Chapter 3 GENEVIEVE #2
And I wasn’t going to ruin any part of it with my lies.
Isaiah was staring at Dash and Bryce, not paying me any attention. I nudged him with my elbow, mouthing no while shaking my head.
Today was not the day to announce our marriage. I wouldn’t steal an ounce of Bryce’s joy.
His eyebrows came together, so I mouthed no again. Understanding washed over his face and he nodded, tucking his left hand into his pocket.
“What’s that?” Dash asked.
“Huh?” My gaze whipped in his direction. “Oh, nothing. I’m just happy for you guys. Congrats.”
“Thanks.” Bryce tucked herself into Dash’s side.
“And . . . we’re having a kid,” Dash announced, practically floating.
The group erupted in cheers. Draven crossed over and held out his hand. It took Dash a minute to shake it. Their tension was palpable. What was that about? Me?
I felt like I had stepped into the middle of the story and was racing to catch up on all the chapters I’d missed. My list of unknowns was three times longer than my list of knowns.
Draven was my father, but I had no idea how he’d known my mother. She’d come to Clifton Forge and been murdered. For weeks I’d thought Draven was her killer, but now I knew he was innocent. So who’d killed Mom? And why? Was it the same man who’d kidnapped me and Bryce?
Would he come after us again?
He’d have a hard time finding Bryce alone, given the way Dash hovered.
She snuck away from his side, coming our way.
I pulled her in for a hug. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” She beamed.
“Happy for you guys,” Isaiah said.
“Me too. So . . . how are things?” Bryce asked me. “Would you like to go to coffee one of these days? Catch up?”
“That would be nice.” It would be much easier telling her about Isaiah and me over coffee than in a crowd. “I’m free any day next week. And the week after that. And the week after that. I’m still hunting for a job.”
“What kind of job?” Draven appeared at Bryce’s side.
I shied back a step. It was his eyes that unnerved me the most because I saw them in the mirror every morning.
“I was a paralegal in Denver. I was hoping to find something with a lawyer but the firms in town aren’t hiring at the moment, so I’ve applied for other jobs, but most everything open is part-time. ”
He ran a hand over his salt and pepper beard. “I’ll give Jim a call.”
“Jim?”
“My lawyer.”
Right. He had a lawyer because he was being prosecuted for my mother’s murder. I wasn’t sure I wanted to work for his attorney—that was hitting awfully close to home—but I simply said, “Thanks.”
I wasn’t holding out hope. When Bryce and I went to coffee, I’d ask if they needed a new barista with no barista experience.
A car door slammed, and all eyes turned to the parking lot. A car was parked in front of the first bay, and its driver was walking toward the office.
“Guess that’s my cue to get back to work.” Presley hugged Dash again, smiled at Bryce and rushed for the office.
“Better get back to it too.” Isaiah excused himself, going to the car directly behind us. He must have been working on it earlier because there was a pair of coveralls on the hood, identical to Emmett’s.
He stepped into them, hiding his jeans and black T-shirt away. He zipped them up, then turned his back to us, bringing his hands together where we couldn’t see them, slipping off his ring.
Isaiah shoved his hand into a pocket. “I’m going to—”
“What did you just do?” Draven cut him off, pointing to Isaiah’s pocket. “What’s in there?”
My heart dropped. The entire garage stilled as Draven’s bark echoed off the walls.
“What’s in where?” Dash asked, walking closer.
“There.” Draven pointed to Isaiah’s pocket again. “Did you just take off a ring?”
I slid my hand behind my hip, but I wasn’t fast enough.
Bryce’s eyes widened at me. “You got married?”
I winced at the volume. “Yes.”
“What? When? Why?” She fired the one-word questions like bullets. “You just met.”
Isaiah and I had decided to tell people it was love at first sight. We’d acted on an impulse and were rolling with it. We both figured that the less we elaborated, the less likely someone would catch us in a lie.
But even our simple explanation was hard to remember when I was being stared down by a star reporter, my long-lost father and a trio of bulky bikers.
“We got married.” Isaiah came to my rescue, striding over to take my hand in his. He gripped it tight to hide the shaking in my fingers. “We connected. I asked Genevieve to move up here. She agreed. We decided not to mess around and just make it official.”
“You’re married.” Bryce looked between the two of us, dumfounded.
I pulled strength from Isaiah’s grip and found my voice. “We’re married.”
“After meeting for one day?”
“That’s right,” he answered.
“No.” Draven huffed. “I’m not okay with this.”
“Well, it’s not really your decision, is it?” I shot back.
“You’re my daughter.”
Anger and frustration were on constant simmer beneath my skin. Mom, her lies and secrets, had put me into this mess. She wasn’t here to bear the brunt of my resentment. Draven was the last parent standing, and if he wanted to act like my father, he’d get the force of my emotions.
“Considering I met you three days ago, I’d hardly say that gives you a right to pull the father card.” The words were harsh, but I didn’t wish them back, even when he flinched.
