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“Then we’ll just have to wreck those plans.”
CASSIDY
It was surreal, sitting across from a stranger in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, talking about running away from Barrett. It was out of character for me. I didn’t usually tell anyone anything because people either wanted to help you or take advantage of you. And it was my experience that people were more likely to go for the latter when your surname was Silvermane. Case in point: Missy.
It took a lot for me to trust people. Yet here I was, sitting at a granite kitchen counter, drinking coffee with a fucking amazing looking biker called Chance, telling him more about my life than I’d told anyone in the past two years.
If anything, life was incredibly random at times.
“So do we wait it out? Wait for him to come here?” I asked.
“We don’t know that he will.”
“He will.”
Barrett was already planning something epic. I was sure of it.
“I don’t know what we’re dealing with. I need a bit more time. Until then, you can stay here. We’ll take each day as it comes, okay?”
Something told me this guy would know everything there was to know about Barrett come tomorrow.
Well, almost everything.
“You’ll need to lie low. But you’ll be safe here.”
I stood up, wondering how to broach the subject.
“Listen, if I’m staying in Destiny, then there’s something I really want to do,” I spoke cautiously, knowing I was going to meet with some resistance. “I’d really like to go back to work at the diner tomorrow.”
I couldn’t explain it. I had only known Molly for five minutes, but I didn’t want to disappoint her. There was something special about her. And despite my poor choice of friends, i.e. Missy, I was usually a good judge of character. Molly was kind and generous, and in some way she filled the motherless void in my heart.
But just as I suspected, Chance shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I know it could be. But I won’t leave the diner, and I’ll be surrounded by people all the time.”
He frowned. “Yesterday you were leaving town, now you want to go back there. Why?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I can’t let Molly down. If she knew I was here and I didn’t show up for my shift… she took a chance on me, and I don’t want to repay her kindness with disappointment.”
Chance did a good job at hiding his frustration. Well… almost. His eyes darkened as he thought about it.
“Fine,” he said calmly. “But you don’t leave the diner. Not for anything. And I mean for anything or for anyone. I’m not kidding. If Alice freaking Cooper is standing outside summoning you… you don’t leave the fucking diner. Got it?”
I nodded. “Got it.”
The look on his handsome face was stern. “And, California, if you want to beat this thing, we do it my way, okay?”
Our eyes lingered on one another for a moment before I slowly nodded in agreement.
Later, when the sun was getting low in the sky and the crickets came out to sing, we sat out on the veranda in two wooden deck chairs.
Chance told me about the fisherman’s cottage he was remodeling. The old house with weather-beaten boards and a crooked porch was directly across the river from us. It looked like it had been abandoned for years and was only now seeing sunlight for the first time in a very, very long time.
I could see the overgrowth had been pulled back, and there were water lines staining the old timber where floodwaters had risen and receded over the years. The glass windows were still in place, and surprisingly unbroken, but the front door was missing. Once upon a time it would’ve been someone’s pride and joy. Their house. Their home. I imagined babies sitting on the knees of grandparents who sat out on the covered porch and enjoyed the view of the river while the mother worked in the kitchen and the father worked out in the fields until dark.
But somewhere along the way it had been abandoned. Left to rot in the rain and the sun and flounder in the floods. Alone and unloved. Until Chance came along and decided to breathe life back into it.
I wasn’t going to even go there with the comparison between me and that house, because that was not only too cheesy, it was too damn sad to even contemplate.
Instead, I was going to sit here and play my guitar, which was always my go-to when I started to feel down.
“You’re good. Who taught you to play?” Chance asked.
“Benji. Kerry’s chauffeur. I was ten when he started driving me to and from school. We took to each other straight away. He was so funny. Friendly.” Warmth collided with sadness in my chest when I thought about Benji. Warmth because Benji had been so nice. Sadness because of what had happened. “He used to drive me to and from school. He became my friend, I guess. After supper, I would sit with him and Mrs. Drinnan, our housekeeper, in the butler’s pantry behind the kitchen, and he would teach me the guitar while Mrs. Drinnan got me milk and cookies.”
