Page 36 of Baby for My Ex’s Dad

The wall has a gardener’s gate behind the orchard. It isn’t even locked. Looks like it hasn’t been used in years. Must have been forgotten about. Then I’m through and into the woods.

Cold air. Wet leaves. My legs moving in a straight line. Freedom smells like rain and mulch.

By minute five, the trees are identical. But trees were never my thing, so maybe my photographic memory is just making them look alike.

No sun means no direction. Can’t read the shadows to figure out anything. I know the thing about moss growing on the north side of trees is a myth—it’s only true of some mosses on some trees, not a blanket rule. A woods without direction is a rotating hallway. Dead leaves on the dirty ground tell me nothing.

Left foot, right foot. Keep marching forward. That’s the only way.

But then I realize I haven’t crossed the stream that we crossed on the bridge near the estate. And going this direction, I should’ve gotten to the road by now.

The estate phone reaches four people I’m running from. No luck there. No map apps on it, either. Just the programmed numbers in a dumb phone and the time, ebbing away. My sneakers are not hiking boots, and unfortunately, I haven’t done a lot of hiking in my life, so my ankles aren’t great. And my feet ache.

Potato has remained silent in his carrier, which he’s never done, and the silence scares me worse than the trees.

I set him down and kneel. “You good, little bastard?”

He looks at me through the bars of his carrier. No malice there—just confusion.

“Yeah, you and me both.” I don’t cry. I stand in the rotating hallway with a cat and no plan and say, out loud, “Okay, Thea⁠—”

Footsteps.

Shit.

I take off, trying to run. But I’m less of a runner than I am a hiker, so I’m not great at it.

“Miss Thea!”

My killer is not going to call me that. I turn to find it’s Pasha moving through the woods the way I move through a ballroom I organized. It’s like the trees part out of his way as he races toward me.

The relief hits so hard it comes out as anger. But I don’t want to be relieved by the sight of him. I’m pissed. “No. Nope. Not going back.”

“Miss Thea.” He isn’t even winded. “Dark in one hour. Forty degrees in two. You are not prepared for either⁠—”

“Then I’ll walk fast.” I turn, pick a direction, and get four steps before his hand closes around my upper arm. I pull, hard, twisting, but he doesn’t yank me back. He just doesn’t move.

It’s humiliating. “Let me go!”

“Miss Thea, you know I cannot.” His other hand takes the carrier’s handle, gentle as a bellhop, and we stand there in the leaves acknowledging the physics.

“Come on⁠—”

“Please don’t fight me,” Pasha says, miserable. This large, armed man adjusts his fingers so they won’t leave marks. “I won’t hurt you. But I can’t let you be out here alone, miss. Kirill is out here somewhere.”

“Then come with me so you can keep me safe.”

He echoes my internal frustration. “It doesn’t work that way. You know this. Please, I don’t want to have to carry you back—I believe you might hate me for that.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

He raises a brow. “It’s my job to return you to the estate. Whatever that entails. You can return on your feet or over my shoulder. But you’ll return, Miss Thea. It’s what Mr. Vernigora requires. It’s what your safety requires.”

And the fight goes out of me. I stop pulling. “At least I got some fresh air and exercise.”

He winces a smile. “Does that mean you will come willingly?”

“Willingly? No. It’s not willing when the choices are to go back to the estate or risk losing my face.”