The Shuddering

protested.
    “You’re going to go out there and as soon as you find her there’s going to be another fight,” Ryan warned. “You’ll get stuck out there and then the both of you will have pneumonia. Let me go.”
    Sawyer frowned, looking unsure. He looked to Jane for reassurance, and she slowly offered him a nod.
    Ryan waited for Sawyer to step back into the living room before giving Jane a look. Talk to him. And then he turned down the hallway and walked up the stairs.
    He paused when he saw Lauren sitting on the sill of the bay window in the upstairs hall. After what he had watched transpire between April and Sawyer outside, he was overwhelmed with the urge to confide in her, to let her know that, yeah, she had his attention. An odd sensation twisted his stomach as soon as she looked his way. It was nerves. He hadn’t felt nervous around a girl in years.
    “You okay?” he asked, and she offered him a faint shrug before twisting her hair. He paused next to the window, his shoulder against the wall. “What?”
    “I feel bad,” she confessed, looking out onto the trees. “For Jane, I mean. Learning about it like that.” She paused, meeting Ryan’s gaze. “Did you know?”
    Ryan sucked in a breath. Being clued in to the seriousness of Sawyer and April’s relationship but still having chosen to shove Sawyer and Jane into the same house for four days made him feel like shit. It had been a selfish attempt to lift some of his own guilt for taking the merger, more money, the move—because if Sawyer could only take his place, he wouldn’t have to feel so bad for leaving Jane behind.
    “Really?” Lauren asked, taking his silence as a yes. She gave him a severe look, as if judging him by that single indiscretion. It made him numb, like he couldn’t have screwed up any more even if he had tried. “Did you want this to happen?”
    “Of course not,” he said somewhat curtly, then looked down at his feet and shook his head. “Of course not,” he repeated, his tone softening. “I never wanted any of this. But I’m an idiot. I thought I could change things.”
    “How?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You’re lying,” she said, sliding off the windowsill to stand in front of him, nearly chest to chest. “It was a chivalrous gesture,” she said. “It says a lot about your character. But you’re right, you’re an idiot. This shouldn’t have happened. This is bad all around.”
    “I’m self-indulgent, irresponsible.”
    “You don’t need to degrade yourself, Ryan.”
    “Then what?” he asked, chewing his bottom lip.
    “Just make it right. Sit them down and explain it to them. Apologize.” She offered him a smile, lifting a hand to slide her fingers along the curve of his jaw. Ryan’s stomach flipped. He closed his eyes, then caught her hand in his, giving it a light squeeze, trying to sequester the butterflies that had unfurled their wings inside his chest.
    “I want this to work,” she whispered, her breath caressing the shell of his ear. “Us, I mean. I want to see where this goes. But I need you to fix this, you understand? I need to know you have that in you, because if Jane can’t trust you with her heart, I certainly can’t trust you with mine.”
    “Ren.” He whispered her name, the tips of his fingers dragging along her arm. She tilted her head as if to listen, allowing the swell of her bottom lip to brush against his. “I’ll fix it, but April’s still outside. I have to go find her.”
    Lauren leaned back, putting an inch between them before she offered him a quiet laugh. Taking a backward step, she motioned to Ryan that he was free to leave, but it was the last thing he wanted to do. He yearned to kiss her, to have that first intimatemoment right there by the window, the snow in the foreground, the both of them standing in his favorite place. But it couldn’t be. Not then. So he did the next-best thing. Lifting her hand in his, he pressed his lips to her knuckles before releasing her fingers. He turned away from her, pointing himself toward his room.
    He paused when he heard her speak.
    “I’m coming with you,” she said. “Give me two minutes.” And then she ducked into the master bedroom, and he couldn’t help but smile.



CHAPTER EIGHT
    J ane and Sawyer watched Ryan and Lauren step into the snow from the open kitchen door, Oona following her master. Tracking people in the bitter cold was what Oona had been bred to do, but as soon as the trio reached the deck