Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 88936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
His car was missing. That was the first thing she’d discovered.
When she had gone to talk to her Grams about leaving her there to visit and her Grams smiled, then waved her off so she could go back to the easel she had been painting on, Royal’s expression immediately appeared lighter. As if a weight had been lifted—and it had. One she’d been carrying by herself for too long.
She had then asked me to go to Miller’s to see if her dad was there or if they knew who he’d left with. He wasn’t there, he wasn’t at home, and he’d walked out last night, alone. All things I had known already. But she had to find this out on her own.
“Where would he have gone?” she asked, standing in the parking lot of Miller’s, as if there was going to be an answer lying around somewhere.
“Would he have taken off? Any place he ever mention wanting to go see?” I asked.
She was frowning again. I had loved seeing her smile earlier. I wanted that back. But we had to get through this shit first.
“Maybe. But where would he have gotten the money to go anywhere? He spends everything he has at Miller’s. But he always talks about wanting to go to Florida. I just don’t think the Bug could make it there or that he’d have the money to pay for gas to get it there. And when he got there, he’d not have the money to stay anywhere.”
He wasn’t in Florida. Not even close.
“Let me make a call,” I told her, taking out my phone and distancing myself.
I knew I was running out of time, and I had to speed this up. I’d yet to hear from my father today, but it was coming. They would have told him about last night and my reaction. He wouldn’t be happy about it. He saw Royal as a pawn in his plan. Nothing more. I wasn’t to mess with the pawn or the plan.
I pretended to talk to someone on the phone as I held it to my ear. I already had my story lined up and ready. I’d just had to walk her into this opening.
Slipping the phone back in my pocket, I walked over to her. “Would you rather stay here and wait for him to return or find him now?” I asked her.
“Find him now.”
Yeah, I’d known that.
“If the police get involved, they’ll find out he is driving with a suspended license. We don’t need that. I have a guy who is going to put out a watch for the car description and license plate from here to Florida. Once he has a lead, he will let me know. I can get us a private plane, and we can get to him fast.”
She stared at me. “Private plane,” she said.
I nodded, knowing I wasn’t about to use the family’s plane. I’d already found one that had no connection to us, and I’d paid in cash, using a bogus name. My dad wasn’t going to have any crumbs to follow me. I had been cleaning up as I went.
She ran her hand over her head. “Wow. Okay. Um, but Grams …”
“Grams can stay at Haven House. She has a room there whenever she needs it. I wanted to be sure she had somewhere to nap and to feel secure. As if she belonged.”
“You hadn’t mentioned that,” she said.
“I should have. I apologize.”
She sighed. “Don’t apologize. You think of everything. I should have known. I guess then we can go to the house and wait. Do you have somewhere you need to be? Am I keeping you from anything?”
I shook my head. “I wanted to spend the day with you.”
She scrunched her nose. “Not what you were expecting, huh?”
I reached out and took her hand, tugging her close to me. “I’m with you. That’s what I came for. What we do doesn’t matter.”
She let out a groan and rested her forehead on my chest. “When you say things like that, I want to strip you naked and climb on top of you.”
Fuck. I slid a hand around to her ass and pulled her against me.
“Let’s go back to your house, and I will say whatever words that will get you to do exactly what you just described.”
Her laughter was muffled against my chest.
Briefly, I had moments when I questioned what I was doing. Preparing to defy my father. Defy the family. Something I’d never have guessed I, of all people, would do. All for a girl I barely knew and someone I wasn’t entirely sure who was innocent.
Then, she’d remind me why I was willing to do it. Why I was going to do it.
Her hands slid up and fisted in my shirt, as if she needed me to simply stand. The warmth from her body, the sweet scent of her skin, the way she fit against me, as if she had been made for this spot specifically it was all part of the weakness she had created in me.