“Tripp threatened to kill everyone I love.”
“I know.”
“I was afraid he’d killyou.”
His eyes met hers again, assessing.“And you decided to save me by putting yourself in his path?”
She frowned at the question.“No.I meant to warn Amanda and come back.”
“It was dangerous for you to go on your own,” he said.
“You’re right.It was dangerous.”
“Why didn’t you ask for my help?”
Meredith shook her head.“I was worried that you’d try to retaliate against Tripp, or file charges against him.He had a half-dozen bodyguards, and some of them were former cops.He had the law in his pocket.”
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles.“He’ll never bother you again.”
Meredith didn’t wish to celebrate Tripp’s death, but she felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.She could go back to Kansas if she liked.She could leave Texas and start over.The only place she wanted to be was Lost Lake, however.
Wade released her hand and turned his attention to the road.He maneuvered into light traffic.They passed her abandoned truck on the outskirts of town.Rain continued to fall, bringing heavy clouds that darkened the afternoon sky.
Wade seemed lost in his own thoughts as he drove home.Sheriff Nava called, and Wade claimed he’d been dealing with a family emergency in Last Chance.He said he’d be back to Lost Lake in a few hours.Meredith used her backpack as a pillow and curled up with Chico.Sheriff Hendricks’s insults echoed in her ears like an infection, and the photographs of dozens of pretty women flashed through her mind.
She wasn’t like the women on Wade’s social media page.She wasn’tclassy.Wade found her attractive, obviously.He’d asked her to be his girlfriend.Maybe he was serious about her.Maybe he wasn’t.Facing reality was, in some ways, more difficult than staying in survival mode.She didn’t have an excuse to avoid emotional attachments.She couldn’t justify breaking up with Wade for his own good.She had too much pride to break up with him because he was too good forher.
If she loved him—and she did—she had to go all in.She had to tell him how she felt and hope he felt the same way.
The thought of putting herself out there, after two years in hiding, terrified her.She’d been on the run, avoiding risks, and guarding her heart.If she confessed her love to Wade, and he rejected her, she’d be devastated.She’d rather go down fighting, though.She had to stay strong and stand her ground, like Wynona said.Nothing was holding her back anymore.No one was searching for her.She controlled her fate from this moment forward.She could go anywhere she liked and do whatever she pleased.She was a free woman.
But all she wanted was to be his.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Wade brooded aboutthe conversation with his father, his predicament at work, and his feelings for Meredith.
He couldn’t resolve any of it.
His father claimed he hadn’t buried Cameron Pickett.Although Wade didn’t trust Boyd Hendricks to be honest about past crimes, his words had held a ring of truth.The mystery of the missing corpse haunted Wade.How could the body disappear from the riverbank, only to reappear again at the burial site?He supposed it was possible that Pickett had been unconscious, rather than dead, when his mother left the scene.She wasn’t a reliable source of information, after suppressing the memory for thirty years, not to mention dulling her senses with drugs and alcohol.Maybe Pickett had dragged himself upstream, only to expire underneath a tree a short while later.The problem was the burial itself.Wade couldn’t believe that Pickett had lain out in the open, unnoticed, until the earth grew over him.
His thoughts drifted to the trouble at work.Wade was a man who valued his career above all things.He needed to figure out what to say to Nava, and how to protect his mother from prosecution.
Meredith, while safe at the moment, posed another challenge.He tried not to feel despair over the fact that he’d fallen hopelessly in love with her.Although she wasn’t in hiding anymore, their future was uncertain.He didn’t know if she would even stay in Lost Lake.
Wade hazarded a glance at her.She stared out the window at the rain.Chico, the only contented traveler in their trio, snored gently in her lap.Her dark hair fell to her shoulders in loose tangles, and the color had returned to her cheeks.
He focused his attention on the road.He wanted to take her in his arms and strip away the barriers between them.He wanted to make her happy.His mind drifted back to the afternoon of their first date, when she’d tangled her fingers in his hair as he pleasured her with his mouth.He pictured her underneath the tree on the riverbank, with her skirt hiked up and her breasts bare.
His blood thickened with arousal.
Then he remembered something else about their sensual interlude.The carved initials in the tree trunk flashed at the edge of his memory.He’d taken a photo of them.Keeping one eye on the road, he grabbed his phone, found the photo, and studied it.The evidence was right there for all the world to see:EN+WN
Eric Nava + Wynona Nolan.
Frowning, he put his phone away.His mother had known Sheriff Nava since they were kids.But she’d dated Cameron, not him.Had Nava been involved with his mother?Someone with the initials EN had been to that swimming hole.What did Nava know about Cameron Pickett’s death?
“You mentioned a resemblance between me and Cameron Pickett,” Wade said.
