She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth while she considered my answer. “Okay, but do you need someone to look you over? There’s a paramedic over there.”
I glanced over at the ambulance and shook my head before my gaze dropped to her arm. “I know my limits, and I’m nowhere near them. But now that you mention it, we should have someone check you over to make sure you don’t have any other injuries besides the scratch on your arm.”
Her lips parted, and I had a hunch she was about to argue, but her dad beat her to the punch and practically dragged her over to the ambulance. I followed them, and she glared over her shoulder at me the entire way. Luckily, the paramedic confirmed that the scratch looked superficial and didn’t find any additional issues that needed to be treated.
When he was done, Victoria glared at her dad and me and mumbled, “I told you so.”
Arthur tapped the tip of her nose with his index finger and smiled. “Better safe than sorry, Tori.”
She heaved an exasperated sigh, shaking her head.
The smile wiped from his face as he turned to me. “I’ll give you my number before Victoria and I leave. You need anything, all you have to do is call.”
I was tempted to tell him that what I wanted was to make his daughter mine, but I didn’t think that would go over well with him. Or her, for that matter. She barely knew me and had been through an ordeal. The last thing she needed was me to comeon too strong. But I couldn’t stand the idea of her leaving my hometown and never seeing her again. And not just for selfish reasons. I was worried about her safety, too.
“I’ll keep that in mind, thanks.”
“So, what’s next?” Victoria asked. “A hotel? I have a bajillion phone calls to make to replace everything they stole. Thank goodness I took out the optional insurance on the rental car.”
“I headed straight here from the airport.” Arthur pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and tapped on the screen. “But I’m sure I can find a vacation rental nearby where we can hole up while we wait for news from the sheriff.”
“No need. My mom has plenty of space,” I offered, wanting to keep Victoria close for as long as possible.
“Sounds like the perfect plan,” she agreed with a smile, not noticing the knowing look her dad aimed at me.
Since I’d hitched a ride with the sheriff, Arthur drove us to my childhood home. As we walked up the steps, my mom flung the door open and came rushing out to give me a hug. “My boy, the hero.”
“Not hardly, Mom.” I brushed a kiss against the top of her head. “Victoria saved herself all on her own.”
My mom turned to Victoria and pulled her into a hug, too. “You poor, sweet girl. I bet you’d like a nice, hot shower and some food. Am I right?”
I chuckled to myself and followed the women inside as my mom fussed over Victoria, enjoying the fuck out of seeing the two of them interact. The sheriff had been right about my mom liking Victoria. Before I headed into the shower, she whispered, “It’s a good thing the next woman you met was so darn sweet since you really did bring her home to me. Nicely done, my boy.”
There wasn’t any point in denying I had ulterior motives. My mom knew me too well and would see right through me. Instead,I wagged my brows and teased, “Don’t forget that you promised to teach her how to cook my favorite foods.”
When I got out of the shower, I found her doing exactly that. She and Victoria were in the kitchen making dinner. While they were busy and Arthur was on the phone, I sent a few texts to Brecken to update him on the situation. Then I fired up my laptop to do a little digging into the street cameras in the area to see if I could spot Victoria’s rental and get a lead on the bad guys.
I came up empty, but after we had dinner a few hours later, my cell phone rang.
“If that’s the sheriff, you might as well put him on speaker so he doesn’t need to call me next to tell me the same information,” Arthur suggested.
My mom was putting the leftovers away, but she shooed Victoria over to the table as the sheriff filled us in on what they’d learned so far.
“The plane is registered in Mexico, and one of the dogs the state troopers brought out to the crash site alerted. It’s almost a sure bet the plane was carrying drugs or cash to buy them when it went down, but the cargo is long gone. The pilot’s body was the only thing left behind.”
As soon as the call disconnected, Arthur looked at me and growled, “Victoria can’t stay here. It isn’t safe for her to be this close to the crash site.”
“She can’t go home, either. They know where she lives,” I pointed out, my blood boiling at the thought of her possibly being in the cross-hairs of a drug cartel.
“Fuck,” he bit out, scrubbing his palms down his face.
“You should take her to the cabin.”
My mom’s suggestion was perfect. Only a handful of people knew the location, and it was hard as fuck to find unless you’d been there before. The deed was registered in my maternal grandfather’s name, so it would take some digging to connectthe place to me. And I’d installed satellite Wi-Fi the last time I’d been up there. I’d be able to stay in contact with Brecken and the rest of the team back at Kane Securities while they helped do whatever needed to be done to make Victoria safe again.
8
VICTORIA
