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“No.”
She scowls at me. “Yes. I’m Ally here and have been for six years. I’ve made a life for myself, and I like it. A lot.”
“So you’re not planning to go back to Seattle for good?”
“Hell, no. You know who my family is. I’m not going back to that. But Grandma was the most important person in my life, even if I haven’t seen her in eight years.” Her chin wobbles again, but she sniffs and pulls herself together. “So, I’m going to her funeral.”
“If the family sees you, they won’t let you leave again.”
“They won’t see me.”
“Elena—”
“Ally.”
“This is crazy. I’m not taking you back there, knowing that your life could be in danger.”
To my utter shock, Elena pulls a small handgun on me and levels me with a cold look.
“Yes, you are.”
I smirk at the gun. She won’t kill me.
“You’re right,” she says as if she can read my mind. “I’m not going to kill you. But I could take out your knee, your shoulder. Your balls.”
I drop the smile and narrow my eyes at her. She’s not kidding.
I’m being held at gunpoint by the love of my life.
And she is the love of my life. Standing here, looking at her, has me aching. God, I missed her. And I’m smart enough to know that there’s so much about her I don’t know anymore. She’s not the same woman she was when she was eighteen.
But I’m going to relearn her. Because letting her out of my sight again is simply not an option.
“Let’s talk about this.”
She doesn’t blink as she cocks the gun.
I move fast and grip the wrist of her shooting hand as I pull her against me, the gun now pointed away from us.
“I’ll take you,” I say at last, my nose inches from hers. “But we do it my way, and you won’t ever pull this shit on me again. After everything you put me through, I deserve better than a gun barrel pointed at my face.”
I let her go and walk away, then turn back, soaking her in. “And we’re going to talk on the way up there.”
She lowers the gun and shoves it back into her waistband. “It’s a long drive. I figured we’d talk. I have to call my job.”
She pushes her fingers through her long, dark hair and hurries to the side of the bed to pick up a cordless phone straight from the nineties.
She dials a number and waits for someone to answer.
“Hey, Chad, it’s Ally. Is Margie in? I was hoping to catch her. She’s not? Okay. Well, I’ve had a family emergency. I need to leave for a couple of days.” Her eyes well up again, and it tears at my heart. “Yeah, a death. I know we’re already shorthanded, and I hate to do this to you. I know. Family first.”
She lowers the phone from her mouth and wipes at a tear.
“Thank you, Chad. Really. I’ll call you if I’ll be out more than two or three days. Okay. Bye.”
She hangs up, and I can’t stand it anymore. I cross to her and gently pull her to me.
Elena’s arms immediately encircle my middle, and she buries her gorgeous face in my chest, allowing herself a good cry.
I rock us back and forth, rubbing circles over her back and crooning to her.
“It’s going to be okay, sweetheart.”
She’s got a death-grip on my shirt, and her tears rip at my heart. She’s clearly hurting, and the only way to help her feel better is to drive her to Seattle.
So it looks like that’s what we’ll do.* * *“I wish we’d left last night,” she says from the passenger seat, staring out at the pretty Oregon scenery.
“We both needed the sleep,” I remind her. She slept hard. I offered to take the couch, but she said that was silly and offered half of the bed.
I took it.
I only touched her once when she whimpered in her sleep, and I reached over to rub her back.
Now that I’ve found her, there’s plenty of time for the rest of it. I don’t even know how she feels about seeing me again. But she didn’t turn me away, and I’ll take that as a win.
“The funeral is tomorrow at two in the afternoon,” she says. “At least, that’s what the news said.”
“I can do a search to confirm it,” I reply. “But you can’t go in there like this.”
“Of course, not. I’ll buy a wig and wear sunglasses.”
I glance at her and scowl. “You might as well wear a neon sign that says, This is Elena, hiding from all of you.”
“Well, what do you suggest I do?”
“I’ve got this.” I reach for my phone and dial my baby sister’s number.
“I haven’t talked to you in weeks,” Amelia says rather than hello. “Where are you?”
“In my car. Hey, I have a special project for you.”
