Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 124341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
She sensed his distress by the way he held his body even before she’d gotten a good look at his expression, so she pulled back, her gaze moving over his face, taking in his forlorn eyes.
“Where did you go?” She noted his cleanly shaven face. She couldn’t see even a wisp of hair beneath his ball cap. She reached up and removed his cap, looking at his buzz cut, the same one he’d had when she’d first brought him to the cottage, the one easily hidden by a hat. He had also had his sweatshirt hood pulled up over the hat when he’d walked toward her up the dirt road, likely to hide the scar on the side of his face so he could travel as incognito as possible out into the world.
“To return the truck to Adam. It wasn’t mine.”
Adam. The old man he’d worked for on the apple farm. She glanced behind him in the direction of the main road. “How did you get back?”
“I hitched a ride on the back of a flatbed. They dropped me off a few miles from here.”
His voice. It was lacking all emotion. “Did it not go well? What happened, Sam?”
“They killed Adam,” he said, voice so even it sent a shiver down her spine as much as the words he’d uttered.
“What?” She took a small step back. “Why? Who?”
“The program,” he said. “They tracked me somehow. Maybe using the truck or…public cameras. I…don’t know. Maybe they questioned Adam, and he didn’t cooperate in the way they wanted him to. Maybe…”
He stared off past her, his expression so bleak it broke her heart. He hadn’t mentioned it to her, but the fact that he’d unintentionally stolen something from someone had been bothering him all this time. But not just any someone… He cared about the old man. She had heard it in his voice when he’d spoken of him and described the place where he’d worked. He cared what he thought of him. Sam. Sweet Sam. He’d taken a risk to do what was right and found that the man had been killed. Oh God. And clearly, he blamed himself.
And it scared her too. If they had tracked him there…could they track him here too? Even if they hadn’t yet, could they eventually? “Let’s go inside,” she said, her eyes moving from tree to tree as though, even now, there were snipers positioned to take them both down.
“I’ll be in in a minute,” Sam said. “I want to check the property. Lock the door.”
“Do you think… they know where you are?”
“If they did, we’d know. But I still want to look around.”
Autumn swallowed, her fear growing now that she knew Sam was concerned about their safety here too. She gave a quick nod and then moved swiftly to the cottage and locked the door behind her.
Autumn sat on the couch as she waited for him. She felt sad, like she’d come down off a mountain and needed time to adjust to the air pressure down below. She mourned for the old man Sam had cared for and for Sam’s obvious grief and self-blame. And she acknowledged that because of what they now knew—that Sam was being tracked—they wouldn’t be able to stay here for long, this beautiful refuge that they’d found. She’d known that anyway, but she hadn’t expected their time here to be cut quite so short.
For the past month, she’d been focused on staying out of the public eye, keeping Sam hidden so he could heal. But she’d known that at some point very soon, they would have to reenter society. Autumn was expected back at work, and Sam…well, Sam couldn’t stay locked away somewhere, whether that place be a remote cottage or her small, one-bedroom house.
But now, even that murky plan had been destroyed by Sam’s discovery. It was probably best that they leave in the morning. But to where?
What are we going to do?
A few minutes later, Sam called her name from the front porch, and she let him in. “Everything good?”
He gave a nod and then moved to the fireplace where he went about building a fire, and Autumn made a pot of coffee.
When she’d poured herself a cup, she returned to the living room. Sam was sitting on the rug in front of the roaring fire, staring into the flames. She set the steaming mug on the heavy trunk used as a coffee table and pulled a couple throw pillows from the couch, tossed them on the floor, and joined him. Then she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around Sam again and resting her head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart, absorbing his warmth. “I’m sorry, Sam. So sorry. We’re going to have to talk about what’s next.”
“Did you find him?” Sam asked. “The boy from the file?”