Alaskan Hideout

He wanted nothing to do with her.

* * *

Night fell faster this time of year and it took Tyler off guard tonight more than it usually did. The spruce trees had darkened to their fall color, which had always seemed to him to be a darker green than the one they had in the summer, and everything around the lodge was blackness, or close to it.

Tonight he felt the blackness inside him, fear wrapping around his heart and gripping tight. Emma wasn’t his anymore, never had been officially. He’d planned to ask her to marry him on graduation day, had assumed they’d get married that summer in Alaska, along the edge of Half Mile Lake, the mountain lake he’d hike to on breaks from college. Back then he hadn’t planned to live there. He’d wanted a change, but he’d known the vividness of Emma’s personality would appreciate the extremes of Alaska, even if it wasn’t the city lifestyle she was used to.

He took a deep breath, walked down the hall to the room where she was staying and lifted a hand to knock on the door.

She took so long to answer that he considered bursting inside until he remembered Kate was in there. No one was getting past his sister. She was easily the toughest person he knew, him and Noah included. He laughed a little at the thought of petite Kate and how tough she was. The man who won her heart one day would have to be some kind of special.

Of course, what did Tyler know about romance? Not much, obviously.

The door cracked open slightly.

Emma stepped out, her blue eyes as deep and easy to stare at as they’d ever been, her hair down around her shoulders in medium brown waves. Soft. He swallowed hard as he reminded himself that reaching out to touch it would be so many levels of inappropriate. Not to mention undesirable. She’d broken his heart once, shattered it, in fact. Chances were good he’d never recover, never find anyone he felt as strongly about as Emma, but maybe that was for the best. She was living, walking proof of the fact that he couldn’t trust his feelings, couldn’t trust his heart to anyone. And she wasn’t asking him to now. All she was asking was for him to help keep her, and their son, safe.

Surely he could do that.

No emotions involved. At least where Emma was concerned. Tyler’s eyes moved to the boy who looked so much like both of them and he swallowed hard. He had plenty of feelings where Luke was concerned. Not that he was sure what all of them were yet, but one was a pretty strong fatherly love. No matter what had happened between himself and Emma, the hundreds of ways their imploded relationship had affected their lives, he was glad Luke existed. Couldn’t wait to get to know him. After he’d ensured Luke and his mom were both safe.

“What do you want?” she whispered, drawing his attention back to her more than Tyler would have preferred. Just the sound of her voice still gave him shivers, starting in his shoulders, down his chest to his toes.

Yeah, maybe talking to her alone was a bad idea, after all. All Tyler had wanted was some answers, ones that weren’t pertinent to the case, that he hadn’t gotten earlier.

“Never mind. Sorry. Stay safe, okay?” He turned, was halfway down the hallway when he heard her door shut. He exhaled.

And jumped at the feeling of a hand on his shoulder.

He whirled and Emma jumped back, eyes wide.

“I’m sorry. You scared me.”

“You thought I’d just go back to my room, ignore whatever you came here to ask me?” Her eyebrows raised.

“Why do you think I wanted to ask you anything?”

She stared at him. “I know you, Tyler. I used to, anyway, better than anyone maybe.” Emma cleared her throat, expression and confidence wavering. “Maybe I don’t anymore but... I expected you’d have questions.”

“I do.”

She nodded. “Want to go downstairs?”

Was it too open down there? The windows behind the great room of the lodge and the family’s private living room looked out on the dark woods. If they sat down there with any lights on, anyone watching would be able to see straight into the room, which struck him as a bad idea. Bedrooms weren’t appropriate.

The balcony off the hallway? It faced the parking lot, where at least one policeman, Officer Rogers, was watching. Maybe that was their best—safest—option.

“Follow me.” He led her down the hallway, staying on alert as he knew that nowhere was one hundred percent safe. He’d listened to what she’d told Noah that afternoon and felt his heart sinking the more she spoke. She’d had to go and witness a murder. And murderers didn’t tend to like witnesses. At least not ones left alive.

Tyler opened the balcony door, stepped out and shut off the hall light behind them.

“What are you doing?” Emma’s whisper was accusatory, untrusting.

