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As soon as we pulled past the lodge and parked by the family home behind it, Lucky was out of the truck and jogging to the open front door where I could see movement inside. Someone must have noticed him coming, because Bennett came rushing out with a giant smile on his face and gathered Lucky into a strong hug, practically lifting his feet off the ground.
When Xander joined them on the porch with a baby on his hip, the happiness on his face was unmistakable. I stepped out of the truck and stayed back to watch from afar, letting the family have their time to reconnect. As soon as they noticed me, the questions would begin.
And then the lightness in Lucky’s face would fall away again, and I would be reminded of the fact that I was one of the many secrets Lucky was keeping from the people he loved. But unlike with his SAR certification, there would be no coming clean about me.
Lucky chose that moment to glance my way and, despite making sure neither of his fathers were watching when he did it, it was like a punch to the gut. Not because I knew there was no way in hell we were going to be able to pull this off, but because of another truth I’d been denying from the moment I’d crossed that line and kissed Lucky.
This wasn’t a hookup for him. No matter how many times he’d insisted that he’d be able to walk away from this thing with his heart intact, that one look was proof that it was too late for that.
Far too late.
Chapter 28
Lucky
I took little Danny out of Xander’s arms and held him against my chest, dropping a kiss on his fuzzy, light hair. “Hey, beautiful boy,” I cooed. “Miss big brother?”
My dads both watched me with goofy grins, but before I had a chance to ask why the baby was awake so late, Bennett noticed Zach standing next to his truck.
“Hey man,” Bennett said, stepping down the stairs into the yard and reaching out a hand to shake. “What are you doing here? I mean, Jake told us you were coming, but…” He looked between me and Zach, seeming to realize that’s how I’d gotten here.
Zach’s eyes glanced to me before looking back at Bennett. “I was in Montana on business, so I gave Lucky a ride home since I was heading south anyway. My brother said you wouldn’t mind putting me up for a few nights. Hope it’s not a bother?”
Bennett shook his hand and grinned at him. “Of course not. Happy to have you. You can help us celebrate having everyone back together again. You know how much we love an excuse to light up the grill and eat outside. Come on in. I’ll let Jake and Oz know you made it safely.”
Zach met my eyes over Bennett’s head before nodding and grabbing our bags out of the back of the truck. I was already coming up with ways to sneak into Zach’s room in the lodge each night. The idea of having him so close and not being able to sleep up against him made me restless.
I turned toward the lodge, fully expecting to lead Zach to one of the guest rooms we kept set aside for friends and family who were visiting. But Xander stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.
“Show Zach to your room upstairs in the house.”
I stared at him. “What do you mean? I thought Zach was staying in the lodge.”
Bennett walked up and took Danny from me, rocking him against his shoulder. “The lodge is full-up and we gave the spare room to Ash and Aiden. Nick is using the other spare room. He’s helping with the campers this summer. I thought we told you that. You don’t mind sleeping on the couch in the den, right?”
My dream of sneaking into Zach’s room evaporated in a desperate poof. I couldn’t even enjoy the fact that now he’d be under the same roof as me because it wasn’t like I could risk having sex with my boyfriend in my fathers’ house.
Boyfriend?
Damn it, I needed to be careful even thinking stuff like that. If I’d called Zach that to his face, he would have high-tailed it out of Haven so fast there’d be skid marks.
“But…” How could I possibly argue this without sounding like a pain in the ass? I couldn’t. “Um, okay. Zach, come on. Let me show you where everything is.”
We headed toward the house I’d called home for the last five years. I was dimly aware of Zach thanking my fathers and following me, but he didn’t say anything even once we entered the house, leaving me to worry about what he thought about all this. I pretty much kissed my newly found sex life goodbye as I trudged up the stairs. When I got to the room at the end of the second-floor hallway, I turned on the bedside table lamp, revealing framed posters and photographs of Everest, Fuji, and Rainier. A forested trail in Yosemite among the redwoods, and a bald eagle’s nest in the Cascades. These sights were as familiar to me as the silly knitted pillow Min had made me one summer in a crafts workshop or the purple-ribbon medal I’d won for a mock search and rescue challenge when I was a senior in high school. The idea of Zach seeing the things from my childhood unnerved me. He was already struggling to see me as an adult. What would spending the night around all these trinkets and treasures do to our already tenuous relationship?
