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I paused and took a deep breath and lied straight to her face. “Look, let me take you for somethin’ to eat, yeah? When we get all this taken care of, if you want to come back I’ll bring you back.”
There was no fucking way I was ever letting her step foot back inside that shitty cabin.
She stared at me and I had the really uncomfortable feeling that she could see right through me and knew that I was lying, but she slowly turned anyway, pulling her legs into the truck.
The drive back down the gravel driveway made me jumpy as fuck. Every pothole and bump made me tense even further until my knuckles were white around the steering wheel. I’d never been so happy to see pavement as when we pulled out onto the road.
I hated leaving everyone behind when I should’ve been there helping, but I couldn’t imagine sending Esther off with anyone else and she sure as fuck couldn’t stay there. I glanced at her as we headed back toward Eugene. She’d fisted her hands together in her lap and was sitting as still as a statue. I couldn’t stop the pulse ofmine, mine, minepounding in the back of my mind.
It was silent in the cab of the truck for at least thirty minutes before she spoke.
“I don’t understand any of this,” she said quietly. “None of it makes any sense.”
“Yesterday,” I replied, wondering exactly how much I should tell her. “We were movin’ a shipment when someone forced a couple of our people off the road and stole it.”
“But how did they end up in my cabin?” she replied in exasperation, her words running together as she spoke faster and faster. “Why were you shipping guns like that? Why would you think my dad took them? How did you even know about the cabin? My dad’s a deacon in our church. He’s not going around stealingguns. He’s the most straight-laced person I’ve ever met. None of this makes sense.”
“Our crates were there,” I pointed out reasonably. “You saw them.”
“But maybe my dad had nothing to do with it,” she said, turning to look at me. “That’s what I’m saying. You should let me call him.”
“You think that some stranger…” I paused for emphasis. “Somehow knew that there was a cabin out in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere, with a hidden trap door in the floor, and also knew that you’d be conveniently gone for a few hours yesterday?”
Esther was silent.
“I’m sorry,” I said gently. “I know all this is confusin’ as fuck.”
“How did you know they were there, though?” she asked quietly. “How did you know where to look?”
“Narrowed it down,” I replied, leaving out the fact that Aces had also gone to her church and the warehouse that I doubted she even knew existed. Someone had texted them the minute we’d found the guns and some of the boys were already headed to the cabin. It was only a matter of time before we passed them on the road.
Half of me was still back at that cabin in the woods, but we’d ignored the elephant in the truck for as long as I could stand.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?” I asked after it had been quiet for a few minutes. “I came to see if you were alright and you didn’t say a fuckin’ word.”
Her hand went unconsciously to her belly.
“I didn’t know then.”
“You knew at some point.”
“I didn’t think—” She paused. “We barely know each other.”
“So?”
“I would’ve told you eventually.”
“After you’d had it?” I asked flatly.
“Once I knew how to find you,” she murmured, looking out the window. “But I was more worried about telling my parents.”
“I’m sure that went over well.” I could only imagine how badly they’d reacted.
“Not really,” she replied seriously. “The next day my dad brought me out to the cabin.”
“The day after Thanksgiving,” I said knowingly.
“How did you know that?”
