Leaving me alone in my freshly refurbished kitchen. Cookies still on the table. Coffee getting cold.
And mental maul bond messages already coming in from both Zion and Boone.
“I’m not certain you’re familiar with the definition of ‘Don’t mess it up,’”Zion said, voice tight.
Boone still hadn’t learned to regulate his tone or volume.“WHAT THE FUCK, DUDE? ZION GOT HER TO SECOND BASE AND YOU JUST FUCKED IT ALL UP AGAIN? DA FUCK KIND OF PLAY WAS THAT?
Zion’s side of the maul bond abruptly muted.
Then Boone’s.
They were probably talking about the biggest detriment to Operation Sugar Cookie right now.
Me.
I sank back into the chair. I was right—she did need to call her daughters. But being right didn’t matter if she wouldn’t listen. Being right didn’t matter if I pushed her away every time she got close.
I took one of the thumbprint raspberry jam sugar cookies. It was perfect—buttery, sweet, made with care.
And she’d probably never bake for me again.
Ursa dammit.
27/
emergency
BELL
No more accepting gifts. No more evening walks. No more losing track of time. New agenda: take control of my life.
My woodworking had a purpose now. I ignored the humming of the one totem statue I’d been researching in favor of freeing a cute pair of Kodiak and polar bear cubs—womb twins—from one of the smaller stumps and a black bear cub from another. They’d be wedding gifts for Holly and Noelle. But I no longer allowed myself to get lost in the process of making them. All wood sculpting was reserved for normal workday hours now.
I programmed the alarm on the phone Ravik said I had to keep on me for 5 pm every day so I’d always be back inside the house making my own dinner by 5:30. A signal to the three guys that I was a grown woman who didn’t need them to do everything for me.
Instead of watching old episodes of reality baking competitions or turn-of-the-century movies with Zion, I spent my nights on the phone—but not like Ravik dared me to when he tried to forceme to disrupt Noelle’s and Holly’s happy lives with all my toxic problems.
I signed back into my bank account, which had three hundred forty-seven dollars and eighteen cents.
The number made my stomach drop. Three hundred forty-seven dollars—that’s what leaving Dennis had left me with. Barely enough for a bus ticket.
I was done.Done.
No more hiding scared from a slip of paper with a dead man’s writing. I looked for a job, any job I could submit to online. Retail. Data entry. Administrative assistant. It didn’t have to be at a gallery or museum this time. I’d take anything I was remotely qualified for that would pay me enough to escape.
That’s what this was. Not starting over.
Escaping.
Away from here. I hated that I had to submit the number for the phone Ravik had given me. But I needed a working number.
I’ll pay him back,I kept promising myself when I switched off the cottage’s lights and climbed into bed as fast as I could so I’d be fully tucked away when Zion or Boone reported for sentry duty.
I’d forgotten that vow I’d made to him back in May. But there wasn’t any forgetting it now. Yes, I loved working on Holly’s and Noelle’s wedding gifts, but I had to put that unpaid work in its place.
It was time for me to grow up. Face my daughters. Give them their presents, then get the hell out of Bear Mountain.
However, none of the jobs bit. Days passed without anything more than an automatic form acknowledgment that I’d submitted an application in my inbox. Probably because of the Canadian country code.
