Alex’s eyes flicker to me. “I’m sure I’ll have a chance to meet her sometime soon.”

“Please, sit.” My mom gestures to the table, a platter of nachos and salsa out. One of Mom’s specialties.

Maybe Alex can finally teach that woman how to cook.

“Your parents are so nice.”

I throw an extra-large log into the woodstove. “They really liked you. I could tell.” I could also tell that my mom is dying to interrogate me.

“Are they still going to like me when they find out?”

I glance over my shoulder in time to see Alex’s hand smooth over her abdomen. It still doesn’t feel real, that there’s a human being growing inside her. I try to picture what she’s going to look like lying on the floor in those pillows with a big, round belly.

With Viktor’s kid.

I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bother me at all. But it should bother me more than it does. “They’ll be fine with you. They probably won’t like me too much for a while, but . . .” I sigh, holding a marshmallow above the flame to brown. “It won’t be the first time I’ve disappointed them.”

“You know, you and your father are a lot alike. You’re both very quiet, but with this calm, strong presence. You look a lot alike, too. Those eyes . . .” I feel her gaze on my profile. “I’ve always loved your eyes.”

“Are you telling me you have the hots for my dad? Do I have to worry about you alone here for the next two months?” I’m not moving back until March. Alex is worried that both of us disappearing around the same time will look suspicious. I think she’s being overly paranoid, but I’ve agreed to humor her. Gives me more time to find a job around here, too, where mechanic jobs are hard to come by.

I catch the pillow she flings at my head with one hand and toss it back, chuckling. “We’re alike in some ways. Very different in others. You should have heard the fights we had. I was a bad teenager,” I admit. “I made his life hell, but he was hard on me, too.”

“That’s because he loves you so much, not because he doesn’t. I’m sure that, when the time comes that you really need him, you’ll be able to count on him.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that.” I really needed him when Dirk and Ian tried to pin Tommy’s stabbing on me, and yet I was the first one that my dad threw into the back of his cop car.

I’m not bringing that story up tonight, though. That’s one for another day.

Alex pulls the plaid wool blanket up around her body. “You’re lucky you have a father like that. It’s better than indifference. Or nonexistence. Maybe if my father was in my life, I wouldn’t have ended up with a man like Viktor.”

“Or maybe your father was a scumbag like Viktor, and you were better off not knowing him,” I interject, though I know that’s not her point.

“Maybe,” she concedes. “Well, I for one am looking forward to getting to know your parents. I like them a lot already. They’re both so calm. I want to surround myself with calm people. Not volatile ones, like Viktor.”

“Here.” I sandwich the melted marshmallow between the chocolate and the graham crackers. “Stop talking about my parents and eat this. Welcome to Western culture.”

I feed her a bite. A tiny, appreciative moan escapes her and, when she licks the melted chocolate off her lip, my heart starts racing. I haven’t so much as touched her leg in weeks.

I’m dying to be with her again.

“Before I forget . . .” She rolls to her left and grabs the strap of her tan messenger bag. “Here’s the money I saved. We should leave this here with my things.” We filled my trunk with bags of clothes and basics she wanted to bring with her—towels, bedding, some things to cook with that she said would only collect dust if left with Viktor.

I test the bag’s weight. It’s heavy. “You want to leave this much money in here?”

She shrugs. “I figured it’s safer here than in Portland.”

I smile. “Yeah. Probably.” This is pretty much the safest place around.

Her bright eyes roam the space. “This little attic has so much potential. I was thinking we could . . .”

I just nod as she goes on about curtains and tables and all the things she wants to do to the small space, watching her lips move.

“The crib can go over in that corner. We’ll have to get rid of that chair, but I want to anyway. It’s a bit old. Jesse? Why are you staring at me like that? Are you listening to me?”

“Not really. You can do whatever the hell you want with this place.”

A playful smile curls her lips. “Oh, good! Because I was thinking that there’s not a lot of space, so we’ll need to convert the garage downstairs into more living—”

I steal a deep kiss. “You can do whatever the hell you want with this place, but the garage is off-limits. God knows I’ll need it with a screaming baby in here,” I correct, and then kiss her again, tasting the chocolate and marshmallow residue.

She breaks away and bites her bottom lip with worry. “Are you sure you want to do this? Because you don’t have to. You can still back out.”

I glare at her. “Back out?” She just doesn’t get it. I’m not ready to say it out loud yet, but there’s no doubt about it. The fact that I can’t wait for next weekend, and I know that the next two months will be the longest of my life, proves it.

I’m in love with Alex.

“I just . . . I know what it’s like to feel trapped. It’s utterly suffocating. I don’t ever want you to feel like that.”

In all honesty, I’ve been terrified these past two weeks. It has nothing to do with worrying that I don’t want this. I’m terrified that I can’t be what she needs me to be.

But I’ll never admit that to her. She needs me to be strong, and I want to be strong for her.

As strong as she is.

“Is it just my hormones or is it boiling in here?” she suddenly exclaims, unzipping her sweatshirt and peeling it off to reveal a plain, long-sleeved shirt underneath. She may not be showing yet, but her boobs are getting bigger. If Viktor stopped to really look at his wife over the past few weeks, he would have noticed.

“No, it’s boiling. I built the fire nice and hot. And opened all the vents.”

“God, why?” She kicks off the blanket with a scowl of confusion.

I shrug. “Best way to get a girl to strip.”

