What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(59)

“You’re going home,” Kellen said. “To the winery. Your grandma will be excited to see you.”

“Di Luca Winery in the Willamette Valley. You think you can find that, Brooks?” Max’s voice still held that soft sibilant threat, like a snake giving warning of a strike.

“I can find it.”

“Good,” Max said. “You’ll take our daughter there. You’ll deliver her into the hands of her grandmother. Then you can fly with that head wherever the hell you want and do whatever the hell you want with it. Don’t call us again. Ever. About anything.”

Kellen watched Max out of the corners of her eyes. She had pegged him as a man who was kind and gentle, intelligent and businesslike, devoted to his family and friends. She hadn’t realized that devotion included a threat and a promise of violence in defense of his loved ones.

Something to add to her mental dossier.

“Wait. I’m going home?” That hadn’t occurred to Rae, and she backed up, eyes wide. “I don’t want to go home! I want to stay here. I like it here!”

“Now, honey—” Max began.

Kellen interrupted. “Mommy and Daddy aren’t staying here. We’re going to hike down the mountain. You remember the mountain? Not enough food, no fire, no s’mores, no fun?”

“Bikes! Mountain bikes! We could get mountain bikes and—”

“Kid, there’s no place to get mountain bikes within a day’s walk of here.” For Zone, that was incredibly patient.

Max put his arm around Rae’s shoulders. “You’ll be home in an hour. You can tell your grandma all about your adventures. You can play with your princesses. You can eat whatever you want—”

“Not Spam,” Rae said sulkily. “Grandma won’t let me have Spam.”

“Kid, you ate all my Spam,” Zone said.

“You can call your friends and tell them where you’ve been,” Kellen coaxed.

“Why aren’t you coming in the helicopter?” Rae asked.

“It’s a Robinson R22. They aren’t kidding when they call it a two-man helicopter. At this elevation, I’d never get it off the ground with that much weight,” Nils said. “I need to get going. Are you coming for a ride in the helicopter, Rae? Or not? You’re afraid, aren’t you?”

Rae’s skinny chest swelled with indignation. “I am not!” she yelled.

“Okay, then.” Nils winked at Kellen and headed for the helicopter. “Let’s go.”

Rae ran after Nils.

Kellen and Max ran after Rae. They ducked below the slowly rotating blades, hooked Rae into the seat, told her to be good, put her headphones on, kissed her and waved her off.

As the helicopter rose in the air, Max said, “Brooks is better with kids than I expected.”

“If the pictures are to be believed, he’s got a ton of family, nephews and nieces.”

“I thought he was hatched.” Max nudged her with his elbow. “I didn’t have a reputation for foreign bar fights. When I was in football, I was clean as a whistle.”

“He doesn’t know that.”

They turned to walk back to the Horizon Lookout.

Zone blocked the path.

Uh-oh.

“I’m headed down to pick up supplies—Spam!—report those guys and their deaths. Call me an accomplice, but I won’t mention either of you. The trip will take me three days, down and back. You’ve got three days here to heal—” he glared at Kellen “—make sure your killers lose interest and get your stupid relationship figured out.”

Kellen stared at him, her eyes so wide they felt stretched and dry.

Zone marched up the path to the lookout, picked up the large camping backpack leaning against the bottom step, hoisted it over his shoulders and said, “Be gone before I get back.” He walked into the canyon, down the path, took a sudden right and disappeared from sight.

“Where did he go?” Kellen asked.

“When we were out searching for the bodies, I figured out pretty fast he knows this area way better than anyone else. He takes paths no one else could ever find.”

“So he’s going the back way?”

“Looks like it.”

They were alone.

Awkward. Kellen tilted her head and watched Zone disappear into the canyon. “I get the feeling he doesn’t like us in his space.”

“He doesn’t like anyone in his space. His instructions to me were to not get ourselves killed while he was gone.” Max pressed his index finger into the middle of Kellen’s back, urging her toward the lookout. “Standing out in the open makes me uneasy. Shall we go up?”

More awkward. “Of course.” She was limping, damn it, undernourished and unready to make a hike of twenty-five miles over rough terrain, even if it was mostly downhill.

But she was also unprepared to be alone with Max, her former lover and the father of her child. Zone had not only told them to work out their relationship, he had shone a spotlight on their relationship so neither of them could ignore it. Now they were going to be alone for three days. Alone. Isolated from mankind and civilization alone. We can’t avoid discussing and deciding our relationship alone.

She wasn’t prepared. She would never be prepared.