That only made me sob harder. Which was fine since I had a man who wasn’t afraid of my tears, my demons, my imperfections.
“You ready to go home now?” he asked.
I looked around the room.
“Yeah,” I said quietly.
I was definitely ready to go home.
Elden and I arrived back from Carver Springs renewed.
Or at least, Iwas renewed. It wasn’t Elden who had needed to face his demons, make peace with them. It was I who needed to linger in hell for a minute so I could enjoy our version of heaven. It was I who needed to learn that heaven and hell were both the same place, viewed through a different lens.
An important chapter of my life was closed. I was done with letting my dead father sabotage my happiness. I was sure that there would be shit that came up, that I’d be fucked-up forever. But I was okay with that. I had Elden. I could let myself sink into the life I was going to have with him.
Fear remained, as I figured it always would with this new, unplanned, uncertain life ahead of me. But I wouldn’t let that fear dictate my happiness.
The second we got back, after visiting Mom and Swiss and quelling their worries—Elden and Swiss even managed to be in the same room and share a beer—I went straight to the computer at our cottage, designing our forever home.
It got dark without me noticing, and Elden practically had to drag me to bed.
Well, he didn’t have todragme since I was still a living, breathing, pregnant woman who was ruled by chemistry and hormones and was indescribably obsessed with her man.
Sariah arrived in Garnett not long after we did, to have a belated birthday celebration for me—where she drank for three: me, her and the baby—to go shopping, to celebrate Christmas at the club—which she loved—and to move herself into a little apartment she was renting above Oliver’s on Main Street.
She still had another semester at college, and paying rent on another apartment in a town she wasn’t living in full time didn’t make sense to me, but she’d waved it off, mentioning that the rent was nothing.
Nothing to her, apparently.
She also said there was nothing going on with her and Colby, even though they were constantly bickering and glaring at each other. Glares with definite sexual undertones. She refused to talk about it, therefore, I didn’t talk about it.
She had other things to talk about, though. This became apparent as we drank coffee at our cottage—ours,mine and Elden’s… Itwas still wild to think that—having a quiet morning since Elden was at the club, and neither of us had shifts at Oliver’s. I knew my time there was limited, the further along I got. Elden was getting increasingly protective as time went on. It didn’t piss me off as much as it should’ve. In fact, it didn’t piss me off at all.
I liked feeling protected, nurtured in that way. Loved that he loved me and the changes I was going through while growing our daughter. There was not a moment I felt insecure or alone.
“There was another murder while we were gone,” Sariah informed me, putting her mug down.
“Another murder?” I shivered at the thought of it. Maybe that’s what the meeting at the club was about. Maybe that’s what all the overprotective stuff was about. Elden and I hadn’t talked about the murders, and it . wasn’t like it was exactly the club’s job to be investigating.
“Only the next town over this time,” Sariah nodded. “She was our age. Home from college. She was working at a strip club to pay her way.”
Blood pounded in my ears.
Sariah nodded at what I guessed was my horrified expression. “Definitely a serial killer. And fucking no one is reporting about it. The only reason I know is that Ollie’s monitoring the police stations in the area.” She shook her head. “Someone has to do something.”
I sighed. “Someone does have to do something,” I agreed. “And not just when some girl with a rich family or the right photo for a news piece gets hurt.”
Sariah drained her coffee mug, standing. “Let’s go, then.”
I frowned at her. “Where are we going?”
She put her hand on her hip. “We’re going to do something. Because like you said, no one else will until some pretty rich girl gets hurt. And who knows how many other women he will go through before the police get their heads out of their asses or when the media will decide someone is worth reporting on.”
I thought about it. It was wildly irresponsible to get involved in something like that. But letting the police do their job didn’t seem to be working out, especially if Sariah was right, and our local sheriff only cared about bringing down the club.
“Elden will be mad.” I grimaced.
She smiled. “I know. Won’t it be great?”