She wasn’t sure where Mitch was now; caught up in the bedtime ritual with Davey, she’d lost track of where she’d heard him last. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t stay in the darkness one second longer.
She tightened the belt of her robe and slipped through the door into the main room, headed for the firelight’s glow.
A few steps into the room, she stopped dead in her tracks. Stretched out on the floor in front of the dying fire, Mitch lay sound asleep.
Perrie approached with slow, careful steps. She’d never seen him like this, hard features softened in slumber.
He looked younger, less careworn. The fierce eagle eyes closed, his frame still conveyed power and strength, but the man before her seemed almost…vulnerable.
She’d never met anyone so alone. Her grandfather had spent much of his life in these mountains by himself, his solitude punctuated by stints as a hunting and fishing guide. Grandpa had been alone, but never lonely. Solitude was very much a part of who he was, intertwined almost at a cellular level with his sense of humor, his love of the wilderness, his blue eyes.
Something about Mitch was different. It was almost as if solitude were not a choice but a defense.
He didn’t know what his brother looked like. What was his story? Where was his family? Had he known gentleness in his life or only sorrow?
Sorrow. That was it. Beneath the power, beneath the fierce determination, the harsh strength, Perrie sensed a deep well of sorrow in this man. Why? What had happened? What had he suffered that made him so fiercely protective of his shell, so rigidly controlled?
But Davey breached those high walls. Something in the boy touched the man and mined the goodness his manner hid.
He wasn’t accustomed to children and his methods might not be found in any parenting book, but he had been good to a child thrust upon him by circumstance. Had taken care of a child not his own, had not punished the child for the mother’s believed sins.
He did not want her here, could not wait for her to leave. But he had still granted her more kindness in a few days than she had had from Simon in years.
Perrie’s mind whirled, trying to sort out the best path. This cabin had been her lodestone, her guiding star for so long that she’d never considered what to do next, where she might go.
Perhaps if she were another woman, more suited to passion, it might be possible for her to seduce him. He already cared for Davey; if he found passion with her, would he want them to stay?
But she wasn’t that woman, and she had sold herself once. Never again. Never mind that she hadn’t known she was selling her soul until it was too late—she would never erase the loathing she felt for a girl so confused and weak-minded that she had not seen Simon for who he was. Blinded by the fairytale she wanted her life to become, the little secretary wooed by the heir apparent had been caught up in a whirlwind of illusion.
She knew now that her allure for Simon had been that she was so malleable. So stupid and needy and eager to become the woman he wanted. She would never erase the shame of being that girl who never saw the trap coming until it was too late. Who kept believing it was her fault and things might change if only she could do everything right.
That girl was dead. The woman who replaced her had been forged in the fires of hate.
She would die before she let Simon take her child. He might have the deck stacked with his family’s connections and wealth, but somehow she would elude him. Somehow, she would win.
You can’t prove anything, Perrie. And who would believe you over me? Don’t even try—not unless you want to lose the boy forever. With effort, she shoved Simon’s words away. She had to think, not panic.
She had little money left, and her strength was not yet returned. For a time longer, she had to tiptoe through the days and pray that Mitch would not make them leave. She did not know enough about him to tell him her story yet.
Perrie rubbed her arms against the chill. Tending the dying fire would wake him.
She spotted an old quilt folded on top of a chest. Tiptoeing quietly, she retrieved it and moved to Mitch’s side.
Holding her breath, she covered the sleeping man.
I promise I won’t involve you any more than I must, to save my son.
He shifted slightly. Before he could awaken and ask her questions she could not afford to answer, Perrie rose. Making her way back into the waiting darkness, she prayed she would find her own answer soon.
Chapter Four
In that half-world between sleep and waking, Mitch wondered what was different. Unlike his usual snap to attention, something held him in a softer, sweeter place—a place he had not been in all the years passed since that one fateful rainy night.
For just one moment, he could almost hear laughter, almost feel the warm glow of belonging. His eyelids heavy, he cast his thoughts toward the elusive tendrils of the place that had once been home. He rolled over to his side and pulled the quilt—