Page 26 of Disappearance at Angel's Landing
Lila was keeping secrets. She wasn’t the person she projected to the world, and while Branch recognized everyone had parts of themselves they didn’t want exposed, he thought he’d given her more than enough reason to trust him in the past two days. Everything they’d been through, everything they’d survived—it meant something. Didn’t it?
His ex had kept secrets. Had been sleeping with his best friend from work for months before Branch had caught them.She hadn’t told him about the pregnancy, about her decision to end it until he’d discovered the truth. Hadn’t given him a choice in the matter, and an acidic taste clung to the back of his throat at the idea Lila might do the same. She could hurt him. Whether she knew it or not, Lila had more power over him than he’d allowed anyone to hold since his divorce.
Scrubbing a hand down his face, Branch stopped the thoughts in their tracks. There wasn’t a single similarity between Lila and his ex-wife. Exhaustion had won out. The killer had merely tried to get into his head, and hell, the son of a bitch had done a fantastic job. He stood, collecting the electric lantern on his way, and slowly unzipped the tent door.
The sound of Lila’s even breathing reached him as he stepped inside. Soft and feminine and bordering a little on snoring. It was cute. He set the lantern at the opposite end of the tent to keep from waking her. After everything they’d been through today, she deserved the rest. But tomorrow they’d have to return to headquarters. They’d have to admit they lost track of the killer, that they didn’t have any identifying markers other than his appearance—and maybe his astrology sign. Branch wasn’t really looking forward to that conversation with Risner, but he’d sure as hell take it over the silent treatment Lila had given him since retreating to the tent.
He undressed, leaving himself in his undershirt and briefs, before crawling over to his sleeping bag. The tent allowed two people to sleep side by side, but there wasn’t a whole lot of room for him to keep his distance. He could still catch hints of Lila’s perfume, feel her body heat as he settled on his back.
A soft moan filled the tent, and he froze. Waiting. Every nerve ending he owned had tuned to her movements, those little sighs she made in her sleep. It was enough to stir his insides with something he hadn’t allowed himself to feel for a long time. After a few minutes of strained silence and a whole lotof inappropriate thoughts on how to get her to make that noise again, Branch rolled onto his side, away from her, and closed his eyes.
A coldness that had nothing to do with the temperature set in, his skin tightening to the point of pain around his bones. His head pounded. Even after the way he’d treated her—as nothing more than an inconvenience—Lila had insisted on taking care of his wound and watched him force down a couple of ibuprofen from his first aid kit. Though she’d given talking a break.
That was how he’d known how deeply he’d hurt her by pulling away, and he hated himself for it. After everything they’d survived, she still felt the need to put his health first. Freaking hell. How did she keep going? The looks and whispers behind her back from Risner and all the other rangers, the obvious trauma she’d suffered at her own hand, whatever had driven her to take that step, her brush with a killer in that cave, Branch’s disregard and flat-out rejection. How hadn’t life beaten her down as thoroughly as it’d beaten him?
Lila was strong. Stronger than him, that was for damn sure, and he couldn’t stop whatever this new connection was between them in its tracks. But he didn’t know how to do this anymore. Have…feelings for someone else. The blackened organ in his chest had stopped trying after the divorce, but then Lila had come along with the promise of light, and his entire being had latched onto it and refused to let go. And crossing that line, admitting he needed her…
His ex-wife had taken his trust and utterly destroyed it right in front of him. Years of good memories and laughs and future plans instantly ash. And he hadn’t seen it coming. Marriage had always been the plan, ever since they’d met in high school from their too-small hometown in the middle of Montana. They’d graduated together, gone off to college together, gotten married a couple years afterward and planned their entire lives together.Vacations, late nights filled with sex and promises andI love yous, sacrifices for each other’s careers.
An entire life built with the one person he’d trusted instantly shattered the day he thought he saw his best friend’s car driving down his street as Branch left for the office. His gut had told him to turn around, just as it was telling him to trust Lila now. What would’ve happened had he not followed his intuition that day? What would happen now if he did?
