Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
In jail. For what I did.
That’s probably fair.
“Okay,” I whisper past the clog in my throat. And I would have done what she wanted and not talked to her at all, but this isn’t about her. Or even Stone. “Daisy’s got a hot spot on her right foreleg. You should get it checked out.”
“I know she does. That’s why we’re here. She misses him because he’s stuck out here with you.” She gives me a narrowed look. “As if you give a shit about a dog. Is that what you’re doing? Taking advantage of all his soft spots so you can keep clinging to him? You need to just leave him alone. Because you’re right, he is a good man. And you’ve done enough harm.”
My head feels utterly numb when I nod. All of me is utterly numb as she leaves, slamming the door and turning the key.
Except my eyes and throat and heart are burning. I bury my face in my upraised knees, and every thought of a future turns to ash. Because what did I think, really? That I’d help rescue Matt, then triumphantly return and tell Stone everything? That we’d just pick up where we left off—or truly go back, to that night in the tavern. And I’d tell him my name instead of lying, and we’d have everything that might have been?
While his family hates me. While his club blames me.
While he still doesn’t even want me to touch him.
There’s no going back. I’ve done what I’ve done. There’s no future beyond rescuing Matt. Not here.
And Stone is a good man. I always knew it, but now I have an even clearer picture of him. A man who loves his dog, and who stood in front of one of those do-it-yourself dog tag engravers, feeding coins into a slot and pushing a button so that if he ever lost her, it would be so easy to contact him and let him know she’s been found. So he made a small tag engraved with Daisy’s name and his phone number. Then put that tag on her collar.
I look at it now. Thin, sturdy metal. A diamond shape that will fit perfectly into a screw head. With one push of a button, a good man gave me a way to escape—and a way to contact him afterwards.
Even if it’s only to say that I’m sorry.
* * *
I’ll have to apologize for stealing from him, too. Two pairs of socks, a black hoodie, dark gray sweatpants—and a hundred dollars that I peel off the roll of cash on the table.
I’ll pay it back. But I have no idea where we are now, or how long it’ll take me to reach a police station. So I might need the money.
Getting through a hole in a wall ends up being a lot harder than getting through the bars over my stall. More painful, too. It feels as if I scrape away most of the skin over my hipbones—and scrape away the sweatpants, too. But I keep wriggling through, and it probably looks as if the cabin gives birth when gravity takes over and I land on the ground in a sweaty, bare-assed heap.
Oh god. I lay in the dirt, half laughing and half crying, then drag the pants back up my legs. I lift the hood up over my hair. The sun set a little while ago, so the dark clothes should help me get through this next part undetected. I saw security cameras on our walk earlier today, but they only seemed to cover the front of the cabins.
So I’ll go behind.
Creeping, so quietly. I’m not afraid of being caught. Not in the same way as in the barns. I’m afraid of being stopped, but not afraid of any punishment afterward. Despite all that I’ve done, Stone has never hurt me. I suspect hurting a woman is a bright red line that he won’t cross. Maybe something could shove him over that line. Like it did in the Cage. But it would have to be an immediate threat to someone he loved.
Behind the cabin nearest to the clubhouse, I flatten myself against the ground. A motorcycle rolls into the lot ahead, the headlight sweeping the side of the cabin. Not shining on me, but I remain absolutely still, watching.
I know they’re having some kind of meeting, and the lot is completely full of bikes. A few are parked less than fifteen feet away from me. But the only biker I see is the one who just rode in, and he stops near the clubhouse entrance.
As soon as they’re all inside, I’ll steal a motorcycle and go. These bikes are a lot bigger than the dirt bikes that Matt and I used to mess around on while we were growing up, but the basics must be the same. Throttle, clutch, gearshift, brake. If I can figure out those, I’m golden. Even if someone on a security camera sees me leave, while I’m in these dark clothes they probably wouldn’t realize right away that I’m not one of their own. They’d just assume someone was leaving the meeting early.