Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99399 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99399 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Monroe uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “We’ve got your back. Don’t worry about SERA.”
We spent another hour hashing through details of the most critical issues before I headed back to my cabin.
I opened my laptop and found an email from Derek with his notes. On Your Six had run an investigation and found that Wolfe had registered a Mercedes Sprinter van to his San Francisco address.
The van had been purchased at an RV dealer in Los Angeles two days after I’d last seen Wolfe in Legacy. Two days after the kiss.
Did he even know how to drive a camper van?
He’s an adult, asshole. He’ll figure it out.
I took a breath and tried to calm the fuck down. Derek and Jude had asked for my help because I was good at what I did. A search and rescue expert. A well-known tracker.
So I framed it the way I always did: a job. A missing person with experience outdoors, familiar with search-and-rescue protocols by proximity if not by training. A young man with resources, not a kid who’d panicked and run blind into the big wide world.
That last part mattered. Wolfe wasn’t reckless. Even if he’d made an emotional decision, he wouldn’t have been stupid about it.
I quickly researched the dealership he’d used, the model of van, and every other piece of information Derek had sent.
The security team’s deep dive had discovered the van had been purchased by F.C. Rights Management LLC. I’d never heard of a company by that name, and neither had anyone else, according to Derek. But it was a start.
I spent the rest of the night trying to run them down. What was F.C. Rights Management? And why was Wolfe involved with any kind of rights management?
I thought back to his original dream of becoming a music producer. There’d been a time years ago when I’d thought he might even become a songwriter one day. But that fucking music school he’d gone to had scared it out of him. Or something. I wasn’t exactly sure, but the look on his face when he’d come home—dejected and disillusioned—had been heartbreaking.
He’d thrown himself into his family’s charity work and seemed to have found a home there… so why had he suddenly run away?
Had it been because of me? My rejection? The kiss?
It had to be, right?
Jesus, what kind of egotistical bastard was I to center myself in this situation? There were plenty of other things that could have prompted this. Something with work or his personal life that had nothing to do with what I now knew with certainty had been the most passionate kiss of my forty-six fucking years.
My body reacted every time I thought of it. Of the way he’d felt. The way he’d taken charge of the kiss like a man possessed. Nothing at all like the insecure kid I’d tried to make him out to be in my mind.
His hands had held my face with an unexpected confidence that was hot as fuck. Enough to make pushing him away the hardest thing I’d ever done.
The wind picked up outside, blowing the branches of a nearby tree together in a familiar rhythm. As I glanced at the window, I caught sight of the cluster of framed photos on the wall next to it. There was one of me with my very first SERA class. A shot of myself at the top of my solo climb of Maroon Bells. A candid shot of Wolfe, Lennon, and Rosie all midair, knees tucked up and hair everywhere in the moments before splashing into Jude and Derek’s swimming pool during a cannonball contest when Wolfe had been around ten and the twins eight. Jude was laughing on a nearby lounge chair with his arms partway up to block the splash. Derek stood a few feet away with a small notebook in his hands, where Rosie had forced him to come up with a complicated score like it was an Olympic gymnastics event.
I’d chosen this shot out of all the others I had of them because it encapsulated everything I loved about the Marians. The fun. The laughter. The competition but also the cohesion. The picture-imperfect family that played together and stayed together.
Jude and Derek had invited me into that family. Had offered me the keys to the goddamned kingdom. And for the first time in my life, I’d understood what people had meant when they’d said the word family with that fond exasperated tone that meant love, stability, home.
That day by the pool, I’d felt an overwhelming conviction that now that I had finally found a real family, I’d never do anything to fuck it up.
Right below the cannonball photo was the photo of Derek with his arm around me in a bar, all wide smiles and almost paternal-like pride. The photo was over twenty years old. I’d just gotten my EMT license, and he’d taken me out to celebrate.