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I put my hand on Knox’s chest and pushed against him gently. Knox stilled before pulling away with a question in his eyes.
“I’m not stopping because I don’t want to kiss you,” I told him.
“You don’t have to explain.”
“It’s not that I have to, Knox. I’m extending the same courtesy to you that I’d want in return. It’s easy to misread something and I don’t ever want you to feel like I don’t want you.”
Through his touch I felt him go tense. “I never wanted you to feel that way.”
I sighed and rested my forehead on his chest. “I know, and I didn’t say that to hurt you.”
Knox’s fingers continued to knead the back of my neck. “So why did you pull away?”
“There’s a lot that needs to be done and there aren’t a lot of daylight hours left,” I said into his chest.
“Like what?”
I pulled away and out of his arms. “We don’t have any food here.” I got dressed as I spoke. “It’s only going to get colder. It’s going to snow and if it snows too much, there’s a risk we could get snowed in. You and your brothers don’t have proper clothing, either. So I’m going to need your sizes before I head to town.”
“Or we could go with you,” he suggested.
I thought about it. “A few of you can come. Either only one of the twins can come or both need to stay behind. Twins are too noticeable and rememberable. If Keelan’s coming, he’ll need to wear something to cover up his tattoos. There’s some of Logan’s clothes here. Him and Keelan are about the same size.”
“Creed and I will go with you,” he decided.
After getting on my shirt, I went to the trunk at the foot of the bed and pulled out a pair of boots and a bark-colored knitted beanie. I closed the trunk and sat on top of it to put on my socks and boots. “Are you sure Creed will even want to be around me?”
“I’m not going to get in the middle of you and Creed.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I will say that when you took off after sending us that vague text, Keelan had to restrain Creed to stop him from driving off and searching for you.”
I looked down at the floor. “If I had any other choice, I wouldn’t have left you three like that.”
“We know that now.”
I supposed Colt had told them everything.
“I also believed you wouldn’t have left like that unless you had to. It was obvious something was going on when we left Ethan’s. You were on edge and distracted.” Knox moved to stand in front of me. He grabbed my chin and made me look up at him. “It wasn’t easy having faith that you and Colt would meet us here. You were going into a dangerous situation and leaving felt like we were abandoning you two.”
“I can see why that was hard,” I said. “Thank you for leaving despite it.”
As Knox stared down at me, his normal serious face gentled a little. “Thank you for saving my brother.”
6
We headedout after retrieving money and my Colorado driver’s license, which had my picture but a different alias on it, from my go bag, which was the duffel bag I’d grabbed from the safe in my panic room back in Arizona. The hour drive to town was quiet for the most part. Creed rode in the backseat, frowning as he stared out the window. There were a few times when I peeked back at him through the rearview mirror as I drove us and caught him staring at me, but when he realized, he would look away. Knox sat up front with me and appeared to be sleeping. I was pretty sure he had been up since yesterday like the rest of us.
It wasn’t until we were pulling up to our first stop that I broke the silence. “There will be cameras everywhere. Try to keep your head down as much as you can.”
Knox opened his eyes and looked at me as if he hadn’t been sleeping at all, merely resting with his eyes closed. Putting my attention back on the road, I felt rather than saw him reach out before brushing the side of my neck. “You have hair hanging out.”
I brought my hand up to where he touched and felt the strand of hair he spoke of. Using one hand, I tucked it into my beanie. I’d put it on before leaving, hoping to hide my red hair. I’d need to pick up hair dye while we were out. The red was too noticeable.
Our first stop was a large, common department store. As soon as we entered, I suggested that we split up to get things done faster.
“Creed can go with you,” Knox said and walked away toward the men’s clothing department.
It was obvious what Knox was doing. I glanced at Creed and saw him frowning at his brother, who was walking farther and farther away.
As if feeling me watching, Creed’s gaze slid to me. His frown lessened just a smidge and he sighed. “Let’s go.”
