Page 16 of Winter's End

He shifted off of me and was about to sit up when his gaze caught on something behind us.

Curiously, I peered over my shoulder. A beat-up metal box had been tucked underneath the dresser toward the back of the wall. Sitting any higher, neither of us would have been able to see it.

He kneeled and shimmied the box out from underneath several layers of dust and cobwebs and placed it on the bed between us.

“This was my old fishing tackle box.” He wiped the grime off the cover to expose the ‘Shane E. Quicksilver’ engraving.

“Anything inside?”

“Dunno. I haven’t seen this in over a decade.” He popped the locks on either side and opened the lid. A stack of old papers sprung out. At least an inch thick, it had been tied together with old fishing wire.

“I’ve never seen these before.” He turned them over, inspecting the worn handwriting.

“Take them with us and we can look at them together.” I kissed his bare shoulder before standing to grab my clothes in the next room. I looked down at my chest, slathered in the combined mixture of our drying cum.

“We should probably rub some snow melt on us before leaving, though. No indoor plumbing here, right?”

That snapped Shane from his investigative trance. “Nope.” His devious grin made my insides tingle. “I’d love to take you home covered in my cum, though.”

Fuck. Me.

We washed up, back-country camping style, and made the journey home, holding hands and listening to the radio like we’d been doing this all our lives.

CHAPTER 5

LOGAN

“Ithink you should help Winter with her panic attacks.”

Hillary didn’t mince words as she barreled into the bedroom of our Cascade Falls condo like she still lived here.

She didn’t. She had moved out to the Carlisle condo two days before the wedding and had been there ever since. That she was barging intomyroom at 6:25 in the fucking morning would not do her any favors. I was taking back all of her keys.Today.

“Hill, fuck off. I had a late night.”

“Just because it’s our honeymoon doesn’t mean you should sleep in, Loggie-bear.”

I threw a pillow at her head in the dim room; the woman had the audacity to giggle.

When she opened the curtains to flood the room with obnoxious sunlight, I shot up in bed and glared.

“Fuck you, Hill!”

“Not anymore,” she sing-songed, her voice as irritating as the light burning my retinas. “As I was saying, I think you should help Winter with her panic attacks.”

“And this conversation couldn’t have been a phone call?” I muttered as I pulled the covers off me to go take a piss. If she wanted to act like we were still a doting married couple, she could live the life of a married couple.

Like a rabid dog, she followed in after me.

“Yeah, they’re not getting better, obviously, and since you’re the only one I know locally who’s mastered theirs, and you’ve weaseled your way into her bed …” She wriggled her eyebrows. “What a great thing you could be doing to restore your karma and balance in the universe.”

I didn’t bother to correct her on that last point, because that was the inevitable. I hadn’t made my way into Winter Wallace’s bedyet, but I would be. After that one little teaser of a taste, I would make sure of it.

I cocked an eyebrow as I finished up and washed my hands. “You don’t think losing my access to your fortune and becoming the FBI’s little bitch boy ‘karma’ enough?”

“That’s my point!” She beamed at me. “Let’s reverse that bad karma and get you back in the good books.”

I couldn’t roll my eyes harder if I tried.