Page 50 of Claimed on the Ridge

The laugh that comes out of me is small and real. Amberly Sawyer talks to me like a woman who has been waiting for this call and never once considered forcing it.

"If anyone comes through the clinic asking about a woman matching my description," I start.

"Nobody has. Nobody will get an answer if they do." Her voice is firm. "Patient confidentiality isn't a suggestion, Kendall. I want to take a look at those ribs again in the next couple of days."

She hangs up. I set the phone back in its cradle and sit in Alex's office chair, breathing.

The chair smells like him. Pine, soap, the mineral scent of skin that's been outdoors in cold weather.

Evening drops fast up here. One minute the sky holds the last amber light above the ridge. The next, the dark has moved in and the windows reflect the fire back at me instead of the mountain. The brothers disperse. Bryan goes to the workshop. Cameron heads to the generator. Dash takes the main room with his book and his phone, checking the screen despite the signal being more rumor than reality.

Alex rebuilds the fire. He kneels on the stone hearth and arranges the logs with attention that doesn't announce itself. The firelight catches the lines of his forearms, the shift of muscle under rolled flannel sleeves.

He finishes and stands, brushing his hands against his jeans.

"You should sleep," he says.

"So should you."

"I slept last night."

"You didn't sleep at all last night. You watched the ceiling and thought about how to tell me about the report. I was lying on your arm. I could feel you not sleeping."

The corner of his mouth moves. Not a smile. The start of one, caught before it arrives. The catching is the part that registers, because it means the smile was real.

"Go to bed, Kendall."

He says my name, just Kendall, and the sound of it has changed. He knows who it belongs to now, where it came from, what it cost me to keep it while I carried a name that was never mine.

I go upstairs. The third step creaks under my weight. My room is at the end of the hall; the room he assigned me the night I arrived. The bag is on the floor with its zipper open and its contents packed tight.

I don't go to my room.

I stand in the hallway with the dark gathering around me and the heat from the fire rising through the floorboards.

Below me, the lodge settles. I let the decision form. My body knows before my mind finishes. My feet turn toward his door.

His room is cold. The fire is laid but unlit. I find the matches on the mantel and strike one, watching the kindling catch and the flames climb into the logs. The light fills the room in slow amber.

I undress. The clothes come off without ceremony, folded on the chair by the window. I sit on the edge of his bed with the fire warming my skin and wait.

I hear him bank the fire downstairs, check the door. Then his boots on the stairs, heavy and unhurried.

The door opens.

Alex stands in the doorway. His eyes find me, and his hand tightens on the frame. His breathing shifts.

I hold his gaze. I don't reach for the sheet.

"Close the door," I say.

He does with a slow smile. The wanting doesn't scare me anymore.

12

ALEX

She lit my fire. The kindling has caught and the logs are climbing, amber light filling the room. Kendall is sitting on the edge of my bed with nothing on and her clothes folded on the chair by the window. She folded them. She didn't drop them on the floor in a rush. She made a decision, undressed with the calm of a woman who knows exactly what she wants, and sat down to wait for me.