Читать книгу Alaskan Hideout - Sarah Varland - Страница 16

FOUR

Emma couldn’t breathe, the sounds around her, the noise, the flash of glass as it passed her, creating a cacophony of senses that made it impossible to find her balance. Her center.

Sharp pain registered in her cheek and arm. Shards from the window. She couldn’t imagine how hard they were going to be to get out.

Tyler, beside her, was immediately on his feet, reached for the weapon on his hip, some kind of medium-size handgun, black. Tyler had a gun? Steady, calm Tyler?

Besides, hadn’t she just overheard him telling Noah he wasn’t going to help protect her?

Emma had too many questions and not enough time to think them through. Right now she needed to get somewhere safe. Forcing herself to focus, she pushed into the hallway, edged as far away from the door that led to the balcony as she could. Away from danger.

Tyler ran toward it, pushing back out into the darkness. More shots.

“Tyler!”

She swallowed hard, watched as he took cover behind the railing as best he could.

Footsteps behind her. Someone yelling Tyler’s name. Noah, also with a gun in his hands.

Emma scooted farther inside, the carpet rough against her hands.

“Get inside!” Noah ordered his brother.

Tyler hesitated, eyes trained on something out there in the night that Emma couldn’t see. Didn’t want to see. He lowered his gun and followed Noah into the hallway.

The shots stopped.

But nothing felt the same to Emma. Nothing felt safe. If she’d thought her sense of security had been rocked before, this was a whole new level. Someone had gone to the trouble to come after her again. Here at a crowded lodge with witnesses everywhere.

Was the killer brave? Cocky? Crazy?

Her trail of thoughts surprised her. She’d have thought she’d be content to leave the investigation in the hands of police, where it belonged, but all of a sudden she didn’t want to be in the dark anymore. What if she knew something, more than just the vague recollection of having suspicious papers she’d wanted to talk to her boss about?

What if she could help take down the guy who was after her? Bring security back to her life? Back to the life of this family she’d intruded into? This family whose world she felt she was wrecking as thoroughly as was possible.

They were not only dealing with the danger she’d brought to their doorstep, but they were absorbing what had to be shock at the revelation that her son was part of their family. They all seemed ecstatic, or at least welcoming. And Emma knew her son was the best thing in her life besides Jesus. But for these people to have welcomed her with so much grace despite the fact that her presence, Luke’s presence, told them things about their brother that rocked their perception of him...

It hurt to think that she was bringing danger to the first people from whom she’d felt such acceptance in years...or ever. What an odd place to find it, too.

“Get Emma into one of the rooms. I’m going outside to check it out.” Noah moved away.

“Let me come, too.” Tyler’s words were firm. Like he wasn’t going to take no for an answer and Emma’s heart thudded in her chest.

“I thought you wanted out of this?”

“I’m not going to let anything happen to her. I’ve got that police academy training you had me get.”

Noah nodded. “Fine. Come with me. Kate, keep her safe.”

Emma hadn’t noticed Kate, but there she was, behind them. She held a hand out to Emma, a look of compassion on her face. “Come on. Luke heard the noise and woke up, but I’ve got him in my room with Summer. We’ll go in there.”

Emma nodded. Had Luke heard the shots or just the noises? For his sake she hoped just the noise. She didn’t believe in lying to her son, even to protect him, but it didn’t seem age-appropriate to explain the full depth of the fact that someone wanted her dead. She’d stuck to vague explanations like “dangerous” and “not safe” on her way here. Things like that. Not “a bad guy is hunting Mommy with his gun.”

His. Emma had assumed it was a man but, actually, based on the frame of the figure dressed in black at her office, the one who’d killed her boss, it could have been a woman. Whoever it was had been significantly taller than Emma. Maybe five-nine? Five-ten?

“He’s really okay?” she asked Kate on their way down the hall as she tried to calm her racing heartbeat. Everything had gone from chaos to controlled, thoughtful in such a span of a few seconds. She was having trouble keeping up.

“He’s fine, Emma. We’re going to make sure he stays that way. You, too.”

Emma shook her head as they approached the door to Kate’s room and took a deep breath to try to ease some of the tension from her facial features for Luke’s sake. “Tyler wants nothing to do with me. He hates me, Kate, and I don’t blame him.”

