I slept alone, in the bed farthest from the door. This made me uncomfortable. The two big men did not fit easily on the other bed; Ian tended to sprawl when he was deeply asleep, and Jared was not above throwing punches when that happened. Both of them would be more comfortable if I shared. I slept in a small ball now; maybe it was the too-open spaces I moved in all day that had me constricting in on myself at night, or maybe I was just so used to curling up to sleep in the tiny space behind the passenger seat on the van’s floor that I’d forgotten how to sleep straight.

But I knew why no one asked me to share. The first night the men had unhappily realized the necessity of a hotel shower for me, I’d heard Ian and Jared talking about me over the whir of the bathroom fan.

“. . . not fair to ask her to choose,” Ian was saying. He kept his voice low, but the fan was not loud enough to drown it out. The hotel room was very small.

“Why not? It’s fairer to tell her where she’s going to sleep? Don’t you think it’s more polite —”

“For someone else. But Wanda will agonize over this. She’ll be trying so hard to please us both, she’ll make herself miserable.”

“Jealous again?”

“Not this time. I just know how she thinks.”

There was a silence. Ian was right. He did know how I thought. He’d probably already foreseen that given the slightest hint that Jared would prefer it, I would choose to sleep beside Jared, and then keep myself awake worrying that I’d made Jared unhappy by being there and that I’d hurt Ian’s feelings in the bargain.

“Fine,” Jared snapped. “But if you try cuddling up to me tonight… so help me, O’Shea.”

Ian chuckled. “Not to sound overly arrogant, but to be perfectly honest, Jared, were I so inclined, I think I could do better.”

Despite feeling a little guilty about wasting so much needed space, I probably did sleep better alone.

We didn’t have to go to a hotel again. The days started to pass more quickly, as if even the seconds were trying to run home. I could feel a strange western pull on my body. We were all eager to get back to our dark, crowded haven.

Even Jared got careless.

It was late, no sunlight left lingering behind the western mountains. Behind us, Ian and Kyle were taking turns driving the big moving truck loaded with our spoils, just as Jared and I took turns with the van. They had to drive the heavy vehicle more carefully than Jared did the van. The headlights had faded slowly into the distance, until they disappeared around a wide curve in the road.