Awareness spread down his spine as he brushed against Lila’s knee. Without checking over his shoulder, he felt she’d turned into him. Seeking him out unconsciously, and hell, if that wasn’t adding kindling to the fire. He’d spent so long proving he didn’t need anyone. He wasn’t sure how to let himself rely on another person again.
A growl resonated in his chest as a result of the battle occupying his head.
Lila shifted at his back. Closer? “Do you want to know what Barbie taught me?”
Her sleep-graveled voice dragged him over hot coals, to the point every cell in his body focused solely on the heat building low in his stomach. It was a rush of fire that would take one very specific thing to put out. One specific woman.
“What?” Branch angled his head over his shoulder. He didn’t have to see her clearly for his brain to fill in all those sharp features he’d memorized since setting foot in Zion. The shape of her mouth, a little fuller on one side than the other, the arch of her brows, how much of her dark roots had grown in. The only thing he hadn’t committed to memory was that scar, though he couldn’t banish the sight of it from his mind.
“Barbie. I used to play with them as a kid. I had a whole collection with the Dreamhouse and the cars and the campers, all the accessories. People think Barbie gives little girls poor body image, but those dolls taught me that you can’t reattach ahead once it’s been removed from the body.” Her voice vaulted from one extreme—carefree and light—to deadpan. “So be quiet and let me sleep.”
He couldn’t hold back the chuckle rumbling through his chest. Hell, this woman hit all the right buttons. Testing his patience, challenging everything he thought he knew about her. He’d been wrong to disregard her as nothing more than a shallow, teasing, high-maintenance diva. Lila Jordan might have a free spirit, but she was probably the most sincere, upbeat and imaginative person he’d ever met. She had to be to come up with those death threats on the daily. “Good night, Lila.”
“Branch?” The confidence in her voice wavered.
His name leaving those perfect lips threw his insides into chaos. He bit down his inclination to repeat himself. Found himself not wanting her silent treatment anymore. “Yeah?”
“Thank you. For coming to get me.” Her touch trailed across his shoulder, light as a feather, barely recognizable as anything significant but triggered a rush of sensation down his spine all the same. “I know it would’ve been easier to call in search and rescue and wait for them to lead the search, but I think they would’ve been too late. He wanted me dead, and you stopped him.”
He couldn’t avoid looking at her anymore. Rolling onto his other side, Branch faced off with the beauty before him. Her mascara had flaked and run down her cheeks, her lip gloss gone entirely. Even her eyeshadow, once accentuating those compelling blue eyes, had worn off throughout the day. But she was still the most beautiful thing he’d ever set sights on. “You held your own.”
She flattened her mouth into a thin line, biting down on the pillowy cushion of her bottom lip. He smoothed his thumb over it to force her to release. A shimmer of tears reflected in the low light of the electric lantern at the other end of their tent. “Icouldn’t accept you were dead. I was going to go back to look for you, but he wouldn’t let me go.”
“I’m right here.” Branch closed the short distance between them, crushing his mouth to hers.
Chapter Nineteen
Well, that escalated quickly.
Branch’s mouth moved over hers in a frantic, almost consuming pace. It was rough and demanding and everything she’d imagined all those nights she couldn’t fall asleep.
Matching every ounce of his urgency, Lila threaded her hands into his hair, nearly dragging him onto her sleeping bag. The hard planes of his body weighed on hers. Not to intimidate as she’d felt that night in her childhood bedroom, but to comfort. Security. This was Branch. She was here, with him, in his tent.
His hands framed her face as though he was afraid she would slip through his fingers, but she had no intention of going anywhere. Of being anywhere other than right here. She’d dreamed about it for so long, but nothing compared to the real thing. His woodsy cedar scent teased her senses, the expert strokes of his tongue drove her body temperature higher and higher, and she could taste the slight hint of peppermint toothpaste they’d both eagerly used for some semblance of normality.
The simmering burn she’d fought off all these months roared to a full-blown inferno as Branch shifted a knee between her legs. A moan charged up her throat. She would’ve been embarrassed if she wasn’t delirious with a need to prolong this moment as much as possible.
