Page 127 of Billionaire Lumberjack's Bride

“You’re too good for something like that, Silas. I don’t like that he’s out there somewhere when we know what he’s capable of any more than you do. But he’s keeping a low profile. He’s scared. He’s running. Karma will catch up with him eventually, even if the police don’t.”

Silas’ jaw tightens, and he feathers his lips across mine. “God willing.”

* * *

SILAS

Even after everything she’s seen, Lyla still thinks so much of me and believes that I wouldn’t go and strangle the life out of him like I tried to in that conference room. But if I ever found myself alone in a room with Uncle Marty again, I can’t guarantee that I wouldn’t.

Not after everything he’s done to so many people.

Not after I read that journal over and over again.

Not when I was so close to ending all of it before that showdown in the boardroom.

I tighten my grip on Lyla, trying to keep myself from falling down that dark rabbit hole again. “Maybe I should have fired that gun when I had the chance…”

Before I have a chance to continue my thought, Lyla takes my face in her hands.

“No. You don’t talk like that. We’re moving on from all this, not looking back. Right? That was the plan.”

It was the plan.

And since we’ve been back on the mountain, it’s been a lot easier to move forward rather than let the past drag us back into it.

Not simply because we’ve left behind all the physical reminders of what went down but because this place just has that effect. The peace I found here all those years ago still permeates this land, the immediate sense of belonging here and that the mountain will provide anything I need.

And in a way, it did.

It brought Lyla to me, and having her here with me, now that everything’s out in the open, now that we’re fully exposed to each other, it feels like a fresh start, especially with this potentially good news about Joey and from the Feds.

Things are falling into place, exactly where they belong—like Lyla being in my arms right now. “Are you done with the animals?”

She raises a brow. “Yes. Why? Are you done with that load of wood?”

I shake my head. “Not even close. I got distracted.”

“By the phone calls?”

I press a kiss to her lips. “No, byyou. I couldn’t stop thinking about you and missed having you with me.”

Lyla drops her head back and laughs, the sound so natural and free from the turmoil we’ve been wound up in that it physically warms me. “I was like, what, fifty feet away from you the whole time?”

“It was too far.”

I tug her up against me again fully and let her feel my cock hardening against her leg. Leaning in, I kiss her neck where it meets her shoulder. “I was thinking…”

She angles her head to give me better access. “What?”

“That maybe we play hooky from chores for the rest of the day.”

I kiss higher, and her nails dig slightly into my chest, right over the scar I used to convince the board to vote my way. All this time, I’ve tried to hide them, tried to conceal them under something that told a different story, one of adventure and freedom of a childhood that I never had. But now I crave her touch over the marred skin. I need it as a reminder that despite how broken I am, she still loves me.

Her warm breath flutters my hair against my cheek, her lips barely brushing my ear. “That would just leave more work for tomorrow, wouldn’t it?”

Nodding, I work my way up the elegant slope of her neck. “Itwould. But you naked on top of me in a hot bath sounds absolutely glorious right now.”

I drag my head back and search her face. What I find there steals my ability to speak.

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