I Ran Home With My Baby to My Brother's Biker Friends, and the Three Who Tormented Me Said I Was Theirs to Guard novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Pantry Window

The cabin at Knife River sat at the end of a mile of unplowed county road, with the lake behind it and nothing in front but spruce.

Dutch had left the key under a coffee can and the woodpile stacked to the eaves.

It was one big room with a woodstove, a plank table and a bed in the corner, and a small bedroom off the kitchen that had been somebody's pantry.

The pantry had a door with a bolt on the inside.

I set the crib mattress on the floor in there and made it up with the gray blanket.

Dirk carried in the bags and the heater without a word.

He set the last one down by the door, said, "Porch," and went back out into the dark.

He had not looked at me once since the cemetery.

I heard the boards creak under his weight, and then nothing.

Nik stayed long enough to get the stove roaring.

He kissed my forehead, plain, once, and I let him.

"Text if you want a pierogi in a hurry," he said.

Then he took his truck back down the road to help Dutch hold the yard.

That left Mason.

He stood in the middle of the cabin with Zuri asleep on his shoulder, and he did not seem to know where to put himself.

"I can take the floor by the stove," he said.

"Dirk's got the porch.

"I'll be quiet."

"Mason," I said.

"I'll be so quiet you won't know I'm here," he said.

I looked at the pantry door.

"Put her in there," I said.

He did.

He laid her down as gently as a man setting down an egg, and tucked the blanket around her, and stood looking at her with his hands hanging.

I shut the pantry door and stood with my hand on the bolt.

"Term one," I said.

"A room with a lock that opens from the inside.

"The bolt is on her side, and she's seven months old."

"Then leave it open a hand's width," Mason said.

"I'll hear her before you do."

"Mason, listen to me."

He listened.

He stood with the stove light along one side of his face, the sandy hair stuck up at the crown, and brown eyes gone wide and careful.

"The door stays shut and the porch has Dirk on it," I said.

"If she makes one sound, you're up before I am."

"I'd be up before you anyway," Mason said.

"I know you would."

I crossed the room and stood in front of him.

My heart was going so hard I could feel it in my teeth.

I had been with two men in ten days, and every time I had been the one to decide.

This was the third, and the only one I had not been afraid of, and that was what frightened me.

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