Few things drive home how serious this is than watching Riker sit down and have a very quiet, very solemn talk with Em about the fact that we’re leaving again.

And this time, we might not be coming back for a very long time.

Somehow, it’s more final. More real. It was one thing when it was just scattered incidents, but in the end, once it was over, we were always coming home to a normal life.

No.

They were always coming home to a normal life. This isn’t my life, no matter how much I’ve loved pretending all this time. But they still had that – the illusion everything would be okay, and nothing would change for them, in the end.

Not really.

Riker would still go to work. Em would still go to school. They’d have their friends, their hobbies, Riker and his wooden ships in bottles and his late night drinks and his quiet, broody, irresistible man-thoughts. And Em with her savant-level math and her self-defense classes and her crush on her instructor’s kid, Ryan.

I’ve disrupted their entire lives. Screwed up everything.

I was supposed to be in and out and gone once this problem was over, but it’s been almost a month now and we only know a little more than we did before. We’re no closer to ending this.

I have no idea how large the Pilgrims’ organization is. There could be hundreds or thousands of them.

Are we going to have to arrest them all before we can feel safe again?

How are we going to stop this when they can just send an endless wave of people after us? And even if I walk out of Riker and Em’s lives right now, they’ll never be safe again – and it’s all because of me?

I just want to curl up into a ball and disappear, take all my problems with me.

Em, though, isn’t nearly so reserved. As soon as Riker finishes explaining that we’re going back to “Grandma Em’s house,” she’s all excited energy, rattling off memories of swimming in a creek and learning how to skip stones and how it actually snows and and and –

I almost smile. She’s so alive, so courageous, and I really do admire her.

She’s an amazing girl, who’s going to grow up to be an amazing woman.

She races upstairs to pack, leaving me and Riker alone, sitting a significant distance apart on the couch. He sits like there’s a mammoth on his shoulders, bowing him forward, his hands dangling between his legs, and he just stares at them coldly without a word.

I’m afraid to break the silence, but I venture anyway, “There's a Grandma Em?”

“Ah. Her maternal grandmother. She’s named after her.” He looks up at me with an exhausted smile, and the tired lines in his face nearly kill me. “There’s a winter lodge just outside Yosemite, up around the ski resorts. Crystal – my ex-wife’s parents – are still alive, but they'd deeded the lodge to her. When she died, I couldn’t stand to keep it. So I gave the deed back, but I still have a key. They’ve told me I’m welcome to take Em up any time.”

Nodding, I smile. This doesn't sound half bad. “We can use the getaway.”

He shrugs, looking up with his eyes dark and severe. “It’s messy terrain, Liv. Hard to get to on foot, impossible to get to directly by car or even prop plane. We’ll have to hike about a mile, but it’s defensible – and since there’s no legal connection between me and Em’s grandparents except Em, it’s a lot harder to trace through any official records to figure out we might've disappeared to a remote cabin with my ex-in-laws’ names on the title.”

I want to comfort him so much, so deeply.

Anything to ease some of the misery I’ve brought to his life. I half expect him to push me away when I scoot over to lean against his side, offering closeness when I don’t have words.

But I nearly squeak when instead he wraps both arms tight around me so suddenly. So strongly.

That’s when I realize I’ve done the right thing. This bear of a man is way too proud to ever ask, but it couldn't be clearer...

Riker needs me.

Just as much as I need him.

And I hadn’t realized how much I’d needed this until we’re holding each other so tight, nearly clinging, and he’s rasping soft words into my hair with such raw, pure feeling.

The desperation, the fear, and something even deeper.

“I almost fucking lost you today,” he whispers. “Christ. If I’d shown up just a minute later...”

“But you didn’t lose me.” I clutch my hands against the back of his shirt and press into him so hard, it’s like I’m trying to melt into his muscle, his ink, his wall of flesh. “You saved me. You always save me. I know you always will.”

“Liv, yeah.” Two simple words, more like thunder than human speech.

He sweeps me up so suddenly then.

It takes my breath away – but not nearly as much as his kiss.

He holds me captive, not with force but with gentle, tender warmth so magnetic it pulls me into an unbreakable hold, compelling me to fall into him.

My lips part for him. For the wonderful, luscious feeling that comes when he slips into me and tastes me and caresses me so intimately from within, making my mouth his with every touch, branding me far deeper than my lips.

He’s been inside my body, my mind, my heart.

Even if I ran away tomorrow to try to keep him safe, I’d always carry him with me.

Yet I know now, as I melt into him with a moan, as he nips and teases my mouth to a sweet addiction, as he makes me gasp with the sheer intensity that's Riker Woods...

I can’t leave.

Not for anything.

Not unless he tells me to go because I’m so deeply in love with this stoic, strange, wonderfully kind man that I don’t have the strength to pull away.

He’s shown me in so many ways that I have it in me to be strong, that there’s a fierceness inside me I never knew I had. But no power, no force of will, could ever compel me to walk away.

I’m his, now and always, even if he doesn’t even know it.

We finally break, just barely.

Just enough to breathe.

But we lean so close against each other that the familiar scratch of his beard against my cheek is equal parts comfort and cruel temptation. I don’t know who's soothing who anymore, when he’s holding me so close and I’m stroking my fingers through his hair until the hard tension in his shoulders eases.

Does it matter?

No. All that matters is that we’re here for each other.

“I’m going to find a way out of this,” I whisper, tucking my head beneath his jaw. “I’ll find a way to fix this. My Dad made this problem. I know I'll find a way to make it right.”

“You shouldn’t have to, Liv. That's my job.”

“Maybe.” But there’s a firm resolution in me, something growing that even I don’t wholly understand.

Only that it’s like a steady fire, one that doesn’t rage but holds its heat bright and hot and true, patient and waiting. “But I know how to handle Daddy. We can go to Yosemite for now, but once I figure out what to do...I’m going to make sure you come home again, Riker. This place will be safe for everyone again.”

I can feel his smile, where his cheek presses to mine. “Damn, sweetheart, so now you’re protecting me?”

“I owe you a few.”

He pulls back, looking at me strangely, then kisses me with a heartbreaking softness. “You don’t owe me nothing, Liv,” he says, “other than to be yourself.”

Be myself.

But who am I today?

I think of Eden, my heroine in my book, and her quest to answer the same question. I know her journey has been a mirror of my own, but I still can’t help but wonder.

Who am I now? Who, really?

And how far am I willing to go to keep this new life I’ve discovered?