Page 11 of Breaking His Exile

Then the trees opened up.

The cabin sat in a small clearing, its silhouette black against the deeper black of the mountains behind it. One room, as far as she could tell. A steep-pitched roof with a metal chimney. A porch with two steps. A storage shed off to one side, its door padlocked. A lean-to horse shelter sat on the other side, but she didn’t see a horse. No power lines. No neighbors. No lights for miles in any direction she could see.

Evander killed the headlights and the dark came down like a hood.

“Home sweet home,” he said, and his voice had a flatness to it that told her he didn’t consider the word a joke.

She pushed the door open before he could come around for her. Her ribs screamed when her feet hit the ground, and she bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to taste copper. The air was cold and thin and smelled of woodsmoke and old rain. Above the cabin, the sky opened vast and star-scattered, more stars than she’d seen in years, and the sight of them made something in her chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with cracked bone.

She stood there breathing it in while Evander unloaded the truck. Guitar case. Her pack. A canvas duffel she hadn’t noticed before. A plastic grocery bag with what looked like food. He moved with the unhurried efficiency of a man who had done this ten thousand times and expected to do it ten thousand more.

Rainey didn’t help him. She was busy.

She tested the driver’s door. Locked. The keys were either in his pocket or in the ignition, and she couldn’t reach either without him noticing. The cabin had two windows and one door, all of them fitted with what looked like heavy-duty locks. The rifle she’d glimpsed behind the seat was gone now—he’d taken it inside with the first load. The storage shed was padlocked. The hand pump by the porch handle squeaked when she tried it, and water came out clear and cold.

She walked the perimeter as casually as she could manage, counting her steps. Thirty from the cabin to the tree line on the north side. Twenty on the east. The south side dropped away into what sounded like a creek bed, too steep and too dark to navigate without a light. West was the track they’d come in on, the only way out that didn’t involve climbing.

She pressed two fingers against her left side and breathed deep. The fifth rib caught. The sixth might be cracked too. Hiking out of here, even if she found the main road, would take hours she didn’t have and strength she wasn’t sure her body could muster. The thought sat in her stomach like a stone.

No phone signal. She’d checked twice already, holding the cracked screen up to the sky as if the stars might bounce a signal down. Nothing.

She was stuck. With a man who had killed for her and now wouldn’t take her to the one person she’d crossed four states to find.

Inside, Evander had the generator running. The single bulb hanging from the ceiling threw a yellow glow over a space that was smaller than it had looked from outside. One room. Woodstove in the corner, already lit, throwing heat that hit her face the second she stepped through the door. A cot against the far wall with a sleeping bag rolled on top. A table with two chairs. A shelf with books. A counter with a camp stove and a stack of canned goods. A rifle rack on the wall beside the door, empty now because the rifle was leaning against the woodbox within easy reach of wherever he decided to sit.

It was the cabin of a man who expected to be alone.

She set her guitar case against the wall and dropped her pack beside it. Tilly circled the room once, sniffing the corners, then settled near the stove with her chin on her paws. Her dark eyes tracked Rainey without moving.

“Generator’s for lights and the fridge,” Evander said. He was putting cans away on the shelf, his back to her. “Stove runs on propane. Hand pump outside for water. Outhouse around back if you need it.”

“Charming.”

“You wanted a hotel, you should’ve stayed on the highway.”

She leaned against the counter and crossed her arms, wincing at the sharp pain in her ribs. “How do you know my brother?”

He didn’t turn around. “Told you. Valor Ridge.”

“How long were you there?”

“Not long.”

“When?”

He reached for another can. “Years ago.”

“Were you friends?”

That got him to pause. Just for a heartbeat, his shoulders going still under his jacket before he set the can on the shelf. “We knew each other.”

“Why did you leave?”

“Didn’t suit me.”

“Does River know about this place?”

“No.”