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He’d be looking for something to fend goats off with later tonight. Maybe a stick would do it. In all his years as a car thief, he’d never had an adrenaline rush quite like being chased down a mountain by a goat.
After taking a moment to catch his breath, he smiled at Ophelia. The indignant look on her face was adorable.
“Should we keep going or do you want to go back?”
“Why would I want to go back?”
“I thought you might be scared.”
She sniffed and raised her chin. “I’m not scared. Are you scared?”
“No.” Not once he found a stick. “It was cute.”
“Cute?”
“In fact, I might look into getting one as a pet when we get home.” He winked. “They’re so fluffy.”
“I saw the look on your face,” Ophelia said, her expression amused. “You were totally scared.”
“Nope. That’s classic transference. You were scared, so you think I was.”
She gave him a skeptical look, and he knew he wasn’t fooling her for a second.
“I’ll lead the way for a while.” It would make him feel better if she was safely behind him, even if he did lose the nice view.
With a smirk, she replied, “So I get to stare at your ass now?”
***
As soon as Luke and Ophelia returned to her SUV and started the drive
back down the mountains toward the lodge, Luke’s phone started dinging with message alerts. Service cut out about halfway up Going-to-the-Sun road and his cousins had apparently been blowing up his phone with texts throughout the hike. When they reached the lodge, he and Ophelia hit the shower, but as soon as he was clean he left her to finish on her own so he could check his messages.
Most of them were demands to know when he was coming home, and some cryptic talk about a wolf in the chicken coop.
What the fuck?
Concerned, he dialed Fox’s number and hoped he picked up. It rang twice.
“Finally!” Fox said, exasperated. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Hiking. There’s not much service. I’m in the middle of fucking nowhere.” They knew that. Why were they being such pussies about it? They’d never bitched about him being away before.
“Well, while you’ve been fucking around with your little hotel queen, one of Marcel’s idiots has been making trouble.”
Fuck. He’d thought Marcel’s crew had decided to lie low after his death. “What?”
Fox sighed. “Vander. He’s careless and the police have been watching him. And he’s been watching us, which means we’re on the cops’ radar now.”
“Oh shit.”
“We’ve got one cop who keeps bringing laptops by, saying the precinct needs them repaired.” His voice tightened. “Atlas has been dealing with him but . . . I’m wondering if we should just pack up and go before this shitstain takes us down with him.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. His family was in crisis and here he was messing around with a pretty girl and having a vacation. But he couldn’t desert her. Could he? Should he? He wasn’t even sure how he could help Fox and Atlas. If it was just about giving the guy a scare, Fox was the most intimidating of them. And Atlas could bullshit his way through business dealings with the cops.
“God, the timing couldn’t be worse.” He let out a long exhale. “I’m coming back. I just need . . . three more days. Can you give me three days?”
A pause. Was he being a selfish asshole? Part of him worried for his cousins’ safety, but he also knew they could take care of themselves.
