“Can you get a restraining order against them?” Zach asked.
“Yes. And they have all been warned about the repercussions of retaliating against me. I gave a long list of instigators to your sheriff. He’s already got men out visiting them. Hopefully, they’ll be too scared to come after me or my business. We’ll see.”
Zach leaned forward. “You let us know if you have any problems.”
She nodded, her face turning red. “I will. Thanks,” she muttered.
“Do you live alone?”
“I do. I’m trying to convince my parents to send my sister to live with me.”
“That’s good. There’s always strength in numbers.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not sure how much help Amanda’s going to be. She’s apparently been a handful for my parents lately. She’s not a child. They act like she’s twelve. She’s almost twenty-five. But they’re conservative and demanding.” Laurie smiled and chuckled. “They think if they send her to me, I’ll get her all straightened out in a small community in my nice fundamentalist church.”
“Shit.” Laurie grinned. “You didn’t tell them you left the church?”
Mary shrugged. “No. I know my sister isn’t in any real trouble. My parents are overprotective and exaggerate. I figure I owe Amanda this opportunity to find a better life. It’s not going to be what she expects. Her world will totally change. But hopefully for the better.”
“Good luck with that.” Laurie reached across the table to shake Mary’s hand—a sign of a truce, in Zach’s mind.
Zach stood. “I’ll walk you out.”
Mary led the way.
Laurie followed.
When they stepped outside, Mary pointed to her car. “That’s me. I got a close parking spot. No worries.”
Zach stared at her car and then looked back at her. “That’s your car?”
“Yes. Why?”
He knew that car. It was the same one he and Laurie had seen all fogged up on a gravel road in the middle of nowhere several nights ago.
Laurie reached into his head. “Don’t say anything. Please. Let her keep her privacy. Maybe she has a secret lover she meets on side roads in the night or something. There’s no need to embarrass her. You can’t possibly know she was up to no good out there that night.”
Zach cleared his throat. “Nothing. I think my cousin has the same model.”
“Oh. Well, it’s a good choice. It’s kept me safe for four years now.” She made a half grin, waved, and walked away.
Corbin came up behind them. “What was that all about?”
“Nothing,” they both said at once.
“Right.”
Zach turned around and faced his male mate. “What are you going to do about Pete Sandhouse?”
“Nothing.” Corbin repeated the word his mates had just used on him.
“What? Why not?” Laurie asked.
Corbin grinned. “It will be much more fun to nail his ass to the wall for something another day. I’ll talk to my boss, of course, but I’d rather see him stew over something bigger than a brick to the window. If he’s a big enough asshole to instigate a group of people to harass us, he’s got more stunts up his sleeve than that. Game on.”
Zach grinned at Corbin.
Laurie laughed. “Can we please go home now?”
Zach took her hand and led her toward the car. As soon as the three of them were inside, he turned around to face her in the back seat. “You do realize you saved a lot of lives this morning.”
She shrugged and lowered her gaze, fidgeting her fingers in her lap.
Corbin twisted his neck to stare at her too. “Babe. That was huge. Don’t act like it was nothing. If you hadn’t been there… If you hadn’t come back to town yesterday…”
Zach watched as Corbin shuddered. He knew what his mate said was true. Laurie had not only saved his own hide by hurrying up the mountain as fast as she had after the avalanche, but countless others fifteen minutes earlier by following her gut instinct. “You still think the spirits want you to leave town?”
She lifted her face and rolled her eyes. “No.”
“Good. Let’s not repeat that performance.” He adjusted his cock in his jeans. “My dick wouldn’t survive a rerun.”
She slowly smiled. “I’ll think about it.”
Epilogue
“Sawyer Hamilton. Stop arguing with me and get your ass here.” Laurie paced in the living room of her new home, aggravated with her older brother, but not surprised he still wouldn’t come visit her. “She’s your niece. And she was born almost a week ago. You need to come visit, and drag Cooper with you.”