Chapter 8: Torin's POV: Three Months at the Gate

Torin's POV

I sat in the truck outside the lodge for twenty minutes after I brought her home, with the engine off.

I had said it out loud in front of four strangers.

*In my bed for a week.*

I had meant every word, and I should have kept my mouth shut.

Imogen had walked out of that clinic with a coffee mug and red ears, and she hadn't said a word to me the whole drive.

The old hound slept on the back seat, snoring.

That dog had climbed into my truck uninvited, and nobody had had the heart to put him out.

I got out and went around to open her door, and she was already gone, up the porch steps and through the screen.

Fine.

I stood in the yard and looked at the hills where the Harlan border ran, and I let myself remember the week I had never told her about.

It was the third day after her name went quiet.

I had driven to Harlan Ridge before sunrise, with no letter and no plan.

I knew only that a door in my head had slammed, and that behind it was a woman I'd watched across a ballroom for two years and never spoken to.

I'd told myself I was waiting for the right moment.

I had waited too long.

The Harlan gate had been closed.

Rhys Harlan came down to it in his bathrobe, with two guards behind him.

"Brask," he'd said. "This is early, even for you."

"I'm here for your daughter."

"Odette's asleep."

"Imogen."

He had stared at me.

It wasn't an act.

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