Page 106 of Hunter or Hunted

“I can, though,” he said. “I mean, it’s complicated, right? Because you’re complicated. Everyone’s complicated. But I—You’re amazing. You came from hell, and you’re still living to tell the tale. You started your whole life over because you wanted something good. For you, for your daughter, for your future, and that amazes me.”

Her eyes softened, posture under his hands soothing with it. “That’s sweet, but⁠—”

“There’s no but, Simone,” he said. “I see dark, screwed-up shit every day. It’s my job. It’s my life. I’m not afraid of some trauma. I want someone who gets it. Someone who knows that there are bad days but keeps standing through them. You’ve got that. You’ve got strength and drive and power.

“I know you think the worst parts of your story make you worthless, but you’re wrong. They’re what made you strong. And I want someone strong. And smart. And beautiful.” He swept a long black wave behind her ear, watching her eyes grow dewy with each word he spoke. “And kind and caring and compassionate. You’ve got all that. And I want that in my life. I want you.”

Blinking slowly, eyes gentler now, maybe glassy, she opened her mouth to speak. But no words came out.

“Do you?” Edwards whispered, holding her cheek in his hand. “Do you want this?”

“I… I think I do, but⁠—”

“Then don’t push me away.” He trailed his thumb over her cheek, then over that parted, silky bottom lip. “We can figure out the bad shit as it comes, but this, us, what we’re doing here, it’s good. We can be great, Simone.”

Her eyes were so wide, so soft. She didn’t say anything. Edwards couldn’t tell if it was because she had nothing to add or because she was too dazed to speak.

“Tell me no, and I’ll walk away,” he whispered, leaning closer. The heat of her breath warmed the chill on his cheeks. “Tell me you don’t want this.”

She said nothing.

She lifted a hand to his face, trailed it around the back of his neck, and tugged him in.

Their lips met, and there it was again. The world stopped spinning. His and hers were the only hearts beating in the galaxy.

35

GWEN

A Few Months Later

April 2024

So much had changed since Delilah’s death four months ago.

Simone was seeming more like herself. A better, happier self than I’d known her to be. She and Edwards had locked in after that court hearing. Officially an item, Sebastian and I paired up with them weekly for double dates.

When our hands weren’t full at the house, anyway.

That’s how we referred to it. The house.

Occasionally, Sebastian or I slipped up, calling it “our house,” then blushed and changed the subject.

Not because either of us had reservations. Just because it’d take us years to make the place livable. No use in getting too excited too soon.

We hadn’t even finished the demo phase when a leak sprang on the roof. That got pushed up the priority list. We got hit with a bad windstorm last month that’d ripped off more of the siding, and now that the weather had warmed some, we could get out there long enough to actually accomplish something. So tearing off the siding came next.

Between Sebastian’s time at the office and with Lizzie, and my work spliced in a thousand directions—the dwindling hours at Maple & Thyme, five piano lessons a week thanks to Mallory, and my training for the outreach department at the ranch—we just didn’t have enough hours in a day. If we had time to spend on a project, we spent it on either the van or the barn.

By the end of February, we’d finished morphing the barn into a garage. That benefited us twofold. First, for the murder we were planning. Second, a warm place to work on the van.

Mechanically, that thing ran better than my car. Which was the idea, of course. We needed a reliable vehicle that wouldn’t look suspicious as we drove our captive across state lines.

The inside required the real work.

Sebastian wanted it to be a “mobile clean room.” That meant removing all the rear seats and laying down sheet vinyl flooring. Sheet vinyl rather than peel-and-stick or click-lock so we wouldn’t create any crevices. Couldn’t have hair or bodily fluids containing DNA getting stuck in there.

But it couldn’t look like a mobile kill room. It needed to look like a travel van, a miniature camper.