She stops to stare at me, probably to figure out if I’m being honest. And then she falls back into the pillows, laughing. That deep, infectious sound that makes me dive into her mouth.

She doesn’t hesitate, tangling her tongue with mine to give me another sweet taste of chocolate.

I can’t wait anymore, sliding her shirt up and over her head.

“Gentle. They’re sore.”

I have her bra off in a matter of seconds. I’m just about to show her how gentle I can be with my mouth when a knock sounds on the door at the bottom of the stairs, followed by my mom’s holler of “Hello?”

I roll onto my back with a groan. “Stay right here.”

My mom’s waiting in the garage, her arms loaded with one of the winter duvets. “I don’t want you and Alex to get cold overnight.”

I stifle my smirk. “Thanks, Mom.”

Her eager eyes flicker up the stairs. “Where’d you meet her?”

Should I be honest? “On the side of the road. I fixed her tire and she kissed me.”

My mom starts chuckling. I’m not sure if she believes me. “I really like her.” She pauses. “You’re serious about this one, aren’t you?”

I nod. “Yeah, Mom. She’s it.”

This is the start of the rest of my life.

The trance in the background tells me that Boone is at The Cellar.

“Have you talked to Alex lately?”

I hesitate. “No.” Boone doesn’t know we’re talking. He sure as hell doesn’t know about the pregnancy or my plans to pick her up tomorrow night and take her to Sisters for good.

“Are you lying?” There’s an edge to his tone that I don’t like.

“No. Why?” I snap.

I hear his rushed breathing, like he’s walking fast. Suddenly, the music is gone and I can hear him clearly, though he’s talking low. “Look, I don’t know what the f**k is going on. Viktor was supposed to be here tonight to meet up with some guy, but he told Rust that he had to deal with a problem at home and it was going to take all night. Apparently this was an important meeting. It’s not like Viktor to miss this kind of stuff.”

My heart has just gone from normal to spastic in a span of two seconds.

“And then Albert was talking—”

“Who the f**k is Albert?”

“The big blond guy who’s always with Viktor. Anyway, Albert just got a phone call from Viktor. He was talking in Russian and you know my Russian’s not great, but it sounded like he was trying to calm Viktor down. And then he started giving him directions to this old logging trail he knows about, in the interior, off Highway Twenty. He was saying it’s a far drive but it’ll be safe. He said nobody goes there this time of year.” Boone pauses. “Albert told Viktor that he’d drive out in the morning and clean up. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but . . . something in my gut doesn’t feel right.”

I’m ready to throw up the late-night pizza pocket I just inhaled. “Did he say where this logging trail was?”

“He did, but it was hard to follow along. Something about some burned-out woods and a totem pole?”

I know exactly where that is.

I’m in my car in under thirty seconds, racing for Black Butte, hitting redial over and over on my phone. But it just goes to her voice mail.

THIRTY-SIX

Water

now

I stare at the swirl of steam that rises from the cup of tea next to me, with no intention of drinking it. “You didn’t know?”

Ginny settles herself into her creaky rocking chair with a sigh. “No, Water. I had absolutely no clue.” It’s the tenth time she’s said those exact words. Because it’s the tenth time I’ve asked. She stretches her quilt over her lap and picks up her needle. “Do you think I would have had any part in it, had I known? Do you know me to be a liar?”

“No,” I whisper, hugging my knees to my chest as my eyes roll over the cramped den inside Ginny’s house. If I had to guess, I’d say that the myriad of pictures, the figurines on the shelves, the western-print curtains—everything in this room—have remained exactly where Ginny’s parents first placed them.

But I also know Gabe to be a hard-nosed, black-and-white, follow-the-law-to-the-letter kind of man. The kind of man who threw his own son in jail. And Meredith . . .

“Why would they do this?”

Ginny’s needle stops weaving through the fabric. “What exactly did Meredith say, again?”

“That they were protecting me. And Jesse.”

Ginny’s head shakes. “That damn boy. He just can’t keep himself out of trouble.”

A fist pounds against the door, making me jolt.

Ginny merely peers over her glasses at the front door.

A moment later, Gabe’s voice booms. “Ginny? Open the door! I need to speak with Water.”

Water.

That name now sounds almost as ridiculous as Jane Doe.

“What would you like me to do?” she asks.

“I can’t,” I whisper, resting my face on my knees. “Not right now.” For months, all I waited for was even a shred of my past. Now I have the chance to know everything and I’m not sure that I’m ready for it.

She rubs her jaw in that stubborn Ginny way and then, setting her sewing down on the table next to her, she edges out of her seat, stepping over a lazy Felix, to shuffle toward the door. “She doesn’t want to speak to you right now.”

“I’ll explain everything.”

“You should have done that months ago, ya hear?”

A lighter thump hits the door. “Alex, please.” That’s not Gabe. That’s Jesse, pleading with me, stealing a few of my heartbeats as I imagine his head pressed up against the door.

It’s followed quickly by, “Ginny . . . open this door or I’ll break it down.”

She snorts. “Good luck with that! You’ll just cripple yourself, old man.” When Ginny had the bars put up on all her first-floor windows, she also had a large two-by-four barricade installed on the inside of her doors. No one’s breaking into this house unless they have a ladder to get to her second floor. “Now get the hell off of my porch before I call the police and give the town something to talk about.”

“I am the goddamn police, Ginny!” he barks back, his patience and normally calm demeanor finally lost.

“Then act like it and arrest yourself and that damn son of yours for what you’ve done.”