Page 56 of Devoured By the Forbidden Mountain Man

Gavin’s voice roughened. “You don’t have to do anything tonight. Be mad. You’ve got every reason.”

Silence stretched long enough for the heater to cycle off beneath the window. When Georgia spoke again, the anger in her voice had softened.

“I missed you.”

His breath caught through the phone. “I missed you too, Sis.”

Georgia covered her eyes, and I looked down at the legal pad, giving her as much privacy as I could without leaving the room.

When she could speak again, Georgia lowered her hand. “Then come home.”

Gavin was quiet for so long I thought the connection had dropped.

“I can’t,” he said finally. “Not if coming back means the only way I save myself is by forcing Meredith to tell something she still isn’t ready to tell.”

Georgia’s face tightened, but she didn’t argue with the part of that choice that belonged to Meredith.

“She told me she would talk to you if I found you.”

That stopped him. “She said she would talk to me?”

“Yes. She hasn’t promised me a confession or a police statement. I’m not going to claim she has. But she called today because she wanted me to know she spoke to you after bail. Yesterday she couldn’t even say that.”

The information sat with him for a long time while Georgia waited. Eventually Gavin said, “If Meredith is really ready to talk about this, I’ll come back.”

Georgia pressed one hand to the desk, relief plain in her face.

“You mean that?” Georgia asked, leaning closer to the phone.

“I do. I’m not making her carry it because I decided she should. If she wants the truth out, that changes things.”

Georgia’s shoulders dropped a fraction as she absorbed the answer.

“How soon can you leave?”

Gavin hesitated, and the softness in his voice when he finally answered caught both of us.

“I need a few hours. There’s someone here I have to tell first.”

Georgia’s eyebrows lifted. “Someone?”

“Her name is Piper. We’ve been together almost two years.”

Georgia stared at the phone. Her brother having a serious girlfriend seemed to land almost as strangely as locating him in Oregon.

She asked the obvious question: whether Piper knew who he really was.

Gavin admitted she did not know the full truth.

He had kept his first name but used another surname and had given Piper only a vague version of the family trouble that brought him west.

Georgia’s expression turned exasperated in a way that was so recognizably sibling-like I nearly smiled.

“You are not leaving her a note and disappearing.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” Gavin said, sounding offended.

The quick denial softened Georgia’s expression, but not enough to let him off the hook.