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“Jeez, Ann Marie, is Mom okay?”
“Mom’s fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“I’m fine. I’ve been with Colt and Micah.” She was quiet. “Tell me.”
I heard her take a deep breath. “There are pictures. Of you.”
My heart leaped into my throat. Ann Marie had been telling me the latest tabloid news for years but I’d never heard her talk like this. Usually, she was laughing. An alien baby, that kind of thing. But this time? I was scared.
Micah was eyeing me closely.
“There are pictures of you. In a lake. With a guy.”
My mouth fell open, remembered the only time I’d been in a lake. Ever. And it had been with Micah. Naked. Fucking.
“That’s not all,” she continued. “There’s another of you. Um…god, this is bad.”
“What?”
“You’re bent over a big boulder and a guy is behind you. You’re having sex.”
My fingers went numb and I felt all the blood drain from my face. Micah stood, came around the couch. I held out my hand. Stopped him.
“That was…um, yesterday. Here, at Colt’s property.”
“Yeah, it looks like you’re enjoying yourself,” she said, her voice laced with sarcasm. “The headlines are bad. ‘That’s Not Chris!’ is one of them. Another is ‘Lacey Ropes A Cowboy’ and another is ‘Vampire Slut’.”
“Oh my god,” I whisper. “How—”
“I don’t know how the pictures were taken or by whom. But Lacey, honey, you need to get out of there.”
“Yeah, okay.” My voice was hollow and so was my heart. I walked to the bathroom, and the last thing I saw before I shut the door was Micah’s worried look.
I sat on the edge of the tub, remembering the more upbeat conversation I’d had sitting on a different tub only the day before.
“Look, Matt is coming to get you. I’ve arranged for a plane to bring you here.”
“I’m not going to Hawaii.”
“Lacey, I’m back in LA. We left early because of this. I was going to come to you, but Matt said he’d take care of you, get you home.”
Home. Where the hell was home now? My house had been trashed by Chris. I rarely stayed there, and when I did, it was empty. Cold. I’d thought, maybe, I could make Bridgewater home. With Micah and Colt.
“Oh shit,” I whispered.
“What?”
“The first picture, of the lake? It was up in the mountains when we were stuck from the storm. No one knew where we were going, no one but Micah and Colt.”
“Are you saying one of them took the picture?”
“Colt was on the porch. Watching. He…he had a cell phone. He’d said he called the front desk to let them know where we were, that we were safe and the cabin was being used. He could have taken it.”
Micah knocked on the door. “Are you okay, Lacey?”
My heart skipped a beat. “Talking to my sister!” I called back.
“I’m going to go get Colt,” he replied.
