Welp. So much for secrecy.
And so much for keeping my head in the game.
Ever since I picked her up, I just can’t stop thinking about a huge, snarly someone begging me to stay in his cabin for a week.
Inwardly, I’m screaming.
The way he grasped my hand.
The low, heart-rending way he asked—he freaking ordered—me to come back.
The way my heart leaped and pounded and twisted and rattled and rolled.
...and what an absolute blundering idiot I am for agreeing.
God.
Yes, it makes practical sense. It does. And I’ll feel safer with him, no question, with the gold right outside until we decide what to do with it.
But it also feels wrong.
So wrong.
Because Alaska’s just trying to do the right thing.
Also, he doesn’t know about Paisley, that sick Chucky doll who always shows up on my doorstep like a real-life jump scare. Or what she could do to him and Eli to get to that gold.
Holy hell.
Those thoughts are on my tongue, torched in the back of my throat like I’ve swallowed something foul as I turn my gaze on my cousin.
“Yo, Fel!”
“I...yeah, Ember? What’s up?”
She watches me worriedly, her sweet blue eyes still so innocent despite everything she’s been through. “You’ve been a space cadet for the last ten minutes. And you look like you’re about to cry.”
“I’m fine.” I flash her a bright smile. “Just. You know. Bit of a week.”
“Yeah, I bet.” She gives me a little smile, flicking up a finger. “One: you found your dad’s sunken plane with gold bars in it, and you know what’s up with that, but you won’t tell me because you like being all secretive.”
“I don’t like—”
“Two.” She flicks another finger up. “You barely get back in town with it, and some creepy stranger jacks it right out from under your boyfriend’s nose.”
I gasp. “Wait, hold up, he’s not my—”
“And three.” Her third finger salutes me, pretty and slim and manicured. “Your boyfriend got beaten up trying to get it back, so now we’re here to retrieve it and his car, and find somewhere safer to keep it until you figure out what to do with it, Miss Moneybags.”
“I’m not rich!” I blurt out, because that’s the only part I can even respond to when the rest has my head spinning.
Alaska’s so not my boyfriend. He shouldn’t be. He can’t be!
I’d just make things messier for him when he has his own problems to deal with. Taking a deep breath, I squeeze my hands against the steering wheel, trying to calm down.
“I don’t think it was Dad’s gold. Really, I’m just going to turn it over to the authorities and let them figure it out.”
“So, not Langley, you mean,” she says with a bright smile.
“God, definitely not Langley. He’d probably turn it over to the first con artist twirling his mustache who swears he’s a federal agent dispatched from Fort Knox.”
That gets a giggle from Ember, and I breathe out a sigh of relief.
I mean, it wasn’t a full lie.
I might turn it over to the authorities once I’m sure that won’t get me flayed open on the tip of Paisley’s creepy little fetish knife. For now, I’m just hoping to keep Ember diverted from asking too many questions.
Question time is dangerous.
She’s already been through hell.
That whole incident with the angel investor guy who tried to kill her? Kinda my fault.
Kinda.
I feel like if I hadn’t been so friendly with him, trusted him, given him an in to win people’s trust as The Nest’s new investor...
Then maybe Ember never would’ve had a near-death experience.
Of course, she also wouldn’t have had her hot, surly veterinarian hubby come crashing to the rescue. And every time I see the way Doc Caldwell looks at her, there’s no denying that’s a love worthy of a little hell.
Still, I just can’t drag more problems into my cousin’s life. She’s a wife, a miracle worker and a partner at the animal clinic, and a mother now.
“So,” Ember says brightly. “Lips sealed on the gold. Promise. Buuut you didn’t deny the Alaska-Charter-is-your-new-boyfriend part.”
“Yeah, because you wouldn’t let me finish the sentence.” I glower at her. “He’s not my boyfriend, Ember. We haven’t even been on a—I mean, we’re never going on a date, or two dates, or ten dates, or whatever. We’re just helping each other out.”
“Is that why your face is so red? Peachy.”
I glare into her bright, sweet smile. “Nope. That’s because my cousin’s being a first-rate brat and not minding her own business.”
“Hey, you won’t let me ask about the gold, so I’ve got to think of some way to mess with you.” Ember goes quiet, though, leaning back against the passenger seat and tapping her finger against her lower lip as she looks out the windshield.
We have a good view of the well-lit gas station parking lot and the pumps just around the corner of the alley.