Kate shook her head. “The first thing may be true. But he’s out there in the dark trying to catch whoever is after you. That doesn’t sound like someone who hates you.”

They moved into the room and Emma threw her arms open for Luke who immediately jumped off the bed he was on and ran to her, throwing his arms around her and squeezing as tight as he could. It wasn’t the most comfortable embrace, but Emma loved her little guy and he was one hundred percent boy. He did nothing halfway. She squeezed back.

“I heard a noise and I was worried about you.” He frowned at her. “It’s because of the reason why it’s dangerous for us to stay in Texas, right? Because of why we had to come to Alaska?”

Emma met his eyes, wrestled with how to answer, and finally kissed his nose.

“I love you, buddy.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I didn’t. You’re a smart kid, you know that? Yes, there was something...dangerous. But it’s okay. It’ll be okay.”

Luke seemed satisfied with that and ran back to the bed where Emma now noticed Summer was holding an iPad. She met the other woman’s eyes and Summer shrugged. “Sorry, I know I’m totally encouraging the screen time today but...”

Emma smiled. “No explanation needed. A day of movie watching never hurt anyone. Extenuating circumstances and all that.” She moved toward them, settled on the other side of Luke, between him and the window. Kate seemed to notice and moved to put herself between Emma and the window. Just like that, she’d make sure Emma and her son were protected? Her chest constricted. She didn’t know if she’d ever known this kind of loyalty that didn’t ask for anything in return.

Except...Tyler.

She swallowed hard as she thought of him now, out there in the darkness, risking his life.

For her? Because it was the right thing to do?

For Luke?

Emma didn’t know and it didn’t matter. Any explanation squeezed her heart in a way she couldn’t explain and didn’t want to analyze too closely because the facts were this: Emma had told herself a lot of half truths over the years to protect her heart, to move forward with her life. She’d had good intentions, truly she had, but everything was clear now that she was here again, with Tyler.

He might have been out of her life for years, but her heart betrayed her. They could never be together, could never get past the entire ocean of water under the bridge that was their relationship, but she was never going to be able to shove him out of the space he occupied in her heart.

It would never come to anything...

But she knew now, as of tonight, that she was never going to stop loving him.

* * *

Tyler and Noah spent the next hour canvassing the grounds of the lodge, looking for any sign of their perpetrator, but so far they’d come up with nothing, not the man himself, nor any evidence of where he’d been.

“He had to have left a trail and if we can find where he was shooting from, we might find evidence,” Noah had explained to Tyler, though he’d known as much. Earlier this year he’d gone through the entire police academy class in Sitka. Noah had been asking him to for years, and when he’d seen how difficult it had been for the Moose Haven Police Department to work a major case firsthand, as shorthanded as they were this summer when it had involved his sister Summer, he’d finally decided to go through with it. He’d just returned a couple of weeks ago. The class couldn’t have been more timely, apparently.

“We need Kate.” Tyler finally said what he guessed they both were thinking. They were both trained, tracking had been part of the curriculum at the academy, but Kate had a gift like no one he’d ever seen and could read the signs in the woods better than most people could read a book.

Noah nodded. “You go inside, stay with Summer, Emma and Luke.”

Tyler swallowed hard. He hadn’t had much time with the boy yet. Everything had been so crazy. Or was that an excuse? Was it really because he was still having trouble adjusting to the fact that he was a dad?

He walked into the lodge, a place more familiar to him than any on earth, taking the stairs to his family’s bedrooms with heavy steps. They were up there, waiting for him. Blowing out a breath, he raked a hand through his hair. What was Emma expecting from him? After everything that had happened between the two of them, he’d dedicated his life to playing by the rules. He’d been a good son, a good brother, had come home after his parents had announced their retirement to South Carolina, had remained after they’d died. He’d given up his plans for the future to do the right thing.

How on earth was he supposed to proceed now?

Questions unanswered, he turned the knob and pushed open the heavy wooden door, thankful that the lodge was so well built and solid. He didn’t know that it technically provided any more security if someone was desperate to get to Emma, but he appreciated the feeling that it did anyway.

She met his eyes as soon as he walked in. He swallowed hard, unable to deny that something flickered in his chest when she looked at him. She’d been the only girl—woman, really—he’d ever loved. The only one to break his heart. He’d tried to date a few women from Moose Haven since he’d been back, mostly to keep his family quiet about his personal life or lack thereof, but nothing had lasted more than a date. None of them was Emma.

