I roll my eyes, barreling down the stairs toward the bungalow.
Did I want to tell Evie my plan? Yes. Did I recognize that a million things could interrupt and potentially kill my plan? Also yes. I know how hard it is to trust someone when everyone in your life has taught you not to—and while I can see why she’s upset, this is exactly why I didn’t want to tell her yet.
I want to give her everything she’s ever wanted, but I can’t give her the hope only to kill it later.
I needed a solid plan. A draft from the architect. Signed paperwork. And while I’ve managed to clear the hurdle that is Mayor Reed, I didn’t want to paint the picture that Evie always wanted only to have it ripped to shreds later on.
But now she’s gotten hold of information she wasn’t supposed to have until I could trust my plan would come to fruition.
And I have no doubt that within a few small seconds, she’s created a narrative in her mind that paints me as the bad guy she always thought I was. I’m no better than the version of myself that showed up months ago,measuringher stream instead ofprotectingit.
And that’s not me. It never was.
I bluster into the bungalow, calling her name. When she doesn’t answer me, I check every room of the house, sure she could be hiding in some nook or cranny I know nothing about.
But she’s not even in a damn closet.
Or the squished area underneath the sink in the basement that could probably just barely obscure her from view if she’s willing to deal with the dirt floor and any number of spiders that might be hanging out there.
She’s not in the bathtub, hidden by the curtain, or the laundry closet, contorted between shelves.
She’s not under the bed or the coffee table. Not hidden in the crawlspace or waiting me out in the attic.
As I step out onto the front porch, I know without a doubt that Eve is not in this damn house.
But her car is out front, so I can only assume she’s somewhere on the property.
I take a good long look around me, the sky threateningto go dusky at any moment, and I know that I have to find her soon or this narrative she’s spinning in her mind is going to get out of control.
I check the backseat of her car. The chicken coop. I do another lap around the barn—and another in the minefield underneath—and call Sana to double-check she didn’t wind back and ask to hide up there. I do a lap around the sunflower fields and then follow the rapidly deteriorating trail that winds through them.
And when I’m done, I realize that on Evie’s farm, no one is going to find her unless she wants to be found. She’s probably hiding out in the sunflowers, in some nook or cranny I’ll never find her in.
And as much as I want to drag her out of there and tell her repeatedly that I’m not buying out her dream for the sake of killing it, I know that she’s only going to come out when she’s ready. That maybe this is one situation that I can’t power my way through.
I just have to wait for her to decide to listen to me.
And in the meantime, I’m going to make all of her dreams come true.
40
EVE
Iwait among the sunflowers until the BMW comes to life and putters away. Iknowthat I should be marching out of here with my head held high, willing to listen to whatever it is that Ryder has to say.
I know him well enough to know that he likely has good intentions, but that doesn’t negate the shock that zipped through my body upon seeing the address of the cabins on his contracts. He promised me that he wouldn’t touch them. That he’d let that little dream of mine live on, as unrealistic as it might be.
And rather than even talk to me about it, he went forward with buying them.
I want to believe this all just looks a hell of a lot worse than it is.
But life has taught me to believe the worst in people.
I hesitantly step out of the sunflowers, shivering either with rage or the lower temperature now that the sun has gone down, and head toward my bungalow.
Running and hiding might not be thebestway to deal with my issues, but it’s better than pushing Ryder in thestream again, which is the only reason I really want to interact with him at this point.
I know that talking to him right now is not the best choice for me.
