Face Off (The Evelyn Talbot Chronicles #3)

Amarok hadn’t had sex with Evelyn since Brianne arrived. He’d been out a great deal, submitting the tire track impression he’d taken at the cabin to an expert who’d identified it as coming from a fairly common truck tire, a Goodyear All-Terrain tire, which didn’t tell him a whole lot. Almost everyone drove a truck in Alaska and most people had snow tires this time of year. Until he had tires from a specific vehicle to cast and compare against the impression, that piece of evidence wasn’t going to do him much good.

The shoe impression hadn’t revealed enough detail to determine the kind of boot with any certainty, so that wasn’t helping, either. He was hopeful the blood evidence would at least confirm whether or not Jasper was the man he was looking for. He’d submitted it to the private lab in Philadelphia that Ashton Cooper had recommended to Evelyn, since they were going to be comparing Jasper’s DNA against what was found in Boston, at the scene where Charlotte was murdered. Aside from that, he’d been talking to anyone who might’ve seen a stranger or spotted anything out of the ordinary, checking hospital records all over the area, including Anchorage, and meeting with the warden at Hanover House to see if anyone who worked there had been injured. Occasionally, he swung by the house to grab a bite to eat or crawl into bed, however, and during those times Evelyn acted … remote.

She was stressed, too, of course. He didn’t expect her to behave as she normally did. They were in the middle of a crisis. But still. Something was seriously wrong. Even Brianne acted as though she didn’t have much to say to him. She didn’t seem interested in becoming friends, let alone in-laws, and he could sense a strain in the relationship between the two sisters. He’d expected them to be close, to stay up late at night, chatting and laughing—to show some sign of the relationship Evelyn had told him they’d once had.

That wasn’t happening. They seemed to be tiptoeing around each other for fear they’d get into an argument. Amarok was under the impression they were merely passing the time until Brianne had to leave.

Bringing Brianne to Alaska might’ve been a mistake. He liked the peace of mind it gave him to have someone with Evelyn during the hours he had to be away, but he was beginning to feel pretty unsettled, which was why he went to visit Evelyn at the prison on Friday afternoon.

She glanced up as he came into her office. “Amarok! What are you doing here?”

He shut the door and closed the blinds on her interior window before taking a seat in one of the two chairs facing her desk. “Do you have a second?”

“I’ll take one.” She pushed her laptop to the side. “What’s going on?”

“This isn’t about the investigation.”

She looked more tentative at his pronouncement. “Then what’s it about?”

“Me. Us. It feels like I’ve barely seen you the past week.”

“We’ve both been busy. And while Brianne’s staying with us, there’s very little privacy.”

“All true. But something else is going on. You’ve withdrawn from me. I can feel it.”

He thought she might pretend otherwise, suggest he’d imagined their estrangement. But she didn’t. “Brianne’s pregnant.”

He wanted Evelyn to be the one carrying a child—his child—so he couldn’t help feeling a bit of envy along with his surprise. He was ready to settle down, start a family. He’d made no secret of that, and he had no doubt that Evelyn was the woman he wanted. She was approaching forty, though, and because of Jasper and the physical damage he’d caused, she’d probably be facing a complicated pregnancy, even without her age working against her. He was afraid that if they didn’t do whatever they could to conceive now, they’d lose the opportunity. “Brianne’s pregnant?”

“Yes. And you were right—things aren’t going well with Jeff.”

Amarok had hardly seen Evelyn’s sister since she’d arrived, but the few times he had been home she hadn’t mentioned her fiancé, confirming his earlier suspicion. “What happened?”

“He’s found someone else.”

“When?”

“It’s been a month or so.”

“Before or after she knew she was pregnant?”

“Before.”

Forming a steeple with his fingers, he studied the woman he hoped to marry. “So … what’s she going to do?”

“She’s going to have the baby.”

“Alone.”

“Yes.”

“Will she keep her job?”

“She’ll have to. She needs to support her child.”

Dropping his hands, he sat forward. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out with Jeff.”

“So am I. She’s broken up about it.”

When her eyes slipped away instead of holding his gaze, he knew there was something else going on, something more than what was happening with Brianne. “And that means you’re having second thoughts about us somehow?”

He could see the sadness in her eyes when she looked at him again. “She’s asked me to return to Boston, Amarok. My mother isn’t doing well. That, in addition to the baby … Well, bottom line, Brianne needs me to spend a little time with the family right now.”

Amarok caught his breath. “What about your job? Your commitment to stay and run this place for the first five years?”

“I know. I don’t want to break that commitment. I don’t want to leave you, either. This has been the most difficult decision I’ve ever had to make.”

She was going to return Boston. She didn’t need to spell it out; he could tell.

His heart began to pound. Damn it! This was the reason he’d been so determined, in the beginning, not to open his heart. His own mother had left him, his father and Alaska, for the Lower 48. His father had warned him that Evelyn would do the same. She wasn’t outdoorsy, wasn’t anyone who’d naturally be inclined to come to such a remote place. But he’d wanted her from the beginning, and fighting the attraction hadn’t saved him. He’d never forget the first time they made love, when she’d joined him in the shower. She’d finally been able to trust him and that had left him feeling helpless against her. “When will you go?”

Tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know yet. As soon as I can make the arrangements.”

He got up and started for the door.

“Amarok…”

He needed to get out of there before she could see how badly she was tearing him apart. The worst aspect of this whole thing was that he couldn’t blame her. He was surprised she’d lasted this long. She wasn’t safe and wouldn’t be safe until he or someone else managed to catch Jasper. If only he’d done that, maybe she and her family would’ve been able to heal. Evelyn would be looking at an entirely different situation if that were the case, a much more normal situation.

He didn’t answer. He reached for the door, but she hurried around the desk to stop him.

“Please try to understand,” she begged. “I don’t see how I can stay. What happened to me hurt my whole family. They’ve been pulling for me, looking out for me, making special allowances for me, ever since—for more than twenty years. When do I give back? When do I make sure I’m there for them? It can’t always be about me, about the research I want to do, the resolution I need. It can’t even be about getting to stay with the man I love,” she added.

He stared down at her hand as it gripped his arm. “Will you come back?”

“Not unless I’m going to stay here for good. I can’t put us through this twice.”

That was far from a commitment. His throat tightened, and he had difficulty speaking. “What will you tell your boss?”

“I’m going to ask Janice for a leave of absence.”

“For how long?”

“A year.”

“You’ll spend a year in Boston, and then you’ll decide whether to return.”

“Yes. I’m going to get counseling, try to gain some perspective on the trauma I’ve been through and do what I can to make my family whole. I was hoping to last through this latest crisis. I know it’s a terrible time for me to leave, but with Brianne pregnant and feeling so fragile, it has to be soon.”

“But she’s months away from having the baby.”