Tyler flinched.

“I’m making sure we aren’t backlit. No one needs to be able to see us out here.”

“You think someone is watching?”

“I don’t know, Emma.” Her name fell off his lips so easily, like he hadn’t gone eight years without saying it, no matter how many times he’d thought about her. “We can’t be too safe.”

She followed him out and they each took an Adirondack chair. When it was light outside, this spot had a view of the parking lot and, beyond that, of Hope Mountain and Sunrise Ridge. Halfway up Sunrise Ridge there was the tarn he’d imagined taking Emma to. Emerald Lake, which almost glowed, the color was such a pure, brilliant blue-green.

It hurt to sit here with her, so close physically but far away in every other way that mattered. Tyler wrestled in his mind. What did he do? Noah had assumed that Tyler would be involved in protecting Emma, that he’d want to be. Tyler appreciated the vote of confidence from his law-enforcement brother, the acknowledgment that he was capable. But maybe he should step away, let someone else take this on. How was he supposed to spend so much time with her?

Then again, there was Luke to consider. Did he want his son to grow up thinking he was a coward who ran from trouble, who’d left his mom to fend for herself?

No, he didn’t want that. He had to think of Luke, had to think like a dad. Something that still made his head spin.

“Where do you want to start?”

Emma’s voice was soft, not defensive. He didn’t know how to respond to her softness. If she’d been angry, upset the way she had been the last few times they’d spoken...

“You knew about the baby. Didn’t you?” It hadn’t been one of his planned questions, but it had popped out just now as he’d thought about the way she’d talked to him at graduation, the way she’d reacted.

Her shoulders fell. “Yes. I found out that morning.”

He replayed everything he remembered about the day, which was most of the details. The way his tie had been too tight. The way he’d stood a little taller, proud of his academic accomplishments and ready to close this chapter so he and Emma could move on.

The angry, accusatory words she’d said to him. Her assertion that she was never moving to Alaska. That his family was more important to him than she was—a statement that had seemed unfounded to him but had hurt nonetheless. That they’d had a nice few years but, you know, maybe they should both move on.

Move on. As though they’d had some kind of casual, passing relationship.

“But you didn’t tell me.”

“No.”

“You should have.”

“Yes.”

Their words were quiet in the night, barely breaking the silence. Tyler kept his tone low, determined to keep his emotions under control and needing all the help he could get with that. He also hesitated to alert anyone that could be watching nearby that they were relatively exposed. He didn’t know if that was why Emma kept her voice whisper-soft or not.

“I’m a dad, Emma. And I didn’t know.”

She didn’t say anything. He looked in her direction, wanting to know how she was feeling. As he shifted his gaze, something caught his eye in the darkness beyond the parking lot. Officer Rogers patrolling?

Or someone stalking them in the darkness? Stalking Emma?

“Tyler...”

“Shh.” He held his hand up in front of him. She blinked at him, kept going.

“No, you have to let me.”

“I see something. Someone.”

She went silent. Still.

His heart thudded in his chest. His hand moved toward the gun he’d left in his waistband holster, concealed by the fleece vest he’d worn today for warmth.

“What is it? Should I go inside?”

She cared what he thought, wanted to know his opinion.

Tyler scanned the darkness in front of them. The wrong choice could be deadly. Move quickly inside and they’d have cover. Even if it had seemed safe, he never should have brought her out here without the benefit of walls to stop or to at least slow a bullet.

Stay still and they might escape notice, might see the person coming after her.

Tyler didn’t know which option to choose. So he chose the second. Kept them still, didn’t flinch.

The shadow stopped moving. Maybe he’d been imagining it, was jumpy from the adrenaline rush of this entire thing.

And then the shooting started, the first two shots coming in close succession, cracking in the night, shattering the quiet and the windows. Wood flew off the balcony railing in front of them.

Emma screamed.

“Get inside!” Tyler yelled and reached for the door, pulling Emma out of the chair with the other hand.

More shots.

Emma dove as glass shattered.

And she let out another cry.

FOUR

Emma couldn’t breathe, the sounds around her, the noise, the flash of glass as it passed her, creating a cacophony of senses that made it impossible to find her balance. Her center.

