“What do you mean?” I asked dumbly, fear gripping my chest. “Are you okay? What happened?”
“I was coming back from Boise. I’m in town, and I was going to go home, but?—”
“No,” I said firmly. “Come to the ranch.”
Sutton made a noise of assent before hanging up.
In the fifteen minutes it took her to arrive, I’d damn near worn a groove in the floor of the den from my pacing. When her car finally appeared, I was outside in a flash, opening her car door, unbuckling her, and pulling her into my arms before she could protest or do it herself.
“Sunny,” I murmured into her hair. “Are you okay?”
She nodded against my chest. “Just shaken up.”
“Come inside,” I said, already tugging her in that direction.
I hated forcing her to confront the cavalry in her stunned condition, but it wasn’t the first time my family had seen a woman in distress like this, and it likely wouldn’t be the last.
While I got Sutton settled in the den, Mama appeared with a mug of hot apple cider. Before passing it to Sutton, I tested it to be sure it was alcohol free. All evening my family had been imbibing in glasses of the cider mixed with apple pie Mama distilled herself. Thelastthing my girl needed right now was booze.
Mama shot me a quizzical look, but I ignored it.
“Can you tell me what happened?” I asked gently, sitting down beside her.
“Not much to tell,” she said after a sip of the apple cider. Her voice seemed steadier now, and I noted her hands weren’t shaking any longer. All good signs. “I was…thinking. On my drive home. I turned on an audiobook and kind of tuned out.”
“Thinking?” I asked, raising a brow.
“Yeah,thinking. Not paying super close attention to my surroundings.” I started to issue an admonishment, but she held up a hand, stopping me. “I know, I know. Dumb thing to do. The next time I looked in my mirror, a black SUV was there.”
“Any distinguishing features you can remember?” I asked, patting my pockets for the spiral bound notebook I normally kept on me for such occasions. Of course, this time, I’d left it at home.
Sutton shook her head. “Just a big black SUV with tinted windows.”
“Could you make out who was driving?”
“No,” she said. “I couldn’t see anything beyond the headlights.”
“A big black SUV with tinted windows,” Trey mused, reminding me my entire family stood around, watching us. “Sounds like a government vehicle to me.”
Sutton’s attention snapped to him, eyes darting between us. “Addie?” she whispered, and Trey shrugged as if to say,could be.
“Woah,” I said, raising my hands. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.”
My brother’s shoulders hitched up again. “Just because you refuse to see it doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t.”
He turned and walked away before I could demand to know what the fuck he meant by that.
After we saidour goodbyes and Mama sent us out the door with a mountain of leftovers, Sutton and I headed home. I trailed after her the whole way, my head on a swivel, checking our surroundings for threats.
We were barely in the door before she turned on me, her entire body buzzing with restless energy.
I could think of a few ways to help her expend it, but I wasn’t going to push her when she’d made it so clear after the gala she wasn’t ready for that.
Maybe I’d suggest another mutual masturbation session. That had been the hottest experience of my life and had accompanied my jerk off sessions every day since. Thinking about her dripping pussy, her flushed skin, her perfect mouth?—
“Can we spar?”
Sutton’s question immediately derailed my train of nasty thoughts, and I asked dumbly, “Like…verbally?”
