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“She’s gone, boy.”
My gaze snapped up from my phone where I had been typing out a text to Rory. “She already go home? Fuck, she shouldn’t be there right now. Her mom just died, Jenks. She needs to be with people who care about her right now. Me and you both know the goddamn mayor won’t fucking make sure she’s okay.”
Jenkins scratched at the stubble on his chin, a sign I’d come to realize meant he was thinking about what he was about to say. “The reason it took so long to get you out was because Michaels and Campbell were trying to hike the charges up to statutory rape. They had the girl scared to death that they would be able to convict you and put you away. She’s vulnerable from the death of her mother, and she’s not thinking clearly. If I’d been able to talk to her, I could have convinced her that her father didn’t have shit for proof, but they wouldn’t let anyone near her.”
I had suspected rape was bound to be talked about in some shape or form considering the way Rory had been found in my bed. I still hadn’t been worried. Jenkins was the best defense attorney in the damn state. That was why he worked for the MC.
But that didn’t explain what the fuck he meant about Rory being gone.
“You said she’s gone,” I half growled even as my heart was turning to ice, slowing down, ready to stop at any second. “Where the fuck did she go?”
“Hell, I don’t know. All I know is that she agreed to go with her father if he agreed to drop all charges against you. A chartered plane left an hour ago, son. Michaels told Bates to hold you until the plane was gone.”
Chapter Two
Rory
Three Years Later
NERVOUSNESS CHURNED IN MY STOMACH as I stepped into the grocery store and glanced around.
He’s not here, I tried to assure myself. The likelihood of bumping into Matt at the grocery store was one in a million. He’d never gone shopping for food when we’d dated three years ago. Even as relief calmed some of the butterflies in my stomach, disappointment made my chest tighten.
I had only gotten back to Creswell Springs two days ago. While I’d been gone, I’d dreamed of coming back here a million times. At the time, I had thought I would never get the chance, that as long as my father was alive, it wasn’t possible. He had been holding Matt’s freedom over my head, telling me if I ever dared to contact anyone in the MC, he would have Royce Campbell issue an arrest warrant for Matt and anyone else I so much as exchanged a single word with.
The only reason I was back now was because soon I would turn twenty-one, and I would inherit everything my mother had left to me. When she told me she was going to make sure I would be taken care of, I’d only thought she meant she was going to leave me a trust fund that would let me have a comfortable life. But once the will had been read, via Skype by Mr. Jenkins, I had been blown away by how generous Mom had been.
Everything. It was all mine, or would be as soon as I turned the magic age of twenty-one. Stunned was too tame a word for how my father had taken the news. He had exploded, and for the first time in my life, I had been physically afraid of the man. He had thrown things, leaving the floor littered with broken glass. The walls of the house my mother’s grandparents had left her had been full of holes that had needed patching days later when my father had finally calmed down.
His rage had been unexpected at the time, and I’d been too afraid and shocked to question it. But when everything had settled down and he had returned to Creswell Springs, leaving me with only a housekeeper and a driver who were both my father’s spies, I realized exactly why my father was so upset.
Spending my mother’s money had been his favorite pastime. It had paid for his elections when he ran for mayor, it paid for his beloved expensive handcrafted suits, and, I suspected, his mistress’s lifestyle as well. Now, those funds were frozen except for the generous allowance my mother had stipulated for me to have each month. An allowance my father had said I didn’t need and he would be taking charge of.
Making me even more of a prisoner than ever.
“Excuse me,” someone who was trying to get a cart murmured, and I quickly stepped out of the woman’s way, picking up a wire basket in the process.
I only needed a few things, and I wanted to grab them and get out as quickly as possible. Matt might have never shopped when I had known him before, but that didn’t mean other people who were close to him wouldn’t see me and tell him.
Not that I expected him to care.
Three years was a long time to be away from someone without so much as a single phone call or letter being exchanged. Matt Reid had probably moved on a long time ago. I never crossed his mind. Whereas, he was never far from my thoughts.
I made quick work of getting my shampoo and other bathroom items, grabbing a box of chocolate chip cookies on my way to the register. There was a long line to check out, and my anxiety began to spike with each second that ticked by. The sliding doors opened so the woman who had just paid for her groceries could push her cart out, and a man and woman walked in.
It took me a moment to recognize Felicity Bolton, or Flick, as Matt had always called her. It wasn’t until she smiled brightly up at the man holding her hand that I realized who she was. She laughed softly as Jet Hannigan murmured something close to her ear and nodded. While Jet grabbed a cart, Flick glanced around, and I went still when her eyes landed on me and her brow puckered.
I lowered my head, pretending I didn’t see her until the couple had walked to the far side of the store where the produce was. I rushed through paying for my items, scribbled my name across the little screen when I used my credit card to pay, and didn’t even wait for the receipt before grabbing my two bags and practically racing to my car.
My fingers were shaking as I tried to press the push start on the car my father had given me the keys to the day before. I hated the damn thing, wouldn’t have even thought to buy myself such a girly little sports car. I would have rather been driving a Dodge Charger with a Hemi, something with real power. But as always, my father wanted me to look the part of the mayor’s daughter.
As soon as the car was on, I made quick work of getting out of the parking lot. On the way home, I kept checking my mirrors to make sure Flick hadn’t followed. Rationally, I knew she wouldn’t have dropped what she was doing to come after me, and really, why would she even want to? I had caused her friend nothing but trouble, and he had no doubt washed his hands of me years ago.
But even though it was stupid to think Matt would even care I was back, part of me wanted him to care. I wanted him to have missed me just half as much as I had missed him. I wanted him to have slowly lost his mind thinking of me, just as I had done him.
I wanted him to still love me.
Even if just a little, I wanted him to still love me. Because the love I had for him hadn’t changed. Time and distance had done nothing to dull how much he meant to me.
