Page 99 of Breaking His Exile

Gemma didn’t look surprised. She nodded like she’d expected it. “You know the way to his place?”

“Enough.”

“There’s a back route. Cuts the ridge lower, comes up behind the cabin from the south. Shaves off at least forty minutes.” Gemma set her mug on the barn rail. “I can show you. I’ve been out that way with River a couple times. He likes to ride the eastern trails.”

Rainey hesitated. The anger in her chest was still hot, still pushing her toward motion, but something in Gemma’s offer gave her pause.

“Why would you help me?” Rainey asked.

Gemma’s smile came quick. “Because River would want me to. And because the man you’re chasing is an idiot if he thinks walking away from you solves anything.” She picked up her mug. “Besides, I’ve got nothing better to do at five in the morning. Might as well prevent a tragedy.”

Rainey made her decision. “The UTV?”

“Better off with the side-by-side. More ground clearance for the back route.”

They walked to the side-by-side parked behind the equipment shed. Gemma climbed into the driver’s seat without waiting to be invited. Rainey lifted Tilly into the back — the dog went willingly, settling into the cargo bed with the resigned air of an animal who understood vehicles were part of the job — and then climbed into the passenger seat.

Gemma started the engine. The sound ripped through the morning quiet, too loud, and Rainey winced.

“Nobody’s going to hear,” Gemma said. “The bunkhouse guys sleep like the dead. Trust me, I’ve tested this theory.”

They pulled out of the yard. Gemma took them east along the fence line, past the paddock where Whiskey Tango Foxtrot lifted his head to watch them pass, then cut north onto a two-track that Rainey didn’t recognize. The side-by-side jolted over ruts, its headlights carving weak yellow tunnels through the pre-dawn gray. Tilly braced herself in the back, steady, her nails clicking against the metal bed.

“How long have you and River been together?” Rainey asked. The question came out of nowhere, spurred by the jolting silence and the need to hear something besides the engine.

“Little over a month.” Gemma kept her eyes on the track. “Met him at the Rusty Spur. He spilled a drink on my shoes and then spent twenty minutes apologizing while making me laugh. It was very him.”

Rainey almost smiled. That sounded exactly like River — the catastrophic charm, the desperate cover-up. She’d watched him do variations of the same routine for years.

“He talks about you a lot,” Gemma said. “You should know that. Even before you showed up here.”

The words landed somewhere tender. Rainey looked out at the dark timber sliding past, the shapes of pines emerging slowly as the light strengthened.

They drove. The track wound through low draws and across stretches of open grassland where the frost still lay silver on the dead grass. Gemma drove with confidence, taking the ruts at speed, her hands loose on the wheel. She knew the terrain. That much was clear.

Something nagged at the back of Rainey’s mind. A detail, not quite fitting.

Evander’s cabin lay northwest of the ranch. They were driving northeast, and had been for at least fifteen minutes. The track beneath them trended steadily away from the ridgeline she knew led to his property.

She waited. Counted another five minutes.

“Gemma.”

“Hmm?”

“This isn’t the way to his cabin.”

Gemma’s hands tightened on the wheel. “There’s a cut ahead,” she said. “We swing west after the creek.”

Rainey watched her profile. Gemma’s jaw had set. A muscle twitched beneath her eye.

They reached a junction. The main track continued northeast. A smaller trail branched west, climbing toward the ridge — the turn Rainey had been waiting for. The turn that would take them toward Evander’s mountain.

Gemma drove past it without slowing.

“Stop the vehicle,” Rainey said.

Gemma kept driving.