Page 11 of My Mountain Man Stalker
“You want me to dig deeper?”
“No paper trail,” I say. “No noise. Just eyes.”
“I’ll make a call.”
“And the other thing?”
“Micah’s on it. If Liam slips, he’ll know.”
Micah Hunt. Former Delta. Tracker. Ghost. If Liam breathes too loud, Micah will hear it in the wind.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Don’t thank me,” Nate mutters. “This ends messy.”
I hang up without answering.
Because I already know that.
When I head back inside, the smell of coffee hits first. Then the sight of her—barefoot, hair in a messy bun, wearing one of my flannel shirts that hangs halfway down her thighs. She looks over her shoulder like she’s caught doing something wrong.
But she doesn’t apologize.
“Hope you don’t mind,” she says, holding up the mug. “You make the worst coffee I’ve ever tasted, but I figure that’s part of your charm.”
I grunt and walk past her to pour myself a cup. My hand brushes hers and something sparks down my spine. I pull back too fast.
She watches me.
Always watching.
“You okay?” she asks, voice soft.
“Fine.”
“You always say that.”
“Because it’s always true.”
She doesn’t believe me. I can see it in the way she tilts her head again, studying me like I’m some kind of puzzle she’s dying to solve.
“Why don’t you talk about yourself?”
I sip the coffee. It tastes like ash. “Nothing worth saying.”
“That’s bullshit.”
I meet her eyes. “You want to know what I did before this? Fine. I killed people. A lot of them. Some deserved it. Some didn’t. I saw things I can’t unsee. Did things I can’t undo. And the only good thing I ever did was make a promise to your father.”
She doesn’t flinch.
Doesn’t run.
She just stands there, blinking slowly like she’s trying to see past all that wreckage.
“You think you’re protecting me by shutting me out,” she says. “But you’re not. You’re just making it harder to trust you.”
I set the mug down harder than I mean to. The sound cracks through the room.
