn’t bear the thought of her getting caught up in this nightmare. I’d packed a bag that night and left without saying goodbye. If I had, they would have found her. They would have killed her to punish me.

I’d known leaving like that would break her. But rather a broken heart than death.

The pain of leaving her was almost as unbearable as the guilt I carried.

As I’d fled, Vito’s men were hot on my trail. I’d barely escaped with my life, disappearing into the mountains, the only consolation being that Rae would be safe without me. The decision to leave her had ripped me apart, but it was the only way to keep her out of harm’s way.

I’d loved her too much to let her die. I’d loved her so much I’d had to let her go.

The fire crackled, snapping me back to the present. My heart ached, and the guilt made me feel sick. I stared at my whiskey, not wanting to drink more.

“You doing okay there?” Bear asked.

“Fine,” I lied.

“It wasn’t your fault, you know.”

I shook my head. “It was. Without me—”

“They would still have died. Vito is a horror, you know that.”

“I turned a blind eye,” I said, feeling like I was about to crack and break down. Fuck, I hated feeling so weak. “I knew that things were fucked up, and I still kept going, doing what I needed to do so that Vito could keep killing, keep torturing. I enabled him, and for that, I will forever be punished. This life, alone—”

“Stop it.” Bear cut me off. “Do you love her?”

I blinked at him, confused.

“Yeah,” I said in a hoarse voice.

“Then maybe you should change shit. Live life differently. Unless of course, you want to let her go again and keep doing this. But something tells me this game isn’t enough for you anymore.”

He wasn’t wrong. Until Rae had shown her face again, I’d been more than happy to live a life of solitude, but now that she was back, I didn’t want to keep going the way I used to.

I wanted the life with her I’d had before.

No, that wasn’t true.

I wanted a better life, one without all the secrets and danger.

I wanted a different life with her now.

But the past wouldn’t let me go.

“What is she running from? Have you figured it out?”

I shook my head. “No. She won’t tell me.”

“Can’t blame her.”

“She doesn’t trust me.”

“She wouldn’t trust anyone, would she?”

I shook my head. If what she was tangled up in was anything like what I was stuck in, then it made sense that she wouldn’t trust anyone. Least of all me, though. Because I’d left her. I’d betrayed that trust she’d had in me once before, and I’d walked away from her, leaving her to fend for herself.

And now, she was in trouble.

As if I didn’t feel enough guilt already.

“I won’t force her to let me in,” I said to Bear.

“Just make sure that shutting her out doesn’t hurt you more. Or her.”

Fuck, he was right. Bear usually was. I didn’t know what he’d been through in his life, but it had given him a very profound outlook. He always told me that it was much easier to comment on others’ lives than to fix his own, but I couldn’t imagine that a man like him could have problems the way I did.

My mind turned to Rae again.

If I helped her, saved her, maybe I could find redemption, maybe I could protect her this time.

Leaving wasn’t the answer this time. But she wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. What was she hiding from me? What danger was she running from?

I stood up, pacing the small space of the cabin.

I needed answers, but I didn’t know how to get them. Not without giving her some answers, too.

“I can’t ask her to confide in me if I don’t confide in her,” I finally said to Bear, turning to face him. “I can’t expect her to open up to me when I’m not willing to do the same.”

“Maybe you should talk to her, then,” Bear suggested.

I groaned. “It’s not that simple. If she knows what I’ve done, she’ll leave. She’ll think I’m a monster. And she’ll have every right to.”

“Or maybe she’ll surprise you and stay, see you the way I do.”

I didn’t know if I could risk that. The only thing worse than losing Rae because I’d left would be to lose her because she didn’t want to be with me anymore. As long as she hated me for leaving her, she wouldn’t hate me for being a murderer.

I was too attached to her now. Hell, she’d always had my heart.

I risked driving her away. But I couldn’t ignore the feeling that something was terribly wrong, and if I didn’t know what it was, I couldn’t help her.

Bear was right. To show her she could trust me, I had to trust her and be open about my past. Even if it meant losing her.

It was the only way I could make things right, be there for her this time to keep her safe instead of running from the past.

I had to risk the fact that she might think I was worse than whatever she was running from.

And I was terrified of that. But I would rather have her hate me than not be able to protect her.

No matter how fucking hard it would be to tell her who and what I really was.