Page 49 of Wind Valley

Her smile disappeared and she sat up straight. “What happened?”

“That was a private investigator at the door.”

“What?” She sat bolt upright.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t tell her anything.”

Her heart flipped over in her chest, and she wanted to throw up. “Oh God. It’s him, isn’t it? He hired someone to find me. Tell me what happened, word for word.”

“First, I told her I was about to take a shower, to explain the towel, which, by the way, was a stroke of luck that I had handy?—”

Maura could have screamed. “Forget the towel, what did she say about?—”

Lachlan continued on, unbothered. “She said, ‘I’m looking for Maura Vaughn, and someone at The Fang told me that you’ve been hanging out with her and might know where she is.’ I asked her why she wanted to find you, and she flashed an investigator’s license at me. She said she’d explain everything to you, if I told her where you were.”

“And?” she asked impatiently. The urge to flee was so strong she gripped the sheets in her balled-up fists.

“Before you told me your story, I wouldn’t have thought twice about saying ‘yes, she’s here, hang on.’ But instead…well, I lied. I said I didn’t know where you were.”

“Good. Thank you. I’m sorry. I’m sure you didn’t like lying.”

”Mmm.”

She recognized his distracted expression as the one he wore when he was thinking hard. “What else?”

“Well, if they told her about me, I’m sure she also knows you’re staying with Pinky. I’m not sure it’s safe to go back there. And I’m not sure she believed me. You’re right, I’m not a good liar, although I think she bought the shower thing, thanks to my night on the couch.”

Her stomach tightened with that familiar dread, and she shivered hard. She wasn’t the only one—she noticed goose bumps rising on his flesh. She flipped up the covers so he could get in, but he shook his head.

“I think we should leave. You should come with me to Fairbanks. I noticed a hotel key peeking out of her pocket, the old-fashioned kind that the Lamplight Motel still uses. She must be staying the night. The longer she’s here, the higher the chance she’ll spot you, or someone will tell her where you are. No one else knows that you don’t want to be found.

She swallowed hard, torn between her impulse to flee and her sense of feeling safe in Firelight Ridge. Did she want to run back into the unknown? Or was she better off here where people knew her?

“There’s something else,” Lachlan continued. “Didn’t you say that Ruth thinks a woman is involved with whatever the Chilkoots are up to? What if that woman is this investigator, and somehow SS is tangled up with them? It’s a reach, I know, but right now, better to be suspicious than sorry.”

Her mouth went dry. The bubble of safety she felt in Firelight Ridge was completely punctured. Maybe it had always been an illusion. “When would you want to leave?”

“Give me a second.”

He disappeared into the living room, while she wrapped her arms around her knees and tried not to cry. She’d had nearly two months of freedom from this dread, and now it was over. Would this nightmare ever end?

When Lachlan came back in, a smile had replaced his worried expression. “I sent Sam a message on the emergency radio channel. He can go in three hours. I even came up with a cover story for you. Don’t you desperately need some school supplies?”

That brightened her mood considerably. “You just said two of my favorite words.”

“School and supplies?”

“Bingo. There’s nothing I love more than hitting Target at the beginning of the school year and shopping to my heart’s content.”

“Nothing?” He lifted his eyebrows and advanced toward the bed. He dropped the towel and she saw that he was already half-hard. Then he opened his fist and showed her the condom in his palm. “I was holding this in my hand the entire time I was talking to her. My hand is cramped from keeping it hidden.”

She giggled, feeling a lightness fill her, despite the scare of having an investigator show up. “Do we have time?”

“We have three hours to kill. That investigator’s following up on her next lead. The best thing we can do is stay right where we are until it’s time to head for the airstrip.”

It didn’t take much time for him to get fully erect again, and it didn’t take much time for her to be just as turned on as before. Her body craved him, couldn’t wait to welcome him inside.

Where had this come from, this magical lustfulness? It was almost as if a dam had broken and all her pent-up libido had finally been let loose. Right now, it felt as if her body was entirely in control of things, and doing a much better job than her wary mind had been.

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