Page 9 of Hunter

I had never had affiliation with the club, except talking to a few of them once or twice at the bars and clubs. Therefore, I had never met Hunter. Hell, I hadn’t even known Noble had a brother. If it wasn’t for the eyes, the same gentle green eyes I had fallen in love with, I wouldn’t have seen a resemblance between them, even if they had stood side by side.

Hunter wasn’t as broad as Noble, but he was still huge with more toned muscles and height. Hunter had darker hair and flatter cheekbones. I wondered if Hunter was the younger or older brother.

I found myself staring at him, the massive man who came charging into my house like a bull and dragging me out the same way. He consumed the small space of the truck with only his presence. He wasn’t beautiful in the same surfer, easy-going way Noble had been. He was darker, broodier, good for one-night stands and rough, hot sex. Noble had been a lover; Hunter was a fucker. They were day and night.

His gaze flickered to mine, and I jerked my face away as fast as I could. After making it my mission to avoid him for the last fifteen hours of our journey, to be caught staring at him would mean mission failure.

I turned back toward the window, wondering if I could wind it down enough to grab Adair and make a successful leap from the truck. For an escape plan, it was the most reasonable I had yet. After looking for an eject button for a good hour and wondering if I could saw through the bottom of the floor with my nail file without him noticing, I was running out of ideas.

I heard Adair gurgling again then chuckled when I heard him laugh in his sleep.

“He looks just like Noble,” Hunter said out of the blue, startling me.

I fought the urge to look at him, pretending to look bored and resigned, and not like I was making an escape plan that consisted of a pencil, toothpaste, and whatever else I had in the contents of my purse.

My thought process continued until it looped back to what Hunter had said. I looked over my shoulder at Adair’s soft, little blond wisps of hair curled around his face, his chubby cheeks wobbling with the vibration of the truck. Even with drool hanging down the side of his face, he was a beautiful baby. I could only imagine I was feeling the same awe that Hunter and Noble’s parents must have felt when Noble was born. To think he turned out to be such a huge guy.

I tracked my gaze back to Hunter with the amusing thought of what he would have been like as a baby. Don’t get me wrong; I came to hate the guy in the few hours I had known him, but if Noble had been so damn cute, I could only imagine Hunter had been cute, too. Too bad he had grown up. How on earth two kids, probably close in age, ended up so different was a mystery. The eighth wonder of the world.

“You’re gonna burn a hole in my head,” Hunter said, startling me again.

This time, I forgot to look away and instead met his eyes when he looked at me. The green of his eyes cut through me like a knife and, for a moment, I forgot I wasn’t talking to him.

“How old are you?”

He looked at me like I was a lunatic, not that I wasn’t used to the look, but still.

Hunter turned back to the road. “Thirty-six,” he answered, much to my surprise.

Noble would have been thirty-eight this year. Hunter seemed more like the big brother type than Noble ever did. In fact, Noble was more like a wise kid with a man’s body, not that I didn’t like that. There was something about Hunter that made him seem all male. Maybe the brooding coupled with too many romance novels.

I shook the thought away as another came to me. “How did you find out about Adair?” Since we had broken the ice with my awkwardness, I figured it was time for a few questions of my own.

Hunter’s hands tightened around the steering wheel, the leather creaking under his grip. The muscle in his jaw ticked as he refused to look at me. I figured he wouldn’t answer, but then he opened his mouth.

“When I first began tracking you down, a contact told me you stopped in a free clinic with a one-year-old son.” The speed of the truck increased ever so slightly as he pulled into the faster lane. “Thought you’d gone and gotten married or something; had a kid with someone else. Didn’t figure he was Noble’s until, one day, I mentioned the name by accident to this girl. She was a gynecologist or some shi—” He paused and looked up into the rearview mirror at Adair before correcting himself, “Thing. Told me the name was English. That it meant noble.”

Silence stretched, feeling cold and strangled as I looked down at my hands, folding them over and over each other.

“I thought it couldn’t be. There was no way. You were only a one-night stand; you must have gotten pregnant after you left. So, I asked the woman. She said it was possible if you got pregnant before he …” He left the words hanging, like a hand squeezing around my heart as he struggled to get past them. “I wouldn’t let myself believe it. But then, yesterday, when I saw you coming out of the daycare center, and I saw him for the first time … there was no denying it. He is Noble through and through. He’s my brother’s kid, and he’s the only thing left of him. You’re selfish for taking him. Taking away the last piece of my brother I have.”

The tears welling up in my eyes were as pained as the sound of his voice turning so cold it could freeze fire. If his aim was to make me feel guilty, then he was doing a good job of it. I could see the repercussion of running away deep in the green eyes I loved so much. Even if I never regretted running away, I did regret what it did to those I left behind.

“I’m sorry,” I said into the silence.

Hunter, holding on to the steering wheel with a grip that could kill, didn’t even look at me as he growled, “No, you’re not.”

* * *

As the signfor Fellpeak rushed by, I felt anxiety rush into my veins. Twelve more miles, and I would be back in the snug grasp of the little, old town I hadn’t seen in over three years.

I had no idea how Adair had slept through most of the ride but, as if sensing our approach home, he had awoken and was staring out the window with big, round eyes. He held his kiddy cup in his mouth, keeping his teeth occupied on chewing the top while examining the outside world.

I fought for calm from Adair, but his care-free attitude—another trait of his father’s—wasn’t coming to me. I gripped the edge of the seat, taking long, deep breaths as I stared down at the passing tall evergreens that covered Fellpeak on three sides while a wide desert expanded in the east. That was what they got for being in the smack dab middle of Oregon.

The moist spring air seeped in through the crack in the window, the pine scent bringing back too many memories as I kept my chin tucked into my neck in an effort not to look out the window.

I couldn’t do this.

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