As I perched on the edge of the bed in some room I had been tossed into, only one thought tumbled around in my head.
I don’t want Cheyenne to know I’m in trouble.
“Tanner?” I asked.
He thundered down the hallway before wrapping into the bedroom. “You all right? Need anything?”
I didn’t bother facing him. “I don’t want Cheyenne around all of this.”
He walked over to my side. “What do you mean?”
I peered up at him. “I mean, I don’t want her coming back to this compound. I don’t want her around any of this.”
He blinked. “She doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Plus, you know she’s gonna want to be with you. You’re her mother.”
“Yeah, and everything around here is about two seconds away from slipping the fact that you’re her father to her without any sort of preparation.”
He cocked his head. “Is that what this is about?”
I shrugged. “It is, and it isn’t.”
He sat down beside me. “You don’t want to tell her who I am, do you?”
I looked back at the wall. “Not when we’re entrenched in shit like this, no.”
He sighed heavily. “Well, we have one more secure location we could take you both to, but it would still require me staying with you. Though, I wouldn’t have any issues just telling Cheyenne that I’m a family friend. For now, at least.”
I shook my head. “No, nothing like that.”
“We don’t have any other options.”
I stood to my feet and whipped around on him. “I know you don’t get it because you’re not a parent, but I don’t want Cheyenne to know there’s any danger afoot at all. I don’t want her to even get the hint of danger, Tanner. That’s what this is about.”
He stood to his feet. “First of all, I am a parent. That girl is as much my daughter as she is yours.”
I glared up at him. “Well, being a DNA donor doesn’t make you a father. It takes a lot more than that.”
“And it’s a chance I would have had if you would’ve stuck to the plan of meeting up with me after I graduated so we could run off and be together. You know, like we both discussed.”
“This isn’t about us right now. This is about Cheyenne and her safety.”
“This is exactly about us!” he exclaimed. “And her! And the fact that our family is currently under siege!”
I pushed my hands against his chest. “Your family’s under siege! My family’s been ripped into your bullshit just because you can’t move on!”
He growled at me. “Well, maybe I don’t want to move on. Maybe I never wanted to stop loving you in the first damn place.”
I steeled my beating heart and forced the words out. “Then, maybe you should have thought about that before choosing this as your life’s path.”
I stormed by him, heading for the hallway. I needed to take a walk. I needed to clear my head. But as I left the room, Tanner shouted the only other option we had.
And it honestly wasn’t a bad idea.
“What about taking her to Sloane!?”
I froze in the middle of the hallway. “What?”
Tanner walked out and leaned against the doorframe. “You said she’s a detective now. I assume she’s got her own place?”
I nodded. “In Santa Barbara, yes.”
“Well, then why don’t we take her there? She’ll be safe, she’ll be over four hours away from this shit, and if anyone heads toward that area we’ll know well before they get there.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’d want to go and drop her off.”
He shrugged. “I’d follow behind you guys the entire way. I’d probably have Brooks with us, too. But you two can drive, we can bring up the rear, and we can keep you two safe while we get her to your sister’s.”
Tears rushed my eyes, though. “Jesus.”
“What’s wrong? I figured her going to stay with your sister would be an option you’d like.”
I sighed and closed my eyes. “So, I never really did fill Sloane in on what truly happened at The Body Shop a few months back.”
“That doesn’t shock me. You’ve never been one to open up about things that scare you.”
I glared at him. “I wasn’t scared.”
He shrugged. “We were all scared. It’s okay to be scared.”
“I wasn’t scared,” I said curtly.
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, suit yourself.”
“I wasn’t scared!” I exclaimed.
“And we’re out of options, Summer! This is it! It’s the safehouse or your sister’s! And I’m sorry you don’t like it, and I’m sorry I got you into this, and I’m sorry you had to fall in love with me in high school, and I’m sorry I ruined your world. But at the very least let me try to protect you while we get this shit under control. Then, if you want, you and Cheyenne can leave me in the dust since you’re already so good at it.”
I balked at him. “Tanner!”
He turned his back to me and started walking down the hallway. “Call me when you’ve made a decision about your daughter.”
“Damn it, Tanner. Come on!”
While I didn’t want to talk about what happened at The Body Shop, ever, we still had to figure out how best to protect Cheyenne. So, I chased after him. I ran him down and wrapped my way in front of him, stopping him dead in his tracks.
And after gathering my thoughts, I drew in a deep breath through my nose.
“I think it would be a good idea if Cheyenne went to be with my sister, but I still need some time to think about it. To—to process everything that’s happening right now.”
He brushed past me. “Well, when you figure it out, let me know. You’ve got until the morning.”
“Tanner, come on. Talk to me.”
But instead of answering me, he stormed into a bedroom down at the end of the hallway before slamming the door closed.
And even though I was worried for my daughter’s safety, I couldn’t help but memorize which room he had ducked into.
Just in case I wanted to find him before the sun crested over the treetops in the morning.
