Page 50 of Risk Everything

They’d been right in front of her all along.

She wrapped Tanner tighter in her arms.

Now she just needed to have the man with her in five days to say them to.

Chapter Eighteen

Tanner lay on the cold hard floor, consciousness coming back slowly. The first thing he became aware of was Bree pressed up against him, but that wasn’t unusual. She was almost always the first thing he became aware of when he woke.

The second thing was that he wasn’t cold. There’d been a time trudging up that riverbank where he was sure he would never be warm again.

He seemed to have all his fingers and his toes, so that was a good sign. Honestly, he was just surprised he was alive. He’d been sure he wouldn’t make it. If it hadn’t been for the fact that he knew Bree wasn’t going to leave him, he’d be dead right now out in that water.

She sighed and moved against him, quickly proving the rest of his body was working just fine also, as her naked skin brushed against his.

She’d killed a man. In the midst of attempting to survive there had been no time to process that. He knew what it was like to take a life and wasn’t going to allow her to feel any guilt over it. If she hadn’t shot when she had, Tanner would be dead. She’d saved his life multiple times yesterday.

He pulled her closer until she was half lying on top of him, her favorite way to sleep. She let out a shuddery little breath and his heart clenched. He knew that sound. It was the sound she made when she had been crying. It didn’t happen very often—for the longest time Bree had a difficult time accessing her feelings at all—and the sound gutted him now.

When he trailed his hand down her back, she shifted against him. “Tanner?”

“You went to an awful lot of trouble just to get me naked here with you, freckles.”

She bolted upright. “You’re awake!” She rubbed her face with the back of both hands. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I’m not a very good watchman.”

“You’ve got that gun right by your lap. I daresay if anyone came to that door you would’ve woken up. Your body needed rest.”

He wanted to ask her why she’d been half crying in her sleep, but she was already starting to inspect his body for injuries.

“Your shoulder is definitely dislocated. If I had my computer, I could look up how to put it back into joint, but now it’s so swollen you really need a medical professional.”

He definitely already knew that from the fire shooting down his arm and chest every time he moved.

“I’ll try to make some sort of sling out of your jacket. I don’t know if that will really help, but it should at least take some of the weight off your shoulder,” she continued. “I also think you have a concussion, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”

“Nothing is life-threatening—that’s the most important thing, okay?” He trailed the fingers of his good hand up and down her arm. “Given the fact that I was shot at, fell over a ravine and was nearly clubbed to death, not to mention hypothermia... I feel pretty damn lucky.”

She nodded. “You have to be hungry. There are some cans of food. Nothing particularly appetizing, especially since we’ve got no way to heat it up. But at least filling. I have no idea who keeps this place stocked, but the food isn’t expired.”

“Old man Henrikson. He lives just outside town, but comes through once a year and makes sure the three or four shelters in this area have some basic provisions.”

“Henrikson? Who would’ve figured the most ornery man in town was a good Samaritan.”

“When his grandson was a teenager, he got caught out in a freak June snowstorm. Broke his leg, couldn’t get back home. He would’ve died if it hadn’t been for a shelter that happened to be stocked by a hunter who’d been in a couple weeks before. Henrikson has come out every year for the past twenty years to make sure these shelters in the area are stocked.”

She kissed his forehead. “Hopefully that lovely story will make your cold franks and beans taste better.”

He ate the can she opened for him, careful to keep the Glock close to his side in case it was needed, while she laid their clothes out a little better to dry. Outside the rain continued to fall, although at least most of the thunder and lightning had stopped.

“How safe are we here?” she asked.

“This place is difficult enough to find in sunny weather. No one will stumble on it in this rain. It’s possible they would know about it if they researched hiking and hunting up here, but otherwise I wouldn’t count on anyone coming through that door.”

Tanner remembered the maps he and Noah had seen Jared and his friends looking at the night they’d surveilled the town house. Could they have been looking at trails and shelters around here? It would’ve explained a lot: how they’d known where the rafts would be located, and the best place to puncture them. They could’ve studied the best places to try to ambush them.

He realized that Bree was sitting just out of reach, smoothing out the legs of his pants, then doing the same to hers. Her movements were jerky, almost frantic.

“Freckles, come here and sit by me.”