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14. TANNER

14

TANNER

I stirred, waking from a deep sleep. Something wasn’t right. What had woken me?

When I turned, Rae wasn’t in the bed next to me, and I was suddenly wide awake.

“Rae?”

She didn’t answer, but I heard retching sounds coming from the bathroom.

I got out of bed and headed there, where she was hugging the toilet, her thin body convulsing as her body retched. Her hair hung over her shoulders. I took another step toward her and pulled her hair back.

“Hey,” I said. “Easy does it.”

“Go away, Tanner,” she snapped, her voice thick with nausea. She looked up at me. She was pale, her eyes watery.

“Rae, let me help you,” I said, ignoring her command.

“I don’t need your help,” she said, her voice tinged with anger. “Just leave me alone.”

What the hell? I was getting frustrated with her. Fuck, why was she always so damn stubborn? “What’s going on? Talk to me.”

She sat back, closing her eyes for a moment. “You wouldn’t understand,” she said bitterly. “You never do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” The frustration in my chest was morphing into anger. “I thought we were past this.”

“Past what?” she demanded, standing up shakily. “Past you abandoning me? Past you keeping secrets?”

I clenched my fists, struggling to keep my temper in check. “How are we back to this? What the fuck were the past couple of weeks about if you’re going to throw that into my face again?”

“Fucking me a couple of times doesn’t change facts, Tanner.” Her face was shaky, and when she pushed her hair back, her fingers trembled. I shook my head. It was like we were right back where we started, like we hadn’t come all this way.

“Just talk to me.”

Rae laughed sarcastically. “Now you want to talk? Because you’ve been such an open book until now?”

“Look,” I said, clenching my fists. “I didn’t leave because I was being a dick, okay?”

“Could have fooled me.”

“I left to protect you!”

She narrowed her eyes. She still looked shaky and pale, but her anger was quickly giving her more strength, her cheeks flushing, her eyes fiery as she glared at me.

“Protect me from what?” she shot back.

I clenched my jaw and shook my head. Damn it, if I told her she would see me as a monster.

Right now, she just saw me as the enemy. I didn’t know where that came from, but her anger meant she cared. At least, I think it did… if she found out the truth, that would go away.

I could deal with her being angry at me. I couldn’t deal with her hating me.

“There it is,” she said bitterly, putting her hands on her hips, leaning forward a little bit as if she were trying to get a hold of her nausea. “You keep me in the dark and then expect me to just accept it.”

“I told you, it’s not that simple,” I said through gritted teeth. “There are things you don’t understand.”

“Then make me understand!” she yelled, her eyes blazing. “Stop hiding behind your past and tell me the truth.”

“Damn it, Rae, what’s going on? Where is this coming from? I don’t understand what’s happening.”

“I just want to know where I stand with you,” she said hotly. “I just want to know the truth.”

“The truth hurts.”

“It always fucking does.”

I shook my head. “It’s too dangerous, Rae. The less you know, the better.”

That wasn’t entirely true. In fact… at this point it was just a lie. Vito wasn’t going to come after her just because she knew what I’d done. Vito didn’t give a shit about me anymore. I was sure he thought I was dead, and he’d carried on with his life.

Rae laughed sarcastically, shaking her head. “Dangerous? More dangerous than running for my life? More dangerous than being pregnant?”

She snapped her mouth shut and stared at me, and I froze.

The words hung in the air between us, heavy and electric. I stared at her, my mind reeling as I tried to make sense of what she’d said.

“Pregnant?” I repeated, my voice barely a whisper.

She turned her head away and crossed an arm over her stomach, rubbing her other arm.

The room seemed to spin around me. Pregnant. I hadn’t even considered the possibility.

“That’s not possible,” I said.

“Do you know how babies are made, Tanner?” Rae shot back.

“Of course I know,” I cried out. “But we were careful! I’m always so fucking careful with everything I do—”

“Except that one time.”

Fuck.

I shook my head, trying to put all the pieces together, trying to figure out how it was possible that my life got more complicated, more difficult, than easier. Was I never going to catch a break?

“How… how long have you known?”

“I just found out.”

I narrowed my eyes. “How?”

“Do you think I puke out my guts for fun?”

“That doesn’t mean you’re pregnant.”

“Just trust me,” Rae said.

I barked a laugh. “Trust you ?”

She stared at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve been hiding shit from me since the day you got here, and you want to jump down my throat about my secrets? It goes both ways, Princess. You don’t get to hold it over my head when you’re not open with me either, so cut the bullshit.”

Rae shook her head. “You don’t have to believe me if that’s what you want. I’m leaving.”

“You can’t go,” I said, taking a step toward her, but she glared at me when she headed for the door, and her look was hard enough that I stopped dead in my tracks.

She pushed past me and started getting dressed, finding her clothes in the room where we’d scattered them last night.

Last night, when everything had seemed perfect.

“I didn’t plan it this way,” she said, pulling on her jeans. “You’re making it impossible to talk to you.”

“You don’t think this is a big deal?” I picked up her shirt and handed it to her. “This changes everything.”

“Yeah, it does,” she said. “But don’t worry. I won’t make this your problem.”

“Don’t do this.”

Rae looked up at me after she pulled on her socks, and straightened.

“Then what do you want me to do?” she asked. “Stay? Play happy families? You, me, and the baby in this little cabin, hiding from the world?”

I shook my head, pinching the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger.

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“This wasn’t the plan,” I said, my voice raw. “This shouldn’t have happened. I never wanted to bring a child into this mess. I don’t deserve to be a father. Not after…” I couldn’t say it.