Sharp pain registered in her cheek and arm. Shards from the window. She couldn’t imagine how hard they were going to be to get out.

Tyler, beside her, was immediately on his feet, reached for the weapon on his hip, some kind of medium-size handgun, black. Tyler had a gun? Steady, calm Tyler?

Besides, hadn’t she just overheard him telling Noah he wasn’t going to help protect her?

Emma had too many questions and not enough time to think them through. Right now she needed to get somewhere safe. Forcing herself to focus, she pushed into the hallway, edged as far away from the door that led to the balcony as she could. Away from danger.

Tyler ran toward it, pushing back out into the darkness. More shots.

“Tyler!”

She swallowed hard, watched as he took cover behind the railing as best he could.

Footsteps behind her. Someone yelling Tyler’s name. Noah, also with a gun in his hands.

Emma scooted farther inside, the carpet rough against her hands.

“Get inside!” Noah ordered his brother.

Tyler hesitated, eyes trained on something out there in the night that Emma couldn’t see. Didn’t want to see. He lowered his gun and followed Noah into the hallway.

The shots stopped.

But nothing felt the same to Emma. Nothing felt safe. If she’d thought her sense of security had been rocked before, this was a whole new level. Someone had gone to the trouble to come after her again. Here at a crowded lodge with witnesses everywhere.

Was the killer brave? Cocky? Crazy?

Her trail of thoughts surprised her. She’d have thought she’d be content to leave the investigation in the hands of police, where it belonged, but all of a sudden she didn’t want to be in the dark anymore. What if she knew something, more than just the vague recollection of having suspicious papers she’d wanted to talk to her boss about?

What if she could help take down the guy who was after her? Bring security back to her life? Back to the life of this family she’d intruded into? This family whose world she felt she was wrecking as thoroughly as was possible.

They were not only dealing with the danger she’d brought to their doorstep, but they were absorbing what had to be shock at the revelation that her son was part of their family. They all seemed ecstatic, or at least welcoming. And Emma knew her son was the best thing in her life besides Jesus. But for these people to have welcomed her with so much grace despite the fact that her presence, Luke’s presence, told them things about their brother that rocked their perception of him...

It hurt to think that she was bringing danger to the first people from whom she’d felt such acceptance in years...or ever. What an odd place to find it, too.

“Get Emma into one of the rooms. I’m going outside to check it out.” Noah moved away.

“Let me come, too.” Tyler’s words were firm. Like he wasn’t going to take no for an answer and Emma’s heart thudded in her chest.

“I thought you wanted out of this?”

“I’m not going to let anything happen to her. I’ve got that police academy training you had me get.”

Noah nodded. “Fine. Come with me. Kate, keep her safe.”

Emma hadn’t noticed Kate, but there she was, behind them. She held a hand out to Emma, a look of compassion on her face. “Come on. Luke heard the noise and woke up, but I’ve got him in my room with Summer. We’ll go in there.”

Emma nodded. Had Luke heard the shots or just the noises? For his sake she hoped just the noise. She didn’t believe in lying to her son, even to protect him, but it didn’t seem age-appropriate to explain the full depth of the fact that someone wanted her dead. She’d stuck to vague explanations like “dangerous” and “not safe” on her way here. Things like that. Not “a bad guy is hunting Mommy with his gun.”

His. Emma had assumed it was a man but, actually, based on the frame of the figure dressed in black at her office, the one who’d killed her boss, it could have been a woman. Whoever it was had been significantly taller than Emma. Maybe five-nine? Five-ten?

“He’s really okay?” she asked Kate on their way down the hall as she tried to calm her racing heartbeat. Everything had gone from chaos to controlled, thoughtful in such a span of a few seconds. She was having trouble keeping up.

“He’s fine, Emma. We’re going to make sure he stays that way. You, too.”

Emma shook her head as they approached the door to Kate’s room and took a deep breath to try to ease some of the tension from her facial features for Luke’s sake. “Tyler wants nothing to do with me. He hates me, Kate, and I don’t blame him.”

