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“Yes.”
“I don’t expect the judge is going to give you a pass to leave the state anytime soon.”
“No, he won’t,” she agreed. “When I get paid, I’ll buy what I need.”
“The boys are always up for a road trip. Go through the clothes Diamond gave you and make a list of items you want from your home. Ginny and the boys can go on Saturday.”
“Ginny? I can’t ask—”
“Ginny’s been waiting to go baby shopping for a couple of weeks. This will give her an excuse to visit a big city to shop. She’s having a girl this time around and wants to buy all the girly stuff she missed out on buying with Freddy.”
“Still …”
“Boys been needing a few things, too. You’d be doing them all a favor.”
Dispirited, Alanna knew she had little choice but to accept their help. The more she talked with Silas, the more she was beginning to realize that on the surface, he came across as laidback and affable, yet he somehow managed to lead her in the direction he wanted her to go. The thought had her jerkily walking to the closet to disguise her reaction. She was just overreacting, she told herself, staring inside the closet at the clothes Mrs. Bates had sent her.
Something was bothering her about Silas. It was unexplainable, but there was an inkling at the back of her mind trying to get out, and the more she tried to interpret what it was trying to tell, the more the feeling retreated.
“Ginny’s got dinner on the table. I hope you’re hungry.”
She was about to deny she was, but Silas didn’t give her the opportunity to refuse.
“Ginny’s been cooking all day, so you would have your choice of options,” he said wryly. “She didn’t want to offend you if you’re vegan, or there is a type of food you don’t like, so she covered her bases.”
“Your sister shouldn’t have gone to any trouble for me. I don’t want to impose myself on your family’s gatherings—”
“It’s not an imposition. You can meet everyone, and I need to give you the cell phone when you’re there. We won’t keep you out too long, I promise.” Silas motioned her toward the bedroom door.
Left with no choice other than acting like an ungrateful bitch, Alanna left the room and made her way out of the trailer. Only when they were retracing their steps to Silas’ house did it dawn on her that she had given in to him again. She nearly stumbled over a protruding tree root when her subconsciousness warned her that Silas might be coming across as laidback and understanding while in reality, he was more of an iron fist in a velvet glove.
“Careful,” Silas warned.
“I will …” Righting herself, Alanna saw the outbuilding where Silas had told her his brothers worked. About to take another step forward, she was lowering her eyes back to the ground when the door of the building opened and two men came outside.
Mesmerized, Alanna forgot how to walk, freezing in place. Both men were striking to look at. It was hard not to stare when neither man wore a shirt. Faded jeans lovingly hugging their hips had her eyes jerk upward at the wayward thoughts materializing from her starved libido.
Alanna had never been the type of woman who was attracted to men with bulging muscles or rock-hard abs. Those were the ones she shied away from the most because of Owen.
She was still congratulating herself for giving the first one out the door only a brief once-over when her eyes went to the man behind him and clung like someone who had become lost in a parched desert and was dying of thirst.
He had to be a mirage. There was no man who had a face like a Greek god and was gifted with a body to match who would willingly live on a mountain, surrounded by trees instead of lying on a beach, surrounded by a variety of buxom beauties catering to his every want and need.
Locking her knees to keep from falling over flat on her face, Alanna looked up at the bright sky overhead, trying to restore the balance that had just been knocked out of her. Taking a steadying breath, she said a silent prayer in her head that her tongue would become unglued from the roof of her mouth.
Please don’t let me make a fool of myself,she added before ending the prayer.
Maybe he was just a mirage … Lowering her eyes back down from the sky, Alanna felt as if she had just been captured in a golden butterfly net. She was trapped by his gaze when a shadowy flashback had her reeling backward a step.
She was standing face to face with the man who had stood outside her cell door three days ago, and she had willingly let herself be brought right to his doorstep.
Chapter Seven
“What are you doing here?”
Alanna was shaken that who she had been starting to think was a figment of her imagination actually wasn’t. The misgivings she had been experiencing since leaving the courthouse were right.
Taking her eyes off the two men standing by the building, she cast a quick glance at Silas before jerking her eyes back to the other two men. None of them seemed shocked at her abrupt question.
