I took off again, heading the way Waverley had run.
I couldn’t see her anymore and felt the sudden urgent need to find her. My heart was beating overtime. There was something wrong. I’d always been able to read her, and something was off. Way off.
I heard a sound to my left and glanced over, seeing a shadow hurrying towards the lake. I took off after it, hoping to God it wasn’t one of my brothers heading into the trees for a quick fuck. After a few strides, I could see it was her, but she was moving fast and even though I called her, she didn’t hear.
I picked up the pace, eating up the ground between us with my longer stride. She was at the lake when I caught up to her, grabbing her by the waist.
She went crazy, started kicking out, punching, and screaming.
“Waverley, it’s me, fuck,” I grunted when her foot hit my inner thigh, almost nailing me in the balls. “Hey, stop it, will you? Shit.”
“Hudson?” she shuddered and stopped her flailing about.
“Yeah,” I still held on, keeping her steady. “What the hell?” I asked her.
She shrugged out of my grasp and took a couple of paces backwards, almost losing her balance. I reached for her again, but she straightened herself up without my help.
“What is going on?” I demanded. “Why’d you run?”
“Run? I didn’t. I just…needed some space. It’s a lot,” she looked around us, as if expecting someone else.
“You’re lying.”
“No I’m not, I’m not. Look, it’s just all… I’m not used to this stuff anymore and, I think… I should go back to the house. I’m a little drunk.”
I folded my arms over my chest. Yes, she was erratic, and I could smell the alcohol on her. I’d seen her throwing back shots, but she wasn’t that drunk that she didn’t know what she was doing.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she said, planting her feet and mirroring me with her arms folded.
“Like what?” I arched a brow.
“Like that.” She waved a hand at me. “Like you have any say in what I do. Like you have a right to chase after me and demand to know what is wrong.”
“So, you admit there is something wrong?”
“No,” she threw her hands in the air, casting a quick look back towards the compound.
Then she turned and walked towards the lake. I followed, and she looked over her shoulder at me and scowled. Like she thought I might have decided she wasn’t worth it, and headed back to the party.
But I wasn’t going anywhere until she told me what was wrong. She didn’t know I knew about her and Reinhart. Some small part of me wanted to see if she would tell me. If she would have the balls to give me the truth.
When she reached the water, she stepped into it, where it was still shallow enough that it touched the tops of her ankles. A few more stepsand the ground dropped away. For a second, I wondered if she was about to jump into the water.
She didn’t move any further but let out a sigh, and I figured the run through the grass and gravel might have hurt the soles of her feet.
I stood behind her, waiting. I could wait all damn night if I had to. She thought she was stubborn. She had seen nothing yet.
“You don’t need to stay,” she said. “I’m just going to stay here a little while before I go to bed.”
When I didn’t respond, she looked over her shoulder at me. Her nose wrinkled, but she kept her mouth shut and turned away from me.
I stepped up next to her. I hadn’t been in too dissimilar a position with her brother when he told me the truth about the threat against Waverley.
King had men patrolling the grounds. The space we owned was so vast someone could sneak into the compound, but it was fenced in, except around the construction site. Cameras would alert us if anything were out of the ordinary.
Still, I didn’t like the thought of her being out here alone.
“What did Reinhart want?” I asked. We’d been standing in silence for five minutes, wrapped in our own thoughts, but I was done waiting for her.
