Chapter 30
Chapter thirty
Clay
Louisa Gallo, defeated and limp in my arms, is almost more terrifying than watching her run toward a burning building. I’d rather she fight me, hit me, anything other than that forlorn ‘I fucking hate you.’
I can’t flip a switch and stop caring for her. It doesn’t work that way, apparently.
I’m furious—with her but also with myself. I would’ve given up everything for her. For something that wasn’t even real. And she would’ve let me, lying to me with a smile.
I want her to rail against me because I want to rail against her, but instead, I’m holding her up while her life burns down. I hate every godawful second of it.
When Milo jumps out of his truck and runs over to us, I shove her towards him, even though everything in me screams that I need to hold her tighter. Killing that urge is going to be my top priority after getting out of this backwater.
A shudder runs through her, and when she buries her face into his shoulder, I swear I feel it. I rub at my own shoulder as Briar approaches me. It’s harder than it should be, but I tear my attention from Louisa. I need to focus on what’s important right now.
“If you still want to come with me, I need you to do me a favour,” I say quietly to Briar.
“You’re still leaving?” she asks, sounding surprised.
I nod, then tell her what I need her to do.
I can’t leave a duffel bag and several garbage bags containing nearly ten million dollars sitting on the forest floor, but now isn’t the time to drive around the burning building to get to the old road that goes nowhere in my very obvious red sports car.
As loath as I am to need Briar’s help, I don’t have a choice.
All the same, when I tell her what I need her to do, I don’t give her details.
Briar walks over and says something to Milo. I don’t catch what it is, or what he says in return. Louisa has turned her head so her cheek presses against his chest, but through a tangle of dark hair, she’s watching me.
Fuck this.
I turn around and walk to my car. A few seconds later, Briar follows.
“What happened?” she asks, once the car door shuts behind her.
I take one final look at Louisa. Her back is to me, her attention back on the bar as she leans against Milo. I start up the car. “Travis burned down the bar. Presumably, he thought the will was inside.” I let him believe it was. Fuck.
“I meant with Lou.”
It takes a lot of concentration to keep my grip loose on the steering wheel. “I was wrong about her.”
“In what way?”
“I’m sorry, are you Benji now?” I snap. “It’s not any of your business, I’m not interested in any advice you have to offer.”
Briar looks at me for a long moment, then shrugs.
I pull the car over, but I don’t turn it off as I climb out. “Come back in forty minutes.”
She takes my place in the driver’s seat. “Don’t get lost,” she warns before taking off.
I don’t get lost, but it’s a hot, irritating walk through tangled undergrowth that scratches at my arms to reach Little Harpy Lake. Following the shoreline back to the sauna and the ruins of Rita’s house turns out to be more difficult than anticipated.
The cash is where I left it, but carrying it all back the way I came leaves me sweaty and my mood even shittier.
I’m going to go somewhere where I won’t have to see a fucking tree unless I choose to.
I don’t exit the forest onto the highway in the same place I entered it, but it doesn’t matter. Briar finds me and opens the trunk. She doesn’t get out of the driver’s seat, but she hands me a cold bottle of water, and I drain it.
“Milo brought her to Happy Lake,” she says, pulling back onto the highway. “They’re putting her up in one of the smaller cabins.”
“I don’t care. Are you packed?”
Briar hesitates, frowning. “I can’t find Trouble.”
That fucking cat. “So leave him here with Benji.”
“I’m not leaving him with Benji.”
“Why not? He likes Benji more than you, and he’s a pain in the ass.”
Briar glares at me. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out with Lou, but you don’t have to be an ass to me because you’re hurting.”
“I’m always an ass. Or did you forget?”
“I think you did. You were happy.”
“And it was a lie.” People like me don’t get to be happy, not like this, not with someone else. “I’m not talking about this with you, and if you’d like to come with me, I’d suggest you drop it.”
Briar keeps her mouth shut all the way to the clearing her RV shares with Gina’s cabin. She parks in the shade. “I’m going to look for my cat.”
“You have an hour.”
Briar pulls the keys from the ignition and pockets them. “I have your keys.”
Goddammit. “Then I suggest you start with Milo’s workshop.”
She narrows her eyes at me, but huffs a curse and walks off.
If I couldn’t trust Louisa with my money, I’m definitely not foolish enough to trust Briar. I bring the bags of cash with me into Gina and Benji’s cabin—they aren’t home, but the key is easy to find, under an obviously fake rock sitting in a planter full of cherry tomatoes on the narrow porch.
I find what I’m looking for in the laundry room at the back of the small cabin—two backpacks of the genre meant for multi-day trips into the wilderness. I take the larger one, giving the money a quick count as I transfer it out of the garbage bags, since Louisa had ample time to fuck with it.
Of course, the money doesn’t all fit, so I take the smaller backpack as well. I’ll leave Gina more than the backpacks are worth, so it’s not really stealing.
It doesn’t appear Louisa took any of it, although I wouldn’t necessarily notice if a smaller amount was missing. Well, good for her if she took it. It’s all she’ll get from me.
The backpacks come with me into the bathroom to shower and into the bedroom. I don’t have time to get the smoke smell out of my clothes, so I rifle through Benji’s.
“Goddammit, Benji,” I mutter, sitting back and staring at the drawer.
He has never been particular about what he wears, but living entirely in athletic shorts and joggers?
I shudder and pull out the nicest pair of grey sweats I can find, trying