Page 56 of Taken Away

Outside, the last of the buyers climbed into the sprinters while Zack leaned halfway back out the passenger door.

“McCrae!” he shouted. “You riding with us or brooding separately tonight?”

“Separately,” Bennett called back.

Zack looked delighted by that in a way Aubrey did not trust.

“See you at The Overlook, sweetheart,” he told her cheerfully.

“Don’t encourage him,” Bennett muttered.

“I’m absolutely encouraging him.”

The van doors slid shut. A moment later, the sprinters rolled down the drive, taillights disappearing into the dark.

Aubrey turned automatically toward the gravel lot, already looking for Bennett’s battered truck.

Instead, Bennett’s fingers brushed lightly at the inside of her elbow.

“Wait here.”

She looked up.

“I’ll pull the car around.”

“The car?” she repeated, suspicious.

“Try not to sound so shocked.”

He disappeared down the side drive toward the lower lot. Crickets hummed in the warm June air.

Aubrey folded her arms and waited beneath the portico lights, fully expecting that familiar old truck to come rattling around the curve.

Instead, headlights swept silently across the gravel.

A black Range Rover eased up beneath the covered entrance.

She blinked.

The thing looked expensive enough to come with stock options.

Bennett rolled down the window.

“You getting in or judging me from a distance?”

Aubrey stared at the SUV.

“You own a Range Rover.”

“Get in, Princess.”

She slid into buttery black leather.

“This is deeply upsetting,” she muttered, shutting the door.

“Why?”

“Because you keep turning out to be significantly more complicated than I originally budgeted for.”