by Brenda Novak
“Where’s your truck?”
Letting go of her, he sank onto the bumper of the van and put his head between his knees. “A quarter of a mile down the road. Give me a minute. I can’t walk that far quite yet.” He drew a deep, audible breath. “I can’t believe you’re safe. I can’t believe I’ve got you back.”
When his eyes lifted to her swollen belly, she understood what he wanted to know but was afraid to ask. “I can’t tell you anything about the baby,” she said. “Only that Bishop didn’t manage to rape me, or … or even hurt me.”
“But…”
Apparently, he could hear the hesitation in her voice. “But I haven’t felt any movement for the past couple of days. Bishop drugged me to get me out of the cooler and into this van, though. I’m not sure what effect that might’ve had on the baby.”
“We’ll get you to a doctor,” he said more matter-of-factly, and she knew then that he was trying to be stoic, to hide his worry and concern for her benefit.
“Okay, but we’re going to get you to a doctor first. We’ll drive this bucket of bolts to your truck and come back for it and Bishop later.”
“Two for the road,” he joked. “Let’s do it.”
She felt Makita’s wet nose on her hand and took a moment to scratch him behind the ears. “You mean three. We wouldn’t be alive to tell the tale without Makita.”
Amarok whistled and his dog jumped into the back of the van with him. Evelyn saw Makita licking his face as he leaned back to rest against the interior wall.
With a smile, she closed the doors. Then she got behind the wheel and, taking care to avoid hitting Bishop’s body on the way out, drove them to the truck and then on to Anchorage.
Hilltop, AK—Friday, 4:30 p.m. AKDT
Evelyn could feel the soft skin and hard sinew of Amarok’s naked body pressed up against her own and refused to open her eyes. They’d spent all day yesterday at the hospital, getting patched up and reassuring their friends and families, so she was enjoying being at home with him, alone.
She didn’t want to stir for fear it would wake him and he’d get up. It wasn’t like him to lie around, not in the middle of the day. If he wasn’t working, he generally had some project going. It was bad enough that Phil had been calling every few hours to report various things—that the Fairbanks Police Department had not only found Bishop’s body and sent it to the medical examiner’s office, they’d also impounded his van. That the corpse Amarok discovered at the egg ranch was, in fact, Emmett Virtanen. That Edna Southwick was going to pull through. And that her daughter had called to say she was relieved Evelyn was safe, too.
Evelyn had no idea how long it might be before they heard from Phil or someone else again and planned to relish these quiet few minutes.
“Hey,” he murmured, kissing her head.
Apparently, she didn’t have to worry about waking him. He was already awake and had been able to notice the subtle difference in her breathing or something else to alert him that she was, too. “Hey.”
“You feeling okay?”
“Yeah. But I’m not ready to move quite yet.”
“Me either. I like this too much.”
“How’s your arm?”
“Beginning to throb. I should take another pain pill.”
“Oh no! Here I was scheming to keep you in bed with me for as long as possible and you need something.” She started to roll away from him so she could get it, but he stopped her.
“Don’t leave just yet. It’s not too bad. I can tolerate a few more minutes.”
He shifted onto his back, though, and brought her against him with his good arm.
“Being home is like a dream. I never thought I’d see this place again, ever be with you again,” she said.
“Mmm.” He let his eyes drift closed. “I wouldn’t have let that happen. I would’ve chased Bishop to the ends of the earth, if possible.”
“You did. Isn’t Fairbanks pretty close to one end of the earth?”
“It’s getting there, I guess.”
She could hear the smile in his voice as his fingers combed through her hair.
“Are we still getting married?” he asked.
“Why wouldn’t we?”
He sobered. “Because of everything you’ve been through. Maybe you need more time.”
“If we wait any longer, the baby will be here.”
They’d performed an ultrasound at the hospital yesterday, and her doctor had told her the baby looked fine. They wouldn’t know for sure, of course, until she was born, but their little girl seemed to have weathered the ordeal better than Evelyn had. “We could put it off for six months or another year.”
“Do you want to wait?” she asked in surprise.
“I’ve never wanted to wait,” he replied. “I’m trying to think of you.”
She lifted up on her elbows to look down into his face. “Then we’re not changing anything, because I want to marry you now more than ever.”
His lips curved into a smile as she lowered her head to kiss him, but then the phone interrupted.
So that he wouldn’t have to move any more than necessary, she got it off the nightstand and, assuming it would be Phil again, handed it to him.
“Hello?” she heard him say. “Lewis … Yeah.… What’s up?… No kidding … I believe it.… I always thought that was the case.… Good thing she finally came clean…”
He and the detective from Minnesota—Evelyn recognized the name—chatted for a few minutes more and then Amarok hung up.
“What’d Lewis have to say?” she asked.
“Terry’s wife was the one who called you, pretending to be my mother.”
“She admitted it?”
“Lewis said once she found out that Bishop had killed her brother, she broke down and told him everything. I guess she and Emmett planned to double-cross Terry.”
“In what way?”
