Page 25 of Untamed Hunter Daddy

"The mine site came later," I say. "After the cabin. Tyler moved me there with three other women. I think there were more at different locations because I overheard Weathers talking on the phone about the next load and numbers that didn't match the women I could see. Tyler handled logistics. He wasn't Weathers' boss, but he wasn't his employee either. More like a contractor. An independent operator who provided a service."

"The service being recruitment."

"Yes. He recruited women. That was his specific skill. The charm, the diner visits, the slow seduction. He was good at it the way some people are good at sales. It was a talent applied to a monstrous purpose, and the talent is what makes it hard, because he was genuinely likable. Funny and attentive. He remembered the things I told him and he made me feel like the only person in the room. That's the part nobody warns you about. The men who do this aren't monsters in the obvious way. They're charming in the specific way that's tailored to you, to your particular loneliness."

Ryker sets the pen down. He doesn't write that part.

"One more thing," he says. "The public narrative around the raid. I need you to understand what Tyler knows and doesn't know about your current status." He opens a folder. "The raid on the mine was reported as a joint federal operation that resulted in the arrest of Dale Weathers and six associates. The press release stated that fourteen women were recovered and placed in protective services. Fourteen. Not fifteen. The feds didn't mention an unrecovered victim because at the time of the press release you were somewhere in the backcountry and your status was unknown."

"So as far as the public knows, everyone was accounted for."

"As far as the public knows, fourteen women were rescued, which matches fourteen women recovered. But Tyler knows the real numbers. He knows exactly how many women he helped traffic through that operation because it was his job to count them. If he reads that article, and he almost certainly did, he knows the number is wrong. He knows there should be fifteen. Which means he knows that one woman is either dead in the mountains or alive somewhere off the grid."

"He knows I'm alive." My voice is flat. "He just doesn't know where."

"He knows you're alive and he knows the feds haven't acknowledged your existence publicly, which means you haven't been processed through the system, which means you're vulnerable. That changes tomorrow. When Jax and Kane get here, we move you into the system. Medical eval, victim advocate, formal statement. Once you're registered and documented, Tyler can't touch you without triggering every federal alert in three states."

"And until then?"

"Until then you're in a cabin on a mountain with a US Marshal who has a rifle, a bad attitude, and extremely strong feelings about anyone who might try to get through that door."

I crack a small grin. "Extremely strong feelings," I repeat.

His eyes hold mine. The working face wavers for a second and underneath it I see the other Ryker, the one who kissed me with his hand on my jaw and a confession that fell apart because my proximity had broken his ability to deliver a prepared speech.

Tomorrow the road opens. Tomorrow the team arrives. Tomorrow the system walks through the door with its protocols and its professionals.

I'm not ready. The thought arrives fully formed and I don't push it away. I'm not ready to leave this cabin. I'm not ready for the world to come back in. I'm not ready for the distance between Ryker and me to be measured by anyone other than the two of us.

But ready has never been a prerequisite for the things that happen to me. What I have is the truth Ryker laid out on the counter. Tyler is close, the storm is clearing, and the small world we've built inside these four walls is about to open.

I look at the field journal. The pages of Ryker's steady handwriting filled with the details I've given him. My details. My observations. The things I noticed because noticing is who I am.

"Ryker."

"Yeah."

"The woman who's coming. Dr. Engel. Is she good?"

"Mason says she's the best in the region. She worked the Billings trafficking case two years ago. Helped rebuild the lives of eleven women. She knows what she's doing."

I nod. "Then I'll talk to her. I'll do the debrief. I'll do whatever the system needs me to do." I pause. "But I'm coming back to this cabin when it's done. If you'll let me."

The working face cracks. Just enough for me to see the fault line.

"The door's unlocked, Zoe. It's always been unlocked."

Outside the clouds continue to thin. The light sharpens against the snow. And somewhere forty miles south a man who goes by the name Derek Bowen is going about his day, not knowing that the woman he lost is sitting in a kitchen in the mountains giving a federal officer every detail she noticed during the weeks he thought she wasn't paying attention.

He was wrong about the timid waitress. He was wrong about a lot of things. And he's about to find out exactly how wrong.

13

Zoe

This is the last night before the world comes in and I don't want to spend it in separate corners of the same room.

Ryker’s at the sink washing the dinner plates with his back to me. He's been quiet all evening, the kind of quiet that means he's already deciding to sleep in the chair again.