Page 54 of Lesson In Faith

“Yeah, maybe somewhere to camp? We like to head out into nature every now and again to reconnect. Phoenix is beautiful, but Denver is just wonderful. Without the kids in tow, a few nights out in the wild would be the perfect break.”

Jasper’s eyes slid across to his wife, his starkly white eyebrow lifting in question.

Yeah, that guy was no hiker. Tamsyn got the impression his idea of a perfect break was breaking something on another human being. He was attractive, she’d give him that; tall, those freakishly blue eyes, his bone structure. Even his hair gave him an added edge, that otherworldly shade of white-blond.

Anarchy shook her hair away from her face—a darker, more golden shade than her husband’s—and frowned at the screen. “I’ve been looking at the area maps and Evander’s property lines end partway through the forest. We want to go higher, maybe up to the mountain ridge? Somewhere we can see the stars.”

Merrick grunted. “The ridge must be a good four, five day hike if you get good weather. Levi’s got his studio overlooking the valley; might be safer and fit in better with your schedule. Pretty sure he won’t give a damn if you want to commune with nature.”

Twisting her fingers together, Tamsyn kept her head down as panic began to rise from her toes and suck her down into hell. These people didn’t know the brutal terrain up there on the mountain, and they wouldn’t survive the monsters living up there.

“Tamsyn? Are you local to the area?”

She jerked her head up, eyes wide.

Deny, deny, deny.

Feverishly shaking her head, she dropped her gaze again.

“That’s a shame.” Anarchy sighed, her fingers still tap-tap-tapping. “No one knows the area like locals, and they usually know all the secret places tourists never see. Merrick said you were wandering around for a while out there; that sounds scary. Did you see any wildcats? That’s on my bucket list—things to do before I die,” she explained when Tamsyn frowned in confusion. “See a wildcat in its natural habitat instead of caged in a zoo.”

There were wildcats all around Ridge point. Bobcats and mountain lions were the most commonly sighted, causing uproar in the community if they prowled too close, but for the most part, they stayed well away from the humans in their midst.

A few years ago, though, the elders had sentenced one of the boundary security guards to death after he shot a lynx. The animal had been part of a conservation effort, protected under some outside law, and was wearing a collar when it died.

Tamsyn remembered the elders’ fury, their haste in destroying the collar and disposing of the carcass, and the way the guard’s tongue was removed before they tossed him in a coffin and watched their wives cover the casket with soil.

Buried alive, choking on his own blood, because he endangered the community.

For two days, Jedidiah ranted about idiots and consequences, taking his anger out on her whenever the whim struck. If she recalled, some officials arrived not long after, tracing the lynx’s tracks back to where the collar’s signal died.

Who knew such things existed?

The guard’s error cost the elders greatly—the trade required to redirect the officials was one of the largest she’d ever heard her father discuss.

“Little owl?”

Merrick’s quiet rumble dragged her out of the memory. She turned to look at him, feeling disorientated as the living room came back into focus. Offering him a weak smile, she tried to seem attentive.

“Have you ever seen a bobcat? A lynx?”

Oh, she couldn’t lie to him. Besides, what difference did it make if she admitted it? There was a lot of open space and territory in this area, and the wildlife to go with it. She dipped her head once.

“Oh, did you see a lynx?” Eyes shining with excitement, Anarchy clasped her hands together and bounced on her seat. “They’re really rare, like critically endangered. I read that there’s only around two hundred and fifty of them in Colorado, but they don’t even know if thereisthat many. The numbers could be a lot lower. They’re protected under the Endangered Species Act across the country.”

Tamsyn just shrugged. They were very big cats with fluffy coats, sharp claws, and teeth that could leave nasty holes in a person. Pretty to look at from afar, but she didn’t feel the urge to stalk one through the mountains.

“I’m so jealous!” Squealing, the blonde’s fingers started that irritating clacking again.

A warning itch scratched between Tamsyn’s shoulder blades. Something didn’t feel right about this; she felt a distance between her and Merrick that hadn’t been there last night when they’d eaten in the fancy restaurant. Her suspicions about Jasper were making her anxious, and his wife was amplifying that anxiety.

Slowly, struggling to catch her breath with the pressure smothering her chest, Tamsyn unfolded her legs. Every instinct was telling her to run and hide, and she was close friends with them now. Her bare feet settled into the carpet as she shuffled to the edge of the couch.

“What do you need, darlin’?”

Don’t look at him, don’t make eye contact with anyone.

The men in the room were obviously a different species of male. The power they held in their eyes, that emanated from them physically, was unlike anything she’d felt before; the elders and lower males in the community vibrated with bully energy, but these two… they possessed something Jedidiah and the others could only dream about at night.

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