Page 8 of Hunter

“Why can’t you just leave well enough alone?”

“Because it isn’t ‘well enough.’ It isn’t okay,” I tell him. “Besides, I already took the job. And Dad loves it that I’ll be hanging out with Rick Jones.”

The front door opens behind Tanner, and Sawyer, dirty and dusty from an early-in-the-season hike up the Chilkoot with a family of five, looks back and forth between us.

“You could cut the tension in here with a knife,” he says. “What’s going on?”

“Our idiot brother has decided to harass my wife’s best friend because she dumped him last summer.”

“Wow!” exclaims Sawyer, heading to the fridge to grab a beer. “One tour goes a little long and you miss everything! Fill me in.”

“I got a job as a Location Assistant onThe Astonishing Race: Alaska.”

“Cool,” says Sawyer, tilting back his bottle. “I’d love to work on a TV show.”

Tanner crosses his arms over his broad chest, his voice gravelly with annoyance. “He only got the job to put the screws to Isabella.”

“Not true,” I mutter.

“Close enough,” says Tanner.

Sawyer darts a glance at me, eyebrows raised, then turns back to Tanner and shrugs.

There’s meaning in his looks, and I read them loud and clear.

As the oldest of six siblings, I’ve had a front-row seat to the dynamics of my large family, and here’s a fact: they change.

There are certain controls, of course, and here are ours:

We love each other.

We’d lay down in traffic for each other.

We’d give a kidney or a lung or whatever other body part our sibling required of us.

We’d hurt someone who tried to hurt one of us.

We do—I swear it—want the best for each other.

Always.

Butwhowe are closest to…andwhenwe are closest to them…changes with and over time.

For instance, in grade school, Harper and I were inseparable. The two oldest kids with only eleven months between us? We were more like twins than older brother, younger sister.

And in high school, Tanner and I were super close. As two male teens on testosterone highs, we were each other’s best friend and worst enemy.

And now? With Tanner married to McKenna, and Harper a new mom? I find I’m closest to my younger brother and roommate, Sawyer. Late at night, when we’re about to fall asleep, he talks to me about Ivy Caswell—how much he’d always liked her, and how she was too stuck-up to give him a chance last summer. And he knowsexactlyhow badly Isabella Gonzalez hurt me. Heck, it was Sawyer throwing back shots with me at Tanner’s wedding…right after I learned she was coming back to Alaska.

So that glance he gives me before shrugging at Tanner? There’s a lot of meaning in that look. He understands how hopeful I was about Isabella last summer. He understands how much she hurt me. And he understands that getting some answers might give me the closure I need and help me move on.

“I know she’s McKenna’s bestie, but she did Hunt dirty,” Sawyer tells Tanner.

“How so?”

Sawyer blinks at Tanner. “They fucked six times that weekend. She was into Hunter, okay? She was into him, and he was into her. Then, for weeks, they texted, right? On the phone every fucking night. Believe me, I was here. I saw it all. And then, for no good reason, she dumps him over text. No explanation. Nothing. Just…‘It was just a fling. Get over it. Move on.’Well, it was more than a fling to Hunt, okay? He had feelings for her,and she treated him like dirt. He has a right to feel burned. It was fucking mean.”

“Wait. Wait. Wait. Six…six times?” Tanner’s mouth falls open. His eyes widen. He turns to me. “What is he talking about?”

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