Page 12 of Breaking His Exile

“Does Walker Nash?”

“No.”

“Does anyone?”

He turned then, finally, and the look on his face was enough to make her take half a step back. “What difference does it make?”

“My brother has never once mentioned you, and now you’re telling me you lived at the same ranch he’s been at for years, and you knew each other, and somehow that adds up to you driving me to a cabin in the middle of nowhere instead of taking me to him.”

His shoulders tightened. It was such a tiny reaction, but enough to tell her this man and her brother had history. “What’s your last name?”

He didn’t answer.

“Won’t give me even that much?”

“Cole. Evander Cole.” He turned back to the shelf. “And that’s all you’re getting tonight.”

She pushed off the counter. Her ribs pulled and she hissed through her teeth. “You killed a man for me. A man who happened to be the president of a motorcycle club that’s been hunting me for a month. You drove me four hours into the mountains to a cabin nobody knows about. And you expect me to believe the sum total of your connection to my brother is that you shared a roof for a short time years ago?”

“Believe what you want.” He closed the cabinet and faced her. “The facts don’t change.”

“The facts are you’re hiding something.”

“Everyone’s hiding something, Rainey. You walked into a roadhouse with a guitar and a cracked rib and a club on your tail. You want to trade secrets, you go first.”

She held his gaze. The woodstove popped. Outside, wind moved through the pines with a sound like distant traffic.

She looked away first.

Her gaze fell on Tilly. The dog had lifted her head, watching the exchange with the quiet attention of an animal who understood more than she had any right to. Rainey hadn’t had a dog since she was twelve. Her father had taken the puppy away after it barked at one of his friends.

“Fine.” She dropped her voice, aiming it at the dog instead of the man. “What’s her name?”

Evander looked almost suspicious. His eyes narrowed a fraction, like he was waiting for the trap. “Matilda. Tilly.”

“Tilly. That’s a perfect name for such a big, beautiful lady.” Rainey crouched carefully, keeping her weight off her left side, and held out her hand palm-down. “Hey, Tilly. You want to tell me why your human is such a terrible conversationalist?”

Tilly’s ears perked. She sniffed Rainey’s fingers once, twice, her wet nose wet and cool. Then she leaned forward and pressed the broad flat plane of her skull against Rainey’s thigh. The weight of her was solid and warm and alive in a way that made Rainey’s throat close.

She scratched behind Tilly’s ears. The dog’s eyes half-closed.

“I bet you know all kinds of useful secrets, don’t you?” Rainey kept her voice soft. “Like where he hides the good food. Or whether he’s always this grumpy, or if I’m just special.”

From the corner of her eye, she caught it—the faintest shift in Evander’s expression. Not quite a smile. Something smaller. The ghost of something he’d buried a long time ago. He turned away and busied himself with the stove, filling a pot with water from a jug, but his shoulders had lost some of their rigidity.

Tilly leaned harder against her leg. Rainey sank her fingers into the thick fur at the dog’s neck and held on.

“I need to see River,” she said, quieter now.

Evander set the pot on the burner. The propane hissed. “I know.”

“Then take me there.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

He turned. The stove light caught the planes of his face, throwing the scars into relief—the old ones on his forearms, the fresher mark on his cheekbone from the fight. His eyes were dark and steady and utterly without compromise.