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“There is no man.”

“You’re wrong.”

“You kidnapped my daughter from a public market, restrained her, and convinced her imaginary criminals were hunting her.” Disgust sharpens every word. “That isn’t protection, Samuel. It’s desperation.”

I see Sophie behind Doug. “You’ll be safe with him,” I manage.

“What if I don’t want to be safe with him?”

Doug stiffens.

Hope, vicious and unwanted, tears through me. I bury it. “You should go home.”

The light leaves her eyes. Doug opens the passenger door. She climbs inside, and he shuts it behind her.

Before getting behind the wheel, he points at me. “Follow us and you’re dead.”

I say nothing.

The SUV starts. I stand on the porch while Doug drives Sophie away. Her face remains turned toward me through the rear window until the vehicle disappears among the trees.

The forest becomes silent again. The silence used to be the reason I lived here. Now it’s unbearable.

I wait until I can no longer hear the engine. Then I take out my phone and pull up the photograph I captured at the market—the scarred man staring directly into my camera.

Doug is wrong. Someone is after Sophie. And whether he kills me for it or not, I’m not done protecting her.

CHAPTER

EIGHT

SAMUEL

Three days ago, I lived alone without considering it loneliness. I woke before dawn, worked until dark, and slept because there was nothing else to do. The silence suited me. The emptiness kept me from wanting things I had no right to possess.

Then Sophie filled this place.

She argued with me in the kitchen. She laughed at the Halloween decorations. She slept with her head over my heart. She kissed me like three years apart had hurt her too.

Now she’s gone. The emptiness she leaves is worse than anything I knew before. Sophie looked at me with desire. I saw it. Felt it in the way her legs tightened around me. Heard it in every breath she gave me while my mouth moved over hers.

She wanted me. Then I sent her away.

I drop into the chair beside the fire and bend forward, elbows braced on my knees. Letting her leave was the right decision. That doesn’t stop it from destroying me. I can still see the pain in her eyes when I told her to go home. She expected me to fight for her.

God, I wanted to.

If Doug had been anyone else, I would have disarmed him before he crossed the threshold. I would have put him on the ground, carried Sophie back to the room, and barricaded every entrance to the cabin.

But he isn’t anyone else. He’s her father. And she loves him.

I’ve already taken too many choices from her. Keeping her after she called Doug would have proven every terrible thing he thinks about me. So I watched her leave.

Now the woman I love is heading directly toward a threat her father refuses to acknowledge. I sit upright.

Grief is a luxury. Sophie isn’t safe. Neither is Doug. His SUV will be an obvious target on the mountain roads. If the men from the market followed him here, they could strike before he reaches the highway.

I move to the security monitor beside the bookcase and pull up the cameras positioned along the access road. Doug ’s SUV appears on the western feed, descending through the trees.