“I…” Summer’s mouth curved into a smile. She looked so much like Mel, like his fuzzy memories of Mom. “I kind of like being by myself every once in a while. I wasn’t allowed to be alone much before…I left.”
His estranged mother had disappeared when he was five, pregnant with Summer. Then twenty-some years later, Summer had left Mom to come here and find the rest of her family. And shocked the hell out of them with her appearance, since none of the other Shaws had known about her existence.
Except Dad.
Dad had sacrificed Summer to keep Mel, and all because of him. It’s in you.
“Are you all right?” Summer asked in a hushed whisper. She reached out to squeeze his arm. She was always so…touchy. Touchy. Smiley. Sorry. She gave him a headache, a guilt he didn’t understand, which melded with the anger he figured must be in his blood. Bad, bad blood.
He stepped away from her. “Why do you think someone’s in the cabin?”
“There was a light inside last night. Real quick, but I know I saw it. And I thought I saw someone in the yard this morning. The snow around the place is all weird. It could be an animal, or just how it’s melting I guess, but—”
Caleb strode past her—out of the living room, through the kitchen, and into the mudroom. He plucked the keys to the gun safe from under a tub of rock salt and shoved it into the lock as Summer caught up with him.
Summer released a shocked exhale. “Oh. I don’t think you’ll need that. I’m pretty sure it’s a woman.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “You think women can’t be dangerous?”
“Well, of course they can. I am very well aware they can be, but…”
He grabbed the shotgun and locked the safe again. “Show me,” he instructed.
Summer blinked at him as she worried her hands together. “Oh, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Someone is prowling around that old cabin, only a few hundred yards from where you currently sleep, and you shouldn’t have said anything?”
Summer grabbed her coat from the hook and pulled it around her. “I don’t think she’s—”
“She’s—if it’s a she—trespassing, and needs to be scared off.”
“A gun seems harsh.”
“What, you think this is Goldilocks and she’s lost and looking for some warm porridge?”
Summer stuck her hands in her coat pockets, her eyebrows furrowed and her mouth pressed into a line. He supposed this was Summer angry. It was like a spring shower compared to the raging thunderstorm of the other Shaws’ tempers. Slow and quiet, not one flash of lightning or boom of thunder.
Summer was silent, with none of her normal chatter—nervous or otherwise—as they got in his truck and drove through the slushy spring snow to the other side of the Shaw property where the old cabin was.
The cabin looked the same as it had since Grandpa died fifteen-some years ago. The Shaw men had never lived to a ripe old age, and had never been any good at housekeeping. The windows were dusty, everything slumped and old. The rough-hewn logs supposedly chopped down by some ancestor were weathered by age and harsh winters.
But there was a definite disturbance to the snowpack around the cabin, and while any number of wild animals could be walking around the area, infesting the cabin, wild animals didn’t typically attempt to cover their tracks.
And they certainly couldn’t open doors. The sagging lump of snow on the left-hand side of the door was unmistakable.
Someone was in there, and that someone didn’t want anyone to know.
“Go to the caravan,” Caleb ordered, hopping out of the truck. He left the safety on the gun. He doubted whoever was hiding wanted trouble, but he’d been involved in a little too much trouble back in the day to entirely rule it out.
Summer was shadowing him, decidedly not going to the caravan. “You can’t go in there alone.”
“Why not? I’m a man with a gun.”
“You’re the one who said she could be dangerous!”
“I repeat, I am a man with a gun.” He strode toward the cabin door, but Summer kept following him. He was sure he could yell and she’d stay put, but that seemed like an overreaction. This was probably as simple as someone looking for a warm place to stay.
He tried to peer in the window surreptitiously, but both the grime and the tattered curtains blocked any view of the interior.
“I’m going to ease my way in. You stay outside. Got it?”
She clutched her hands together in front of her, eyes wide and worried, but she nodded. He had to resist rolling his eyes. Lord knew he’d faced a lot more potentially dire situations than some random person in this long vacated cabin.
It’s in you.
Every once in a while that was all right, wasn’t it? Every once in a while, he got it in his fool head to save somebody, and the not-so-nice pieces of himself came in handy.
Of course, his help rarely really solved anything.
Focus.
He eased the door open, his finger on the gun’s safety, his eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light inside. He noticed a long, denim-clad leg dangling over the back of the couch.