Kate shook her head. “The first thing may be true. But he’s out there in the dark trying to catch whoever is after you. That doesn’t sound like someone who hates you.”

They moved into the room and Emma threw her arms open for Luke who immediately jumped off the bed he was on and ran to her, throwing his arms around her and squeezing as tight as he could. It wasn’t the most comfortable embrace, but Emma loved her little guy and he was one hundred percent boy. He did nothing halfway. She squeezed back.

“I heard a noise and I was worried about you.” He frowned at her. “It’s because of the reason why it’s dangerous for us to stay in Texas, right? Because of why we had to come to Alaska?”

Emma met his eyes, wrestled with how to answer, and finally kissed his nose.

“I love you, buddy.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I didn’t. You’re a smart kid, you know that? Yes, there was something...dangerous. But it’s okay. It’ll be okay.”

Luke seemed satisfied with that and ran back to the bed where Emma now noticed Summer was holding an iPad. She met the other woman’s eyes and Summer shrugged. “Sorry, I know I’m totally encouraging the screen time today but...”

Emma smiled. “No explanation needed. A day of movie watching never hurt anyone. Extenuating circumstances and all that.” She moved toward them, settled on the other side of Luke, between him and the window. Kate seemed to notice and moved to put herself between Emma and the window. Just like that, she’d make sure Emma and her son were protected? Her chest constricted. She didn’t know if she’d ever known this kind of loyalty that didn’t ask for anything in return.

Except...Tyler.

She swallowed hard as she thought of him now, out there in the darkness, risking his life.

For her? Because it was the right thing to do?

For Luke?

Emma didn’t know and it didn’t matter. Any explanation squeezed her heart in a way she couldn’t explain and didn’t want to analyze too closely because the facts were this: Emma had told herself a lot of half truths over the years to protect her heart, to move forward with her life. She’d had good intentions, truly she had, but everything was clear now that she was here again, with Tyler.

He might have been out of her life for years, but her heart betrayed her. They could never be together, could never get past the entire ocean of water under the bridge that was their relationship, but she was never going to be able to shove him out of the space he occupied in her heart.

It would never come to anything...

But she knew now, as of tonight, that she was never going to stop loving him.

* * *

Tyler and Noah spent the next hour canvassing the grounds of the lodge, looking for any sign of their perpetrator, but so far they’d come up with nothing, not the man himself, nor any evidence of where he’d been.

“He had to have left a trail and if we can find where he was shooting from, we might find evidence,” Noah had explained to Tyler, though he’d known as much. Earlier this year he’d gone through the entire police academy class in Sitka. Noah had been asking him to for years, and when he’d seen how difficult it had been for the Moose Haven Police Department to work a major case firsthand, as shorthanded as they were this summer when it had involved his sister Summer, he’d finally decided to go through with it. He’d just returned a couple of weeks ago. The class couldn’t have been more timely, apparently.

“We need Kate.” Tyler finally said what he guessed they both were thinking. They were both trained, tracking had been part of the curriculum at the academy, but Kate had a gift like no one he’d ever seen and could read the signs in the woods better than most people could read a book.

Noah nodded. “You go inside, stay with Summer, Emma and Luke.”

Tyler swallowed hard. He hadn’t had much time with the boy yet. Everything had been so crazy. Or was that an excuse? Was it really because he was still having trouble adjusting to the fact that he was a dad?

He walked into the lodge, a place more familiar to him than any on earth, taking the stairs to his family’s bedrooms with heavy steps. They were up there, waiting for him. Blowing out a breath, he raked a hand through his hair. What was Emma expecting from him? After everything that had happened between the two of them, he’d dedicated his life to playing by the rules. He’d been a good son, a good brother, had come home after his parents had announced their retirement to South Carolina, had remained after they’d died. He’d given up his plans for the future to do the right thing.

How on earth was he supposed to proceed now?

Questions unanswered, he turned the knob and pushed open the heavy wooden door, thankful that the lodge was so well built and solid. He didn’t know that it technically provided any more security if someone was desperate to get to Emma, but he appreciated the feeling that it did anyway.