“She planned to take his share of the money so she could leave him.”
“He might’ve had something to say about that.”
“I doubt it. Not with Emmett on her side.”
Evelyn was glad they had closure on who’d called as Alistair, but she bit her lip as she replayed in her mind a different part of what Amarok had just said: Once she found out that Bishop had killed her brother, she broke down and told him everything.
“What is it?” Amarok asked, noticing her sudden reticence.
She sat up, pulling the sheet with her. “I have something to tell you.”
His face registered concern. “There’s something else?”
She tucked her hair behind her ears as she nodded.
Wincing, he managed to sit up, too. “What is it?”
“Bishop didn’t kill Emmett.”
“How do you know?” he asked.
She drew a deep breath. “Because I did.”
His eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
“Completely.”
“How?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s too upsetting. But … do you think I should let the police know? Does it matter if I killed Emmett or Bishop did?”
He studied her for several seconds. Then he reached up to caress her cheek. “No.”
She caught his hand, holding it in place. “Are you sure?”
“I’m positive,” he replied. “You did only what you had to do. And no one else needs to hear about it.”
She struggled to swallow the lump that rose in her throat. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said. “We’re going to recover from this just like we’ve recovered from everything else. I promise.”
She sniffed and wiped her cheeks. “I know.”
EPILOGUE
Hilltop, AK—Saturday, three weeks later, 10:30 p.m. AKDT
Amarok sat at the bar, the tie loosened on his tux as he nursed one final cold one. His wedding, which he’d believed might never happen, was over. Many of his and Evelyn’s guests were drifting off, maki
ng it less crowded and more relaxed—like the Moosehead normally was. That they’d been able to go ahead and have the ceremony without a delay, after all they’d been through, was almost a miracle. But Evelyn had insisted she didn’t want to wait. Amarok had been hesitant to put it off, too, what with the baby coming in a few weeks. Soon he’d be a father as well as a husband—just what he’d hoped for ever since he first fell in love with Evelyn.
This was a good day. He wasn’t sure he’d ever had a better one.
“You going to have trouble getting used to that thing?” Shorty joked, coming up on the other side of the bar and angling his head toward Amarok’s left hand.
Amarok turned the simple gold band on his third finger. “Not at all. I like the feel of it.”
“You like the meaning behind it.”
He glanced over to see Evelyn talking to Molly in the corner, by where they’d served the cake. Fortunately, the swelling and bruising on her face were gone. “That too.”
Shorty popped the top on another beer, this one for himself. “You’re a lucky man. I guess I can tell you now that I didn’t think you’d get her back alive.”
Amarok shook his head as he remembered those dark days, knowing he’d never forget them. “I guess I can tell you now that I didn’t, either.”
Clinking his bottle against Amarok’s, Shorty took a long pull before changing the subject. “I expected some of Evelyn’s family to fly out for this. Kinda surprised that Brianne, at least, didn’t make it.”
“She’s got to help look out for Evelyn’s mother.”
“Evelyn told me Lara … struggles. That hasn’t improved?”
“It has. She’s doing better these days, but Brianne’s baby is only a month old. Didn’t make sense to put him on a plane when we’ll be going there in the fall for a second reception.”
“Guess not,” Shorty agreed. “I was just hoping to see her again, that’s all. She doing okay?”
Amarok nodded. It had been a touchy situation to have Brianne as a guest in his home last fall, right after she’d learned she was pregnant and before Jasper was caught. “Better than she was when she was here before—I can tell you that,” he said wryly.
Shorty chuckled. “It’s still hard for me to believe she struck up a friendship with Jasper Moore while she was here. I shake my head whenever I remember seeing them dancing together.”
“Yeah, well, he was Andy Smith then—a correctional officer at the prison. She wasn’t the only one who was fooled.”
“True.” Shorty straightened. “What’s up with him these days, anyway? He out of the infirmary yet?”
“He was just transferred back to his cell this week.”
“So he’s going to be okay.”
“That depends on how well he gets along with the other inmates moving forward. He’s not the type who makes friends easily—especially not now that the mask has come off.”
“Deserves whatever he gets. That’s my take.”
“A lot of people would agree. But Evelyn’s seen to it that they’ve suspended the guards who were responsible for him when it happened. They can’t let that kind of shit occur.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Shorty wasn’t one who stopped to chat for very long when he was working the bar. But with the wedding over, Amarok could tell he was warming up to the question he really wanted to ask.
After Shorty had put so much into making the wedding as nice as it had been, Amarok decided to save him the trouble of searching for the right lead-in. “I decided to invite her,” he said, out of the blue.
Amarok knew he was right, that Shorty had wanted to ask about Alistair’s appearance at the wedding, when Shorty didn’t say, Who?
“Change of heart, huh?” he said instead.
“I don’t know. Life just seems too short to carry that kind of resentment around.”
“She kept her distance and left as soon as it was over. I think she’s trying to respect your boundaries.”
“I got that, too. And I’m grateful.” Amarok wasn’t sure how much interaction he’d have with his mother in the future, but he supposed it was a step in the right direction.
