Fugitive. Shirlee McCoy
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And, now that I am, I really need you to leave. If this is the only cabin on the mountain—”
“It is.”
“Then eventually someone is going to show up here looking for me. I don’t want you here when it happens.”
“If I leave, how will you get off the mountain?”
“I’ll manage.”
“You can’t walk out. It’s too far.”
“Like I said, I’ll manage. Did your husband keep a handgun around?”
“In the lockbox on the top shelf of the closet,” she responded and then wished she hadn’t. She’d already broken the law. She was breaking it again by providing a felon with a firearm.
He grabbed the box and set it on the satiny wood of the little table William had crafted on their last visit to the cabin together.
“Do you know the combination?”
“Why do you need a gun?” she asked, unable to look away as Logan fiddled with the combination lock. With his dark hair almost dry and his chin shadowed with the beginning of a beard, he looked tough and dangerous.
“I’m not planning to kill a cop with it, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking that helping you get out of those cuffs was one thing. Giving you a weapon is something else. Unless you have a really good reason for wanting it, it’s probably better that it stays locked up.”
“It’s not a weapon—it’s a firearm. And I’m only planning to use it for protection.” He looked up from the box, his eyes blazing. Familiar eyes, and she couldn’t deny them, couldn’t turn away from the truth she saw there. She rattled off the combination, and he lifted the pistol, checking to see if it was loaded and then grabbing the ammunition that William had locked up with it.
“I’d better go,” she said because looking at him wearing William’s clothes and carrying William’s firearm made her chest tight and her stomach ache. She’d loved William. He’d been her best friend and confidant. Her cheerleader and supporter. With him, she’d had freedom from the chaos and drama that she’d grown up with.
The thing was, she’d loved Logan, too, all those years ago. Had loved him with the kind of love only a child who’d been desperate for affection could feel.
She didn’t want to leave him, but she didn’t know how she could stay when staying meant turmoil and trouble. She’d run from that thirteen years ago. And she’d lived more than a decade with peace and stability and order in her life.
“Be careful on the roads, and don’t stop for anything but a marked police cruiser,” Logan said as she opened the front door.
She nodded but couldn’t speak. Her eyes burned with tears, all the things Logan had done for her when she was young and hurting and scared crowding into her brain.
Don’t cry, Laney. Don’t give them that power over you.
Those were the first words he’d ever spoken to her. She’d shoved the memory so far back in her mind, she hadn’t known it was still there.
She walked outside, let the wind cool her hot face and burning eyes and tried to tell herself that she wasn’t abandoning the man who’d lived in her parents’ home for five years because he hadn’t wanted to abandon her.
She was doing the right thing. She had to believe that, had to trust that God’s plan would work itself out. He would protect Logan.
He didn’t need Laney’s help for that.
Still...
Thirteen years, and Logan was suddenly back in her life.
That had to mean something.
Didn’t it?
She slid behind the wheel of the Jeep, her gaze jumping to the cabin. She needed to drive away, but she couldn’t quite make herself start the engine.
The cabin door opened, and Logan appeared, silhouetted in the light. He walked to the car, his stride long and confident.
She unrolled the window as he approached.
“Did you change your mind about wanting a ride?” she asked, half hoping that he’d say he had. Half hoping that he wouldn’t.
“I need to toss this into the woods. Ten minutes, and it’ll be covered with snow.” He held up his prison uniform. “If anyone finds it, they’ll assume I’m hypothermic and out of my mind with it. I don’t want anyone knowing I was here. Not for a while, anyway.”
“Logan...”
She wasn’t sure what she planned to say, what she should say.
“Everything is going to be okay,” he cut in before she could gather her thoughts. “Now, go. Because the longer you sit there, the longer I’m going to be standing out here, and the colder we’re both going to get.”
He meant it.
She was absolutely sure that he’d stand there until she left. She nodded, rolled up the window and started the engine, her heart beating a heavy, hard rhythm as she pulled away.
THREE
Snow splattered against the Jeep’s windshield and Laney turned on the wipers, her hand shaking a little.
She had to do this.
Had to.
Because it was what Logan wanted, and because Laney’s trip back home was designed to help her close the door to the past. Not revisit it.
She frowned, her hands tight on the steering wheel, snow swirling as she inched down the long driveway. She’d given herself two weeks to clean out the cabin and her parents’ house. Two weeks to get them both on the market and return to her interior design job and to her clients.
She hadn’t expected it to be easy, but she had expected it to go smoothly. She’d planned everything out—called the lawyer who’d handled her father’s estate after he’d died and asked him to have the electricity turned back on at the farmhouse, contacted a real estate agent and a contractor, asked friends to water her plants while she was gone.
Yeah, she’d planned everything out, but she hadn’t planned on Logan.
Hadn’t planned on having to turn her back on a part of the past that was suddenly very much in the present.
She flipped on the heat, trying to drive away the chill in her bones.
A light flashed somewhere below. It was just a glimmer that she wasn’t even sure she’d seen, but her pulse jumped, adrenaline streaming through her blood.
Just keep going, keep driving.
She wanted to, but her foot had a mind of its own, pressing on the brake so that the Jeep eased to a stop.
She sat for a moment, peering into the storm, her body tense as she waited for some sign that there really was someone else on the mountain.
There! Another glimmer of light.
The police?
Someone worse?
She thought about Logan, completely unaware of the threat closing in on him.
Just. Keep. Going.
But she couldn’t.
He’d done too much for her all those years ago, and she couldn’t leave without warning him.
She put her car in reverse and backed toward the cabin, her heart racing with fear. Logan had warned her that trouble was coming. He’d told her to leave. Alone, though, trapped on the mountain with no transportation, he’d die.
She couldn’t let that happen.
No matter how