ChapterFourteen
After an hour of jogging, Davis slowed to a walk. They’d put a lot of distance between the tree stand and them, but he still had this inner warning to get as far as possible fast. Good thing the Alaskan summer nights never got pitch black. Even though the day pushed past midnight, the sun’s glow was enough to trek without using a flashlight that could give their location away.
He peeked back at Sunny. Her cheeks were red from exertion, and her chest heaved, but she hadn’t complained about the pace he set. Hadn’t fallen behind either.
Scanning the forest before him, he narrowed his eyes at the dark clouds building on the horizon. The last thing they needed was more rain, especially if it stormed. Finding a campsite just became top priority.
Sunny sniffed behind him, and he stifled the urge to make sure she was all right. She didn’t need or probably want him coddling her. Shoot, she was tougher than most people he knew, with her repeated summits up the world’s tallest mountains and her expedition to the North Pole.
“What the heck is going on, Davis? Who are these men?” She kept her voice low, even though he was pretty sure they were miles away from the enemy.
“They are from an exploratory mining company located a few miles from the homestead.” He adjusted his pack and took off across the edge of a ridge.
“That doesn’t make a lick of sense.” Sunny huffed out.
He wished he knew more, but he was as confused by all of this as she was.
“All I know is they’ve been wanting to buy Justin out. He went over there this morning to tell them not under any circumstance would he sell his family’s mine.” Was that only that morning?
“But––” Her voice hitched on a sob. “Why kill Justin? What could possibly be worth murdering over?”
Davis stopped and hung his head.
“I mean, even with Justin dead, they won’t be able to just come in and claim his mine.” Sunny’s voice got thinner and thinner the more she talked.
Davis turned to her, his heart falling at the agony splotching her face a mixture of ashy skin and red. He stepped up to her and slipped his hand to the nape of her neck. He wanted to fix this, to take her away from here so she wouldn’t have this weight for the rest of her life. Violence like she’d witnessed couldn’t be forgotten.
“Hey.”
She spoke over him, clutching her fingers around his forearm. “Justin had been so excited to be at the homestead again. I mean, I hadn’t seen him that happy in a long time.”
“I didn’t know you knew him.” Davis rubbed his thumb across her cheek, wondering how their connection had slipped past him.
“Our families have been friends for years. My parents grew up with his dad.” Her words became frantic and garbled with her crying. “I used to play with Justin every summer we came to the Fortymile district. His family would hunt with us for a few weeks in the fall before they went down to their winter home in Homer. We pretended to be soldiers scouting the woods. He… he—”
Her voice broke along with a piece of Davis’s heart.
“Hey, shh.” He wrapped her in his arms and held her close. “They won’t get away with this. I promise.”
She buried her face against his neck, her entire body jerking with her sobs. His own grief welled up within, but he pushed it down, letting it harden into anger. No matter what the cost, even if he had to go rogue, he’d make sure the men and company paid for what they did to Justin and to Sunny.
Eye for an eye. Wasn’t that the saying?
He closed his eyes and inhaled the faint scent of Sunny’s citrus shampoo. Sliding his fingers through her silky hair, he let the feel against his skin soothe him. He couldn’t feed into the anger, not now when he needed to keep Sunny safe. Needed to comfort her.
Swallowing against the lie clogging his throat, he chided himself. If he couldn’t be honest with himself, he was more doomed than he thought. The truth was, he needed the comfort as much as she did.
The next few minutes, he took that solace, running his fingers rhythmically through her hair and letting her presence cool him. Hadn’t that been the enigma of her in the first place? When he’d helped her watch Lena and Marshall’s son, he’d found a sense of serenity just being around Sunny. It was like she had calmed the fire in him, which was just plain dumb, since he’d felt heat just with a smile from her.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were up here?” Sunny tipped her head to see him.
Her red-rimmed, dark brown eyes popped with the gold that streaked from her irises. Hurt laced her words, jabbing him in the heart. He’d wanted to call her, wanted to chase after her when she’d left Kentucky. Instead, he’d tucked tail and hid back in Colorado, ignoring her texts and calls until they stopped all together.
He stared down at her, wanting to hedge from this discussion. Her bottom lip trembled, and she bit it. He couldn’t hide from her anymore, not if he wanted her to trust him.
“I’d… I’d been in a hard place.” He pulled his hand through her hair, watching the strands slide over his rough skin. “Still am, if I’m honest. All I did was upset those around me. It’s just… I mean, I didn’t think being around people was smart until I figured things out, especially someone who shines as bright as you do.” He sucked up some courage and looked her in the eyes. “I couldn’t risk hurting you.”
“Okay.” She licked her lips, then leaned her forehead against his collarbone with a sigh.
What?
No more questions?
Davis’s forehead scrunched in confusion as she took another deep breath and wrapped her arms around his waist. Maybe, with her siblings and dad ex-military, Sunny had a better understanding of the effects of PTSD than most. Hope flickered in his heart like a jar full of fireflies. She called to him, blinking a way out of the darkness he couldn’t seem to climb out of on his own.