“Genevieve.” Bryce reached for my free hand. “What’s going on? I know the kidnapping was extreme, but this? This is extreme too. You guys hardly know each other.”
“You and Dash are getting married and having a baby,” Isaiah said before I could respond. “And you met, what, six weeks ago? I think you know as well as we do, time doesn’t matter.”
“You’re right.” Dash came to her side with Emmett and Leo flanking behind. “And it’s not our business.”
Bryce crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes. I’d seen that look before, when we’d been huddled together at the base of a tree as our kidnapper stood by with a gun.
She’d been fierce about escaping. Just like she’d be fierce in finding out what was really happening with me and Isaiah. Nothing Dash or anyone said would change her mind.
“Will you excuse us?” Bryce stepped forward, taking my elbow to haul me across the garage to a quiet corner.
I glanced over my shoulder at Isaiah. He stood alone, facing Draven, Dash, Emmett and Leo. Four against one weren’t good odds but Isaiah wouldn’t break.
We had too much riding on our secrets.
“What is going on?” Bryce hissed. “You guys have been acting strange all week. You go back to Denver, which I get. We got kidnapped, for Christ’s sake, and almost died. But then you show up here and move into Isaiah’s apartment without any explanation. Now you’re married?”
I blew out a deep breath. “Something happened with me and Isaiah. He’s . . . special. I’ve never felt anything like this for another person in my entire life.”
It was all truth. Or half-truth. Every word was a vague version of what had really happened. Maybe if I stuck to these half-truths, I’d be able to pull this show off.
She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
I was sweating. Why was it so hot in here? “Really.”
Before Isaiah, I had never owed another person my life.
“Are you sure it’s not like—I don’t know—post-traumatic stress from the kidnapping?”
“He makes me feel safe.” It was another true statement—a full truth. “Right now, that’s what I need.”
The single most terrifying moment of my life was when I’d been grabbed from behind in my motel room.
I’d flown to Montana to visit Mom’s grave on a Saturday. I’d worked for Reggie that morning, then driven to the airport and boarded the plane with a heavy heart. I’d thought about canceling the trip a hundred times but needed to see Mom’s grave with my own eyes.
I needed to know her body had found a place of peace.
The flight to Bozeman arrived late and I checked into a motel near the airport, planning to rent a car the next morning and drive the two hours to Clifton Forge.
Wearing black silk pajama pants and a strappy green sports bra underneath a long-sleeved white top, I left my room for two minutes to get a water from the vending machine, leaving the door to my room propped open by the deadbolt.
When I returned, I locked myself in, thinking I was safe and alone.
But a man cloaked in black stepped out of the bathroom and grabbed me by the hair.
He pushed me to the floor and duct taped my hands behind my back.
My bare feet were bound at the ankles. Then he hauled me over his shoulder and carried my writhing body to the parking lot, where he shoved me in the trunk of a car, right beside Bryce.
The two of us cried in silence; the gags the man had wrapped around our heads kept us from screaming. He took us into the mountains and marched us into the woods. My feet had surrendered to countless bleeding cuts by the time we reached the cabin.
But he didn’t take us into the cabin like I’d expected. Instead, he pushed us against a giant pine tree, where we sat in the dark, shivering and nearly hypothermic, terrified that we wouldn’t see another sunrise.
As dawn encroached, he hauled me to my feet and cut the tape that bound me. He untied my gag. Then he forced me to hold an unloaded gun to Bryce’s temple while he snapped a few pictures.
He bound me again, forgoing the gag, and was kind enough to remove Bryce’s too. That was when she told me about Draven—that he wasn’t Mom’s killer, but in fact, my father. He was being framed for Mom’s murder.
In any other situation, I wouldn’t have believed her, but there against that tree, as death loomed over us, Bryce had no reason to lie.
The next time the killer untied my hands, it was to hold the gun to Bryce’s temple again, only this time a bullet was loaded into the chamber.
He planned to set me up for her murder, knowing Dash would take revenge in the form of my life.
Instead, Dash had saved us. He’d saved me. Whether that was his intention or not, I was still grateful that he’d thwarted our kidnapper’s plan. All because Dash had come for Bryce.
In a hail of gunfire, we ran for our lives—Bryce into the trees and me toward the cabin.
I should have run the other way.
“I know it seems crazy,” I told Bryce. “But this is the right thing for Isaiah and me.”
“Then why was he sleeping at the motel?”
Damn small-town gossip. I was going to have to remember that people around this town noticed everything.
“We didn’t want to stay together until we were husband and wife. We, uh . . . didn’t have sex before the wedding.” Or after. As long as she didn’t dig too deep and find out that Isaiah had stayed there on our wedding night, we were safe.
“So that’s it. You’re married and living above the garage.”
I nodded. “That’s it.”
“Hmm.” She frowned. “Have you talked to Draven since the cemetery?”
“No.”
“Well, buckle up.” Her gaze drifted over my shoulder. “Because here he comes, and he does not look happy.”