Page 81 of The Pretenders of Copper County
When I woke up the next morning, I was filled with a new determination. If I’d learned one thing over the years, it was that the only thing I could control was my reaction to a situation. So I could be sad—and I was—but I would also be hopeful. I could be uncertain, but I would also believethat things would work out, somehow. Because they usually did, in all kinds of ways I could never have imagined or believed.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I’d been a lonely, never-been-kissed virgin who didn’t know beans about adventures. Now, I was a man who’d gotten kidnapped (but not), been in a gunfight (without firing a shot, thank goodness), witnessed a low-key (high-key) bar tussle, survived an accidental-on-purpose plunge into excruciatingly brisk water, gotten surprise-fake-married, made a whole bunch of friends, kissed Reed Sunday so many times I’d lost count (two hundred and seventy-three, give or take), hadsex(of multiple varieties in way more locations than I’d dreamed sex could be possible!) with Reed Sunday, and fallen madly in love (in an unwise and doomed-to-be-unrequited way, yes, but still!) with Reed Sunday.
What were the hecking chances, right?
So I’d figure out a way to fix this, too. Fix things for Danny, fix things for me. Somehow. And in the meantime, I would enjoy the next few weeks here with Reed, soak up every kiss and touch like a squirrel preparing for a long winter, and leave this campground way,waybetter than I’d found it.
The first thing I did was roll over and kiss the heck out of Reed. “Good morning, husband.”
“Wow,” Reed breathed when I finally let him up for air and hopped out of bed. “You seem… happy.” He pressed his head back into the pillows and licked his lips like he was still tasting my kiss.
“I am. I have lots to do.” I pulled on underwear and jeans and only blushed a little when I noticed Reed watching me avidly. “Dolores wants to talk charcuterie, and I promised her I’d tell her about these Etsy shops where youcan get custom boards. And I still haven’t fixed the wiring in Cabin 13, but today is the day.”
“Well, okay then.” Reed sounded impressed. “Maybe wait until this afternoon to do the wiring, though, if you think it might go better with an extra set of hands.” He got out of bed, too, stretching his arms up to the low ceiling in a way that put his gorgeous body on display. “I’ll be out for a couple hours this morning, remember?”
I was so busy staring at the way his muscles all cooperated so nicely, turning a simple stretch into a full-on symphony of muscly perfection, that it took me a minute to process what he’d said.
Once I did, the realization almost—almost—took the edge off my newly restored optimism.
“Oh, right. That meeting with your boss you mentioned.” I nodded and reached for a shirt from the closet. “About your next assignment.”
“It’s only a preliminary meeting,” he reminded me. He cupped the back of my neck and drew me in for a soft kiss that spiraled into something hotter, the way our kisses usually did.
He pulled away reluctantly a moment later. “I need to get ready. The meeting’s not until ten, but I’m gonna leave around nine. I need to find someplace that has a good signal or Wi-Fiandis private enough to have a Zoom. Something tells me that kind of privacy will be hard to come by in O’Leary.” He took a T-shirt from the closet and shook it out. “It’d be my luck Lisa Dorian from the library would come knocking on my window just as Janissey started talking about sensitive information.Yoo hoo! Reed! How’s Chris’s malevolent respiratory pestilence today?”
“Actually, the library’s not a bad idea.” I sat on the edge of the bed to pull on socks. “They havegood Wi-Fi, and if you asked her, I bet she’d let you use one of the meeting rooms in the basement.”
Reed froze with his T-shirt around his neck. “How would you know they have good Wi-Fi?”
“I… Oh.” I felt my cheeks go hot. “I emailed Danny when I was there the other day. The Division still hadn’t gotten us any proof,” I hurried to explain, “and I needed to feel like I was doing something, you know? Even if it was just reaching out to tell Danny I knew he wasn’t in Alaska and that I loved him and wanted to help. I… I didn’t tell him where I was, though. And I didn’t mention your name?—”
Reed leaned down and captured my lips in a quick kiss. “Okay.”
“Okay?” I frowned. “That’s it?”
He finished pushing his arms into his sleeves. “Yeah. If you felt like you needed to contact him, then you did. I heard what you said the other day, and I respect your right to make your own choices. I trust you, Chris.”
“Oh. That’s…” It was hard to express how amazing it felt to hear Reed say he trusted me, but it made me sit up straighter. “Yes. Right. Good.”
He grinned. “And I understand. You love your uncle. You’re always going to feel protective of him… just like I always feel protective of a certain person, even though I know he’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself… in situations not involving guns, bar fights, and deep bodies of water.”
I laughed, which seemed to be Reed’s intention. “You always feel protective of me, huh?”
“I said acertain person.” He winked and finished pulling on his flannel shirt, then stepped between my legs to run his fingers through my hair. “Icould have meant Watt Bartlett.”
I laughed again, harder this time, and leaned into him, my forehead resting against his hip. There was no better feeling.
“My point is, I know you believe the best of people, butespeciallywhen it comes to him.” Reed carded his fingers through my hair again. “Deep down, you still don’t believe Danny’s guilty, do you?”
I blinked up at him and considered this seriously. “I… I don’t know. There were a lot of details in that document you showed me. Like, alot. Maybe too many to make up. And I… I trust you, too. Your judgment matters to me. Andyoubelieve he’s guilty?—”
“I wish I didn’t,” he said.
I captured Reed’s hand and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “Thank you. I’m also really hurt and… andangry. Because whatever else he did or didn’t do, he lied to me. But… yes, even with all that, it’s still hard for me to reconcile the man I know, the man who raised me to be honorable, with the person who did all of those things. I wish I could talk to him. I have a lot of questions.” I paused. “And I might want to yell at him. Just a little bit.”
Laughing, Reed tweaked my glasses into place. “Have I told you today how amazing you are?”
“You should feel free to tell me that as often as you like,” I informed him. “Nonna always said if it’s important enough to say, it’s important enough to repeat.” I wrinkled my nose. “Though, to be totally honest, I’m not sure if that’s an actual saying or just something she made up after she started losing her hearing.”
