“You’ve got your I-hate-the-world expression on your face. You were trying to hide it while the guys were here, but I saw.”
He lifted the pry bar and started working on the next rotten board. “It involves your sister.”
“So you think you can’t tell me.”
“IknowI can’t tell you.”
“Because you had sex?”
The muscles in his back tightened. “No. We kissed.”
“Okay, that’s good. Why the scowl?”
“Ithoughtit was good. Now she’s not answering my texts, and I’m worried that…”
“Worried that what?”
He pulled the board up and threw it on the pile before looking back at Noah. “She had a folder from the IVF clinic in her kitchen.”
“Why would she—”
“It had information on sperm donors.”
Noah’s head reared back. “What the fuck?”
His thoughts too. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “She said she wasn’t going to go through with it. But it was there, and now she’s not answering my texts, and the thought of her being pregnant with another man’s baby… Fuck, I can’t even think about it.”
“Of course you can’t. She’s your wife.”
“She is. And I love her so damn much. I want her to be happy. And if being happy means she needs to be permanently separated from me, then I’d accept it. It would kill me, but I’d let her go. But shelovesme. I know she does. I feel it whenever we’re together. And I know I can make her happy.”
“So don’t stop fighting.”
“I—” A sound in the trees had his head whipping around. Like the crunch of leaves beneath feet. “You hear that?”
Noah stepped forward. “Yeah.”
“Think it’s a wild animal?”
“Maybe. Or maybe that semi-homeless guy Randy was talking about.”
Colt stepped toward the tree line. There it was again—but this time, fast footsteps movingawayfrom them.
He jogged toward the forest, only to stop a few yards in when he spotted the slight imprint of footsteps in the dirt. He crouched. “Someone was definitely here.”
Noah came to stand beside him. “We could go after him. Together, we’d stand a good chance of catching him.”
Colt studied the trees around them. “I’ve got enough going on. Randy said this Milo guy is harmless, and those cabins will be done and locked soon enough. Hopefully, he moves on.”
CHAPTER 7
Indie scrubbed a hand over her face as she left her bedroom. She was tired. Really freaking tired. It appeared that sleep was not her friend at the moment, and that was all thanks to one man—Colt.
Damn him and his ability to invade her mind at every hour of the day.
What she needed was coffee. A huge, gigantic mug of coffee. And it had better help her focus on the photos she needed to edit.
She couldn’t get him out of her head. In her dreams, they always started happily married, but then things changed. Sometimes he returned to the military. Sometimes he chose his mother over her when she was in some kind of desperate situation.