She met his eyes as soon as he walked in. He swallowed hard, unable to deny that something flickered in his chest when she looked at him. She’d been the only girl—woman, really—he’d ever loved. The only one to break his heart. He’d tried to date a few women from Moose Haven since he’d been back, mostly to keep his family quiet about his personal life or lack thereof, but nothing had lasted more than a date. None of them was Emma.

He offered her a small smile and she looked away.

He hated this. Hated the fact that there were no women like her but that she wasn’t who he’d thought she was, either.

The woman he was in love with was college-aged Emma, a figment from the past. A woman who’d been confident, sure of herself, with just enough vulnerability to make it difficult to get close to her but not so much that it had been impossible. She’d been Tyler’s opposite in many ways. He’d always been on the serious side, quick to honor his commitments and to fulfill his duties and Emma was...joy and laughter. She’d had good character, too, had followed through with things she’d committed to. It wasn’t that she was careless. She was just somehow lighter than he was.

But maybe people like Emma could do that. The biggest rule Tyler had ever broken had ended up with both their hearts shattered, their relationship ended forever and a little boy who didn’t know his dad.

Tyler swallowed hard. He could really use some time outside, maybe at the archery range. There was just something cathartic about the feeling of a bow in his hands, his hand tight around the grip, the tautness of the bowstring in his fingers as he drew it back. You couldn’t shoot a bow angry. Not well. You had to calm your breathing, slow down. Focus.

He’d spent hours with that bow in the weeks after college graduation.

“Everything okay?” Summer asked him.

Tyler had no idea how to answer but decided to go with the easiest reference to what was going on right now with the shooting situation. “Seems to be. As okay as it can be.” He shrugged. “We couldn’t find anything. That’s why we sent Kate out.”

“Kate?” Emma’s eyebrows raised.

“She’s the best tracker I’ve ever met.” Tyler moved farther into the room, eyed the iPad. “What are you watching, buddy?” he asked Luke, deciding maybe talking to the boy directly was the best move at this point. He couldn’t seem to do anything right where Luke’s mom was concerned, no matter how much some part of him wished he was able to.

“The Incredibles.” He looked up from the screen, at Tyler. There was something so surreal about gazing into eyes that looked just like his own.

“That’s a good one. It’s a family of superheroes, right?” He and Emma had seen it together.

“Yep. They’ve all got special powers. I can run fast like that, almost as fast.” And just that quick he was up off the bed, iPad forgotten. “Want to see?”

“It’s nighttime, Luke.” Emma’s voice was tired. He looked at her quickly, then glanced away before she noticed.

“Maybe another time.”

“Because of the danger?”

This time Tyler swung his gaze to Emma intentionally and waited to see what she would say. Had she told Luke about everything that was happening?

“Yes, baby.”

“I’m not a baby,” Luke protested, but climbed back onto the bed, over Emma and snuggled in next to her.

Wow. The way he loved her, trusted her.

Tyler hadn’t spent much time around kids. There were some at his church, but he figured they were sort of the responsibility of their parents and maybe the single women who seemed to love holding babies. And, of course, families stayed at the lodge. But he was so busy with the job now, working to make the lodge more profitable, that he often didn’t have time to stop and watch people the way he had when he’d worked here during the summers for his parents.

Moose Haven Lodge in its heyday, when his parents were here, had never had money troubles. At least, not that Tyler knew of. His parents had the kinds of magnetic personalities that made guests return time and again. People had felt welcomed in a way that Tyler hadn’t been able to replicate, no matter how many things he felt like he was doing right.

A small problem in the midst of Emma’s life being in danger, but it was in the back of his mind anyway.

He wanted to talk to her, to ask her to come with him out of this room, away from the curious eyes of his sister. He didn’t blame Summer for having questions, too. He’d been wrong to not share his own past, his own pain with his sister.

He should apologize to her. But not now, it wasn’t the time. Right now he needed to finish that conversation with Emma. He had to clear the air. It hurt the way she hadn’t told him, the way she looked away from him, trusted every single member of his family more than she did him. Tyler hadn’t done anything to deserve that. Not that he could think of. He’d loved her at one time. Had always tried to show it.