Hanover House: Kickoff to the Evelyn Talbot Chronicles

Chapter 11

Evelyn admitted she wanted to sleep with him. That was the part that drove Amarok crazy. She wanted him—and he wanted her. So it seemed as if they should be able to overcome all the rest, no matter what stood between them.

"Dammit," he muttered as he wandered listlessly around his house. It was getting late. He should go to bed. Tomorrow would be the start of another work week. But instead of heading down the hall and peeling off his clothes, he kept eyeing his keys and thinking about the beautiful psychiatrist who was staying for only a short time on the other side of town.

She'd let him get a lot closer to her than anyone else, maybe since Jasper. He liked that she trusted him that much. He also liked the rather shy way she'd let him take her hand before they drove over to get that burger.

But would what they felt go anywhere?

He couldn't remember another woman ever getting under his skin quite like this.

Of course, he'd never met anyone quite like Evelyn Talbot. As much as he disagreed with the risks she took, he had to admit that she was something special, a woman unlike any other.

When his phone rang, he hurried over to grab it, but it wasn't her. Caller ID showed his father's number.

Amarok wasn't eager to talk to Hank. Typically, they got along well. Amarok even liked his stepmother, Joanne, who was a fairly recent addition to his father's life. But the three of them were in the middle of a disagreement over how he should handle his real mother.

Amarok would've let it go to voicemail, except he figured it would give him something to think about besides Evelyn, and that seemed kind of important at the moment. "'Lo?"

"What's going on?" Hank asked.

"Not a lot."

"Prison finished yet?"

"No, and it won't be for a couple of months." He considered telling his father about the vandalism. Hank wasn't the type to blab about it to anyone. Since he'd moved to Anchorage almost as soon as Amarok had become an Alaskan State Trooper, he wasn't all that invested in Hilltop. But Amarok didn't care to talk about anything that reminded him of Evelyn. The idea behind accepting this call was to forget about her for a while.

"Are you still angry it's there?" Hank asked.

"I'm not excited about it." Just the woman behind it...

"So...have you decided?"

Amarok could tell by the tone of Hank's voice that he was changing the topic. "I gave you my answer when we talked last time, Dad."

"I was hoping you'd change your mind."

"No."

"Come on, Amarok. Your mother's specifically requested that you be there, and she's not getting any younger. What's the point of holding a grudge? It's time to forgive her."

Just last week his twin brother, Jason, had called from where he lived in Seattle to say the same thing. "She left me, Dad. She dropped me off at a friend's house, took my brother and moved to Seattle without even telling us. I can't believe you're the one who's asking me to forgive her."

"She wasn't happy in Alaska. And since I didn't have the money to go after her, I was just glad she didn't take both of you."

He sank onto one of the chairs at his kitchen table. "She could've called me occasionally. Remained part of my life. But she didn't. She's the one who cut contact, not me."

"But don't you see? That was something else I was grateful for. I didn't want you begging me to leave Hilltop too—to go to your mother and brother."