Free Their Forever Home by Marla Monroe Page B

had, someone paid with their life. After the second time he’d felt that need burning in his gut, and one of the prospects and the ole lady he was supposed to protect were kidnapped by a rival gang, Carver never ignored it again. They tortured and killed them before anyone could stop it. He wasn’t about to ignore that feeling now.
    He picked up his pace, taking shortcuts instead of the easier roadways. Time wasn’t a kind mistress. She’d screw you any way she could. That’s why he risked falling when he walked along a narrow bank next to the still-swollen stream, and why he continued through the woods despite the obvious signs scratched high up on tree trunks that said a dominant male bear hunted there.
    When the terrain allowed, he jogged. When it didn’t, he pushed it to the limit anyway. He needed to get there where he could protect Vella—and Lance. Neither of them was able to handle what he could. Lance just wasn’t vicious enough, and Vella was still recovering from nearly dying.
    It had hit him while he’d been searching for clothes that would fit her. He really liked her, and he couldn’t argue that the sexual attraction was there as well. He could easily see himself falling for her. He could also see her round with his child, but he didn’t really believe it would happen, despite his ability to picture her as a part of his life. Once she found out he’d once been a bondsman, she’d curse him to the farthest reaches of the earth. Men like him had killed her brother. He couldn’t let himself forget that.
    It doesn’t matter how much I want her now and will probably want her even more by the time we make it to the new community. It won’t matter because I will have to tell her how I’d been part of the brotherhood who’d taken her brother from her. Full disclosure and all that bullshit. If I don’t come clean with her and somehow Lance and I manage to make her our woman, one day in the future it will come out. She will hate me even more for keeping it from her—for lying to her.
    Nope. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t tell her yet, though. First he had to make sure she made it to their destination safely. He wouldn’t risk her being so angry and disgusted with him that she ran off. The least he could do for her was to keep her safe when men like him had taken her protector from her.
    The closer he got to the cave where he’d left them, the better he felt with his ability to handle whatever was eating at him. Every step took him even closer, settling the sick feeling in his gut just a little more. The burning in his soul cooled a bit as he was able to actually see the rocks that formed the base of the mountain where their cave lay hidden.
    Just as he relaxed a bit, the sound of a gunshot then a scream had him dropping the packs and taking his weapons to run as fast as he could toward the cave. As seconds ticked by, Carver felt as if he were running in slow motion and would never get there. For the first time in a long time, terror threatened to choke him.
    As soon as he saw the entrance to the cave, Carver headed directly for it, but before he reached it, a hand reached out and pulled him by the shirt to the side of the cave’s entrance. He started to punch whoever it was until he saw that it was Lance—a dirty, bloody Lance at that.
    “Hold up, man. He’ll pick you off like a fucking low-flying bird,” Lance whispered, his fingers still fisted in Carver’s shirt.
    “Where’s Vella?” he asked, staring hard at the other man.
    “In there with him,” he said, dropping his head.
    “How? Where were you?”
    “I’d gone out to wash the damn dishes. When I started back, I heard the damn wolf growling and Vella yelling at someone. I wasn’t thinking and walked right up to the entrance, and the bastard shot me. That’s why I stopped you,” Lance told him.
    “What fucking wolf? There’s a wolf and some stranger in there with her?” He didn’t understand what Lance was