He scratched off the label of his beer, lost in thought for a bit. Their relationship would become more of an issue now that she would have a grandchild through him. Deciding he didn’t want to have a relationship with her seemed selfish when it meant his daughter wouldn’t have one of her grandmothers.
Evelyn came up and rested her hand on his shoulder as she reached over to grab a handful of nuts. “I’m exhausted,” she said. “You about ready to head home?”
He slid his empty bottle toward Shorty. “I’ve just been waiting for you.”
She gave him the smile that never failed to steal his breath. “Then let’s go, Husband.”
They thanked Shorty and, her hand clasped in his, left the bar—only to find his truck decorated with so much shoe polish, balloons and crepe paper, he didn’t think he’d be able to see out of the windshield to drive.
“Good thing we hid my car around back,” she said, and they hurried to reach it—only to find that the locals hadn’t been fooled.
They’d decorated both vehicles.
“There are no secrets in Hilltop,” Amarok grumbled.
Those who’d lingered to follow them were joined by others who came out from the trees, where they’d been hiding, to razz them and film their reaction.
It took longer to clean the windshield than it did to drive home. While there were some drawbacks of living in such a small town, there were definite advantages, too.
Amarok helped Evelyn out of the vehicle and then seemed determined to carry her across the threshold.
“What about your shoulder?” she asked when he stopped her from going in on her own power.
“It’s fine. Almost healed.”
“This could break it open again. Are you sure you really want to do this?”
“Call me traditional,” he said, and they both laughed as he swept her into his arms.
After Tobias ordered his coffee, someone stood up to leave, enabling him to snag a seat at a small corner table near a window that had a Christmas wreath hanging in the middle of it. The guy who’d just walked out had left his newspaper behind, which was lucky. Tobias wanted to take a look at the sports page and hadn’t thought to buy one on his way over, but before he could even turn to that section, he heard the barista call out a name that made him look up.
“Harper!”
He’d only ever heard of one Harper.
A quick glance at the faces lingering around the counter confirmed it was Harper Devlin, the woman he’d noticed at the Eatery last night.
What were the chances that he’d run into her again, especially so soon?
She didn’t hear the barista. At least, she didn’t react when he called her name. Standing to one side, out of the way of the line that snaked out the door, she stared off into space, obviously a million miles away.
That was when Tobias realized there was a song by Pulse playing on the sound system. He could hear Axel Devlin singing, “I will always love you.” Had he written those lyrics for her?
“Harper?” the barista called again.
Still no reaction. She was completely lost in thought.
Dropping the newspaper, Tobias got up and claimed her drink for her. But even as he approached, she didn’t seem to see or hear him.
“Hey, you okay?” He gave her arm a slight nudge as he held out her beverage.
Startled, she looked up and, as her eyes finally focused, he noticed the shimmer of unshed tears—which she immediately blinked away. “You,” she said, recognizing him.
She took her drink, and he shoved his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt. “Yes, me. But don’t worry, I’m not following you. When I heard the barista call your name, I looked up and there you were.”
She didn’t so much as smile. “Thanks.”
“Are you okay? Because it looks like you could use a minute to sit
down and relax, and I just happen to have a table.” He motioned to where he’d left the paper.
She seemed as lost or bewildered as she’d been last night. “Do you know my sister or my brother-in-law?”
“I’ve only been in town for five months, so I doubt it. What are their names?”
“Karoline and Terrance Mathewson. He’s a podiatrist. She’s a housewife who gets involved in about every good cause that comes along—even helped out with the tree lighting ceremony downtown a week ago. They have two twelve-year-old daughters, identical twins—Amanda and Miranda.”
“They sound like stellar citizens, so I’m sorry to say no, I’ve never heard of them.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You have no frame of reference where I’m concerned. I’m a total stranger to you.”
“Last night the waitress told me you were Axel Devlin’s wife. I guess that’s a frame of reference.”
Glancing away from him at the crowded coffee shop, she took a sip of her drink. “Is that why you bought me the rose? Because you thought I was married to someone famous and that makes me more desirable by extension?”
She wasn’t wearing makeup. She had on a pair of yoga pants and a parka with ear-warmers and looked as though she’d just rolled out of bed. But he couldn’t see how fancier clothes or makeup could make her any more appealing. He loved her golden, dewy-looking skin and the cornflower blue of her eyes. He could all too easily identify with the pain he saw inside them.
Actually, that was what drew him more than anything else.
“Your connection to Axel had no bearing on it whatsoever,” he said. “I just thought you were beautiful, and it seemed as though you could use the encouragement.”
Tucking the fine strands of blond hair falling from her ponytail behind her ears, she stepped back. “I’m sorry. I’m—I’m not open to a relationship.”
The compliment had spooked her, as he’d known it might. But he was only being honest. “That’s good.”
She seemed taken aback. “It is?”
“Yes—because I’m the last guy you should ever get with even if you were.”
Her mouth fell open. “Why’s that?”