Page 33 of Shielding his Legacy
He wanted help figuring out what to do…about her?
Begrudgingly, she turned her head toward him. “She said she was hoping you’d call.”
He laughed without humor. “Yeah, because she’s seenwhat a hot fucking mess my life is, and she’s been wanting to help. Guess I finally decided to let her.”
Gavin had reached out to a therapist for help. Because of her.
“Sorry I was messing with you,” he said, sighing heavily. “I just… I was embarrassed. I don’t know what… or how… I’ve never done this before, Evie. I’ve never had a kid. I’ve never had a therapist. I’ve never wanted anything from a woman besides right now, never needed to work on myself or figure out how to change. I’ve never had… a you.”
I’ve never had… a you.
Those words rolled around in her mind with a satisfying vibration like the reverberation of a bell. She wasn’t sure what they meant. She doubted Gavin had any idea, either. They seemed to speak to a greater question, to an importance neither one of them yet understood. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse. “I’m sorry I looked at your phone."
He reached toward her, extending his hand, palm up on the bench seat. She took it, and he brought her hand to his lips for a gentle kiss. “We’re going to figure this out.” He rubbed her knuckles with his calloused thumb.
She thought of the dead men outside his cabin in the Catskills, and a chill ran up her spine. She thought of her ransacked apartment, the gunfire outside her bedroom in the safehouse and her mad dash for safety with the baby in her arms.
It was awful, horrifying. Yet it had brought her back to Gavin.
She didn’t know how they were going to figure any of this out, least of all her attraction to this man and their relationship going forward. But just for this moment, she chose to believe he was right.
They would figure it all out.
Her hand rested in his as they drove down the highway, looking like any other family around. Eva let herself pretend it was true, desperate for the warmth and security she felt between them. But she wasn’t nearly as naive as she’d been a year ago, and she was all too aware of the heavy price that would need to be paid for indulging in this illusion.
18
Eva had never been to the Adirondacks, and Gavin’s comments about bears mixed with legends of Sasquatch in her mind as she took in the miles upon miles of dark rolling hills, winding roads with the occasional hairpin curve, and densely forested woods.
Phoenix was hot and dry, and she was struck by the contrast between the place she’d long called home and this damp, isolated area. It was beautiful, but there was something foreboding about it that made a chill run up her spine.
Sure, she was used to long expanses of sparsely populated land, but in the desert, you could see forever in any direction. Here, there were shadowy nooks and crannies where danger could lurk, and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end as the moon flashed between the bushy tops of tall, crowded evergreens.
Her shoulders gave an involuntary shimmy, and she worked to release the anxiety bathing her nervous system by changing the subject. “What do people do around here for fun?” she asked.
“This time of year? Snowmobiling, snowshoeing, skiing. Maybe drive into town for a movie on a Saturday night.”
Such things were foreign to her, though she could easily imagine Gavin doing all of them. An image of her on the back of a snowmobile popped into her mind, her arms wrapped tightly around him as they flew across an expanse of white. “Hmm.”
“You like the outdoors?”
“I’m from the desert, remember? I’ve spent more time in an air-conditioned shopping mall than I’ve ever spent outdoors.”
“Utah’s gorgeous. Didn’t you go to any of the parks? Zion? Bryce Canyon?”
She laughed without humor. “Oh, sure. My foster mom took us up to Zion once.”
“Stopped there on my way out to Coronado for BUD/S training. Hiked Angel’s Landing in an inch of snow. Now that was a wicked adrenaline rush.”
She scrunched up her shoulders as she thought of the famous narrow trail hundreds of feet above a deep canyon, and the tourists she’d seen in photos, lined up to attempt it. “Of course you did. I wouldn’t hike that trail if it was sunny and dry, you tied a rope around my waist, and you gave me a million dollars.”
“I like to live fast and take chances.”
“I’m shocked, really,” she deadpanned. “I couldn’t tell that about you at all.”
He chuckled. “What did you do at Zion?”
“What did wethinkwe were going to do, or what actually happened?”
