Page 130 of The One With the Mountain Man

He lifted my chin. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

So I let Jackson kiss me. Then I let him thread his fingers together with mine as he led me up the front steps and into Sharon's home. Noise hit me before I took in the organized chaos. A large front room with massive windows was filled with a dozen people. A murder board had been erected on the far wall. A dining table was covered in maps with circles and dots.

And every single person froze when they saw me. A few jaws gaped open. The silence was almost as loud as the noise. I was about to slide behind Jackson and hide when a voice rang out.

"She's here!" Sharon sang as she cut through the crowd. "Now we can get some good intel. This way, Huk."

Sharon led us straight to the dinner table covered in maps. "It's not much but it's a start." Her hands waved like a conductor. "This is every locationL'Etrangerhas been spotted over the last few days. Odd ducks always stick out."

"This is great, Sharon," Jackson murmured as his eyes swept over each dot.

I was familiar enough with the area to understand what I was looking at but not much more. This wasn't my area of expertise by a long shot. Need help finding your way from Pineland to Cayo Costa for a day of quiet shelling on the beach? I'm your girl. But navigating this mountainous terrain? That was Jackson.

"Do we know his name? Where he's from?" I asked. Those were things I could focus on and even help dig up.

"No. Not really. The name he used at ODX doesn't match the name he used to rent a cabin. Even creepier, he has fake identification for both identities. That's what they're working on over there."

"What about the other people he was with? The ones Travis took fly fishing?" Jackson asked.

"They all check out just fine. We were able to find them online. They are, as the youths say, finance bros who came out for a few days of drinking and fishing, then went home. His name is the only name on the cabin rental even though Travis tells me he said he was staying with a friend." She turned her gaze on me. "Let's cut the shit and get down to business. My pen name is Sherry McKenna Strong. I wrote the Sammy books. You're A.M. Quill. We can fangirl another time. Tell me about your stalkers and how they're behaving."

Tears sprang up in my eyes and I couldn't choke back a sob if I had superpowers. I didn't need to fangirl. I needed to freak the fuck out. Gossipy, meddling, sweet Sharon wrote my favorite books in the whole world. The woman who inspired me to write my own books was standing right in front of me looking very unimpressed with my crying.

Jackson rubbed a hand up and down my spine while I choked on a cocktail of emotions much stronger than me. I told her everything from the contents of my hate mail to the progression of my stalkers. By the time I was done I'd destroyed a box of tissues and could barely breathe.

Sharon took extensive notes, handing them off to Liam to run down leads. Travis wasn't joking when he said the TBCIMAs were in their element. Every single one of those mystery books taught them the skills they needed and now they were putting them to use. They were as thrilled to be living out a dream as they were worried about my wellbeing.

It was overwhelming.

Jackson ended a phone call and I could tell by the wary look in his eyes he was leaving. "Can we talk?" He nodded to the porch at the back of the house that overlooked the trail we took the day he brought me to the cabin.

I took in the view of Sammy’s thinking spot in the far distance while he closed the doors. His arms came around me and he set his chin on the top of my head. "I belong out there," he finally said.

"I know."

"I don't want to leave you."

And I didn't want him to. But I didn't want to live my life hiding. Or crying. I'd already done too much of both. "I need you to leave. I need you to go out into those woods you know better than anyone else and find the fucker fucking with my life."

He shook with laughter, shifting to press a kiss on the side of my neck. "I appreciate your ability to lighten the mood, my love."

"You'll be safe?"

"So safe. But I'm worried. Travis found the rental offices locked and empty. No one has seen Scottie, Mack, or Joanne in hours. Travis is unraveling. Red is the only one keeping him in line and I'm more good out there than I am in here, even if this is the only place I want to be."

If anything happened to my friends because I unwittingly brought a bad person into Lost Creek...I couldn't lose another group of friends. I just couldn't.

I twisted in Jackson's arms, rose up on my toes, and kissed him. "Just come back to me, Mountain Man."

He wrapped his arms around me, his light eyes flashing with breathtaking intensity. "Always."

Thirty-Nine

Marley

I was being life-coached by my favorite writer and her creativity whisperer

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