He offered her a small smile and she looked away.

He hated this. Hated the fact that there were no women like her but that she wasn’t who he’d thought she was, either.

The woman he was in love with was college-aged Emma, a figment from the past. A woman who’d been confident, sure of herself, with just enough vulnerability to make it difficult to get close to her but not so much that it had been impossible. She’d been Tyler’s opposite in many ways. He’d always been on the serious side, quick to honor his commitments and to fulfill his duties and Emma was...joy and laughter. She’d had good character, too, had followed through with things she’d committed to. It wasn’t that she was careless. She was just somehow lighter than he was.

But maybe people like Emma could do that. The biggest rule Tyler had ever broken had ended up with both their hearts shattered, their relationship ended forever and a little boy who didn’t know his dad.

Tyler swallowed hard. He could really use some time outside, maybe at the archery range. There was just something cathartic about the feeling of a bow in his hands, his hand tight around the grip, the tautness of the bowstring in his fingers as he drew it back. You couldn’t shoot a bow angry. Not well. You had to calm your breathing, slow down. Focus.

He’d spent hours with that bow in the weeks after college graduation.

“Everything okay?” Summer asked him.

Tyler had no idea how to answer but decided to go with the easiest reference to what was going on right now with the shooting situation. “Seems to be. As okay as it can be.” He shrugged. “We couldn’t find anything. That’s why we sent Kate out.”

“Kate?” Emma’s eyebrows raised.

“She’s the best tracker I’ve ever met.” Tyler moved farther into the room, eyed the iPad. “What are you watching, buddy?” he asked Luke, deciding maybe talking to the boy directly was the best move at this point. He couldn’t seem to do anything right where Luke’s mom was concerned, no matter how much some part of him wished he was able to.

“The Incredibles.” He looked up from the screen, at Tyler. There was something so surreal about gazing into eyes that looked just like his own.

“That’s a good one. It’s a family of superheroes, right?” He and Emma had seen it together.

“Yep. They’ve all got special powers. I can run fast like that, almost as fast.” And just that quick he was up off the bed, iPad forgotten. “Want to see?”

“It’s nighttime, Luke.” Emma’s voice was tired. He looked at her quickly, then glanced away before she noticed.

“Maybe another time.”

“Because of the danger?”

This time Tyler swung his gaze to Emma intentionally and waited to see what she would say. Had she told Luke about everything that was happening?

“Yes, baby.”

“I’m not a baby,” Luke protested, but climbed back onto the bed, over Emma and snuggled in next to her.

Wow. The way he loved her, trusted her.

Tyler hadn’t spent much time around kids. There were some at his church, but he figured they were sort of the responsibility of their parents and maybe the single women who seemed to love holding babies. And, of course, families stayed at the lodge. But he was so busy with the job now, working to make the lodge more profitable, that he often didn’t have time to stop and watch people the way he had when he’d worked here during the summers for his parents.

Moose Haven Lodge in its heyday, when his parents were here, had never had money troubles. At least, not that Tyler knew of. His parents had the kinds of magnetic personalities that made guests return time and again. People had felt welcomed in a way that Tyler hadn’t been able to replicate, no matter how many things he felt like he was doing right.

A small problem in the midst of Emma’s life being in danger, but it was in the back of his mind anyway.

He wanted to talk to her, to ask her to come with him out of this room, away from the curious eyes of his sister. He didn’t blame Summer for having questions, too. He’d been wrong to not share his own past, his own pain with his sister.

He should apologize to her. But not now, it wasn’t the time. Right now he needed to finish that conversation with Emma. He had to clear the air. It hurt the way she hadn’t told him, the way she looked away from him, trusted every single member of his family more than she did him. Tyler hadn’t done anything to deserve that. Not that he could think of. He’d loved her at one time. Had always tried to show it.

And she’d left. With his unborn son a secret.

The door eased open. Tyler tensed, hand on his weapon, which was still holstered. It was Kate.

“Noah wants you outside, Tyler.”

“You found it?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Did you doubt that I would?”

“Of course not.” Tyler took a last look at Emma. At Luke.

And then he walked out the door, shutting it behind him.