“Not after you left me?” Her voice softened, but that wasn’t what scared me half to death. What terrified me was being a father, raising a child, when I’d been responsible for the death of a family. And possibly many others without even knowing it. I couldn’t do this. I didn’t deserve this kind of life.

I didn’t deserve this kind of happiness.

“No,” I said, my voice hard. My heart turned to stone. I didn’t want Rae to think I was a monster, but that didn’t change the fact that I was.

“Right,” Rae said, thinking she knew all the answers. It felt like a stab to the gut when she pulled on her shoes and then her coat. “I think we’ve said everything we need to say. I’ll be on my way.”

She walked out of the bedroom, and a short while later, I heard the cabin door shut.

I stood in the bedroom where she’d left me, trying to process what had just happened. Rae was pregnant. We were going to have a child. The thought filled me with terror. But her words echoed in my mind, cutting deeper than any knife.

She thought I didn’t care, that I never cared.

I couldn’t let her believe that. I couldn’t let her think that I didn’t love her, that I didn’t dream of a life with her every day I wasn’t with her. That I’d never stopped thinking about her since the moment I’d left.

Fuck the past and what happened. I needed her in my life. I couldn’t live with this void, not again.

This time, I wasn’t going to survive if I let her walk into the world without me at her side to look after her.

Not again.

I had to make things right.

I grabbed my coat and ran outside, the cold air hitting me like a slap.

The lightly falling snow had covered the ground, making it difficult to see her tracks. I followed the path to town, looking for her tracks, walking as fast as I dared so that I didn’t miss them. The tracks led to town, but then they disappeared. The path to town was clear ahead of me. She hadn’t gone that way.

What the hell?

I turned and started looking for her tracks in the snow, veering off the path and between the trees.

Her tracks wound between the trees, picking the easiest route, and I followed them. They were slowly disappearing, but if I moved as fast as she did, or faster, I could catch up to her.

Sure enough, before long I saw her figure moving through the trees. She was heading away from town and deeper into the forest. Where was she going?

My training kicked in, and I stuck to the trees, making sure she didn’t see me following her. The falling snow, coming through the canopy of branches above, made the visibility worse, the weak sunlight barely filtering through, casting the forest into shadows.

It was easy to hide, easy to follow her, stalking her like I would stalk prey.

My breath came in sharp bursts in the cold air.

Rae suddenly stopped and looked around at the trees, as if she was looking for something. She shook her head and turned to the other side.

It looked like she was lost, struggling to find where she was going.

I was just about to step out from between the trees, to take her back to the cabin so that we could talk, when a dark shadow appeared in front of Rae.

She froze.

“Burke?” she asked.

He was a big, burly man with an unkempt beard and shaggy hair. His eyes were hard.

“You’re one hard lady to find, McKenna.” His voice was deep and gruff.

McKenna?

“What are you doing here?” Her voice trembled.

“I’m just here for the evidence.”

Rae shook her head. “I don’t have it.”

Burke took another step closer to Rae. and she shrunk away from him.

“I don’t believe you.”

Rae turned around and tried to run, but he grabbed her arm, and she cried out.

“You’re not getting away this time,” Burke said.

Who the hell was Burke?

“You’re hurting me!”

My heart lurched in my chest, my protective instincts taking over, and I started to step out from behind the tree.

“Tell me where it is, and this will all go away.”

I hesitated.

Rae squeezed her eyes shut. “I told you, I don’t have it.”

“Well, then we’ll just have to figure out who does, won’t we?” Burke said. “You’re coming with me. I’m sure Jethro can figure out a way to make you squeal. He’s always been good at that.”

I bristled as Burke yanked Rae away with him through the trees.

When the coast was clear, I followed them. I stayed behind the trees, making sure I wasn’t seen. Burke wasn’t alone—Jethro was here, too.

Jethro, the man Rae was running from?

I was pretty damn sure whatever this was about was bigger than just a relationship gone bad.

Rae fought Burke every step of the way. She screamed and kicked and clawed and bit… until he hit her over the head and her body slumped over.

He threw her over his shoulder.

I stepped out again, this time ready to get her back. It was just him and her—no one else was around. Not yet.

The sound of a car made me stop. Burke had headed in a different direction, away from Silver Ridge, and a service road wound through this area of the forest where there were fewer trees. The car was a big black SUV with tinted windows, and when Burke opened the back door, I heard at least two other voices as he stuffed Rae into the car.

“Oh, boy. You better hope she remembers when she wakes up, asshole,” one said.

“Jethro is going to be pissed. He likes to do the dirty work himself.”

“The bitch bit me,” Burke snapped.

I would be outnumbered. I could fight, but I had no weapons with me. I hadn’t even grabbed my knife as I’d wanted to go after Rae as quickly as I could.

“Jethro is at that shitty inn,” the first voice said. “But we’ll take her to the warehouse—”

The door closed as Burke got in after he’d managed to prop Rae up against the seat, and I couldn’t hear anymore.

The car pulled off, and I watched it leave, still hiding behind the trees.

The inn?

The warehouse?

They were right here, in town. The inn had to be Lauren’s place. But the warehouse… I had no idea.

I turned and headed through the trees back to my cabin as the flurry of snow turned into a storm. Soon, everything would be covered in a pristine sheet of white, the roads blocked, the world transformed.

Maybe that would slow them down.

Enough for me to get her back. Rae was my woman, and she was carrying my baby.

Fuck Jethro and fuck my past.

I was going to bring her back.

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