Page 23 of Growly Trapper Daddy
“Humor me.”
I think about it honestly instead of just reassuring her, because I owe her that much. “I'd be furious. I want you to know that up front, because I would be. But forgive you? Yeah. I don't think there's much you could do that would change how I feel about you, even the reckless kind of much. I just hope you'd talk to me first, whatever it is. Give me the chance to be furious about it before it happens instead of after.”
She's quiet a long moment, and I feel her breathing change, something in her deciding not to say whatever she almost said. “I'll remember that,” she says finally, and presses closer, and I let the moment close instead of forcing it back open, some instinct telling me she's not ready yet and won't be rushed there any faster than she was ready to talk at dinner.
“It's settled, Nora,” I tell her instead, tilting her chin up again, my voice firm with everything I mean by it. “You're not going into WITSEC. I'll figure the rest out with Mason. We end this threat together, and then you stay right here with me. No more running. No more goodbyes between us. You're my woman, and I'm keeping you, whatever it costs either of us to make that true.”
She looks at me with so much trust and love in her eyes it steals what little breath I've got left, and underneath it, so quiet I almost miss it, something that looks a little like guilt, though I can't place why yet. I kiss her again, slow and certain, sealingthe promise the only way I know how to seal anything. The night stretches ahead of us warm and quiet, and I hold her tighter, determined to make good on every word I just said.
I think about my father again as her breathing evens out toward sleep against my chest, about the two of us on this same mountain twenty years apart, him teaching a boy to read weather and track and danger, never once teaching that same boy what to do with a feeling this big once it finally showed up. Maybe nobody can teach that part. Maybe you just have to fall into it blind, the way I did, and figure out the rest of it by staying, by choosing her again every single morning instead of just once, loud, in a bed with the fire dying down. I decide, lying there, that I'm going to keep choosing her like that for as long as she'll let me, plan or no plan, Marshals or no Marshals, mafia or no mafia. It's the only promise I've got that feels like it's actually mine to make.
The Armenians don't stand a chance against what I'll do to protect this. To protect us. I fell hard and fast, faster than I've ever let myself fall for anything, but it feels like the one honestly right thing in my whole rugged, complicated life. She's home now, whatever that ends up meaning once the roads clear all the way. I'll fight this entire mountain range if that's what it takes to keep her here.
21
Nora
I lie awake long after Colt's fallen asleep, his arm draped heavy and protective across my waist. The cabin's quiet except for the soft crackle of the last embers in the hearth and the occasional creak of logs settling in the cold. Moonlight filters through the frosted window, painting silver stripes across the quilts and his peaceful face. His beard catches the light, his chest rising and falling in deep, steady breaths. I love him so much it hurts, like a cartoon heart swelling three sizes too big for the panel it's drawn in. That's exactly why I have to do this. I can't let WITSEC swallow me whole and erase the future we both apparently want badly enough to have said the actual words out loud tonight.
I think about the question I asked him a few hours ago, half hidden inside a hypothetical, would you forgive me if I did something reckless because I loved you and couldn't just sit there waiting. He said yes. He said he'd be furious, but yes. I'm holding onto that answer now like it's a permission slip already signed, even though some small, honest part of me knows that's not really how permission works, that there's a real difference between a hypothetical answered in the dark and an actualchoice made behind someone's back while they sleep. I decide not to examine that difference too closely tonight. I don't think I could go through with this if I did.
My heart pounds as I slide out from under his arm, inch by careful inch. The blankets feel heavy as I lift them, and the cool night air raises goosebumps across my bare skin immediately. I freeze when he shifts, but he only mumbles something low in his sleep, his hand reaching for the empty space where I was a second ago like his body already knows before his mind does. I hold my breath until he settles again, then move fast. I pull on my own jeans and sweater, then one of his thick flannel shirts over the top, then his heavy coat, the whole outfit swamping my frame in fabric worn soft from years of use, carrying his weight and his smell even with him three feet behind me, sound asleep. I lace my boots with trembling fingers.
I grab the small flashlight from the shelf by the door. My sketchbook stays open on the table to a half finished drawing of the two of us as cartoon mountain adventurers, the one he asked about a few nights ago. A written note feels too risky, something that could be found by the wrong person if this goes badly, but the drawing feels like a promise I can leave behind without writing anything incriminating. I slip out the door, easing it shut with a soft click. Snow crunches loud under my boots in the still night, the cold biting at my cheeks and fingers immediately. Stars scatter overhead like glitter on black paper, and the moon lights the path down the mountain just enough to see by.
The snowmobile sits under its tarp near the shed, metal cold and solid under my hands when I pull the cover free. I watched Colt start this thing enough times on our ride to the wrecked car that my fingers remember the sequence better than my brain does, choke, key, throttle held light, and the engine roars to life with adeep rumble that vibrates straight up through my whole body. I climb on, the seat hard and icy through my jeans, and take one last look back at the cabin, its warm glow already fading behind me through the trees, before I twist the throttle and commit to this completely.
The machine lurches forward, kicking up a spray of white powder that sparkles in the headlight beam. Wind whips against my face, cold and stinging, as I navigate the narrow trail down the mountain, trying to remember every single thing Colt showed me about handling deep snow, lean into the turns, don't fight the machine, let it find its own line through the drifts. Trees blur past, dark trunks and snow laden branches reaching overhead like something out of my own darker cartoon strips. The machine bucks over hidden roots, vibrations traveling up through my arms into my teeth, and my thighs burn from gripping the seat, my shoulders aching from wrestling the handlebars around every sharp bend, but I keep going. Every mile takes me farther from Colt and closer to whatever solution is waiting for me at the bottom of this mountain, if there even is one. I picture his face when he wakes up to an empty bed, and my heart clenches hard enough to steal my breath for a second, but I push the image away before it can talk me into turning around. This is for us. I have to believe that, or none of this makes any sense at all.
The trail winds steeper in places, forcing me to slow and ease the machine carefully around switchbacks I only half remember from the one time Colt showed them to me. My fingers go numb inside the gloves. My nose runs from the cold. I focus on the distant glow of lights far below, Timber Creek, close enough now that I can start to believe I'll actually make it. The engine fills my ears with a constant growl that echoes off the mountainside, and at one point the trail dips sharp enough that the snowmobileslides sideways for one heart stopping second before I correct it, arms straining, adrenaline sharp and metallic on my tongue.
Finally the trees thin and the town lights spread out closer, warmer looking than they have any right to be given what I'm doing right now. I guide the snowmobile into a shadowed spot near the edge of town and kill the engine, and the sudden silence rings loud in my ears after so long inside that constant roar. My legs feel wobbly climbing off. I stomp my boots to bring the feeling back and head for the diner, its windows glowing warm yellow against the dark, the sign above the door creaking soft in the breeze.
The bell jingles when I step inside, warm air washing over me and chasing away the worst of the chill. The diner's mostly empty this late, just a couple of night owls nursing coffee at the counter, the booths worn vinyl in faded patterns, the floor tiles scuffed from years of boots exactly like mine. I slide into a booth near the back and rub my hands together, trying to work some warmth back into my fingers before they stop cooperating entirely.
A waitress comes over with a kind smile and a pot of coffee, a few years older than me, auburn hair pulled back in a bun, a name tag that reads Greta. “You look like you've had a rough night, honey. Coffee?”
I nod, grateful past the point of words for a second. “Yes, please. And could I use your phone? Kind of an emergency. Lost mine somewhere back there.”
Greta studies me a moment, her gaze softening at whatever she sees written on my face, and something tells me this isn't the first hard night she's talked a stranger through in this diner. She sets the coffee down, steam curling up in lazy ribbons. “Surething. Back office phone. Follow me. My boyfriend's picking me up in twenty if you need a ride somewhere after, for what it's worth. Nate doesn't mind detours.”
I follow her through the swinging door into a small, cluttered office stacked with order pads and old calendars, the metal desk cool when I lean against it. She hands me the receiver, cord long and coiled. “Take your time. Holler if you need anything.”
I dial Mason's number from memory, heart hammering against my ribs. It rings and rings before he picks up, voice sharp with sudden alertness. “Who is this?”
“It's Nora.” I keep my voice low even though the office door's shut. “I need the Armenians' phone number. I have to end this, Mason. There has to be a way for me to talk to them, make some kind of deal, so I don't have to just disappear into WITSEC and lose him.”
The silence on the other end is deafening. Then Mason's voice comes back low and urgent. “Nora, what the hell have you done. Where's Colt. What's going on right now.”
I lean against the desk, the edge pressing into my hip. “I'm at the Timber Creek diner. Colt's asleep back at the cabin. I took the snowmobile. I had to do something, Mason. Please just give me the number. I can fix this myself.”
Mason curses under his breath, sharp and immediate. “Stay right there. Don't move. Don't call anyone else. I'm coming to get you myself. Sit tight, stay inside where it's warm and there are witnesses, and I'll be there as fast as this truck can get me there.”
I agree and hang up, the receiver clicking loud into place, my hands clammy. I thank Greta and head back to the booth, sipping coffee that's hot and bitter and warms me from theinside out even as the minutes crawl by agonizing and slow. I watch the clock on the wall tick in tiny jerks. Every creak of the diner door makes me jump half out of my seat. I think about Colt waking up to an empty bed, his face hardening the way it does right before he goes into full Marshal mode, and my stomach twists into knots so tight I can barely finish the coffee. But I've come this far. I have to see it through now, whatever it costs me later to explain.
After what feels like forever, I step outside to wait, the cold air hitting me like a slap after the diner's warmth. The street's quiet, snow piled along the curbs, streetlights casting pale circles on the ground. I pace back and forth, boots crunching loud in the stillness, wind tugging at Colt's coat, my breath puffing out in visible clouds. I rub my arms and try to keep my mind on what I'll actually say to the Armenians if this somehow works out the way I've been telling myself it will.
Headlights appear down the street, moving way too slowly to be Mason in a hurry. I step forward expecting his truck anyway, some part of me already relaxing at the thought of this being almost over, but the vehicle's wrong, a dark van with tinted windows that has no business idling on a quiet street this late. It pulls up beside me, engine rumbling low, and the side door slides open with a metallic grind. Two large men step out, movements quick and coordinated in a way that tells me immediately this isn't a mistake or a wrong turn. My heart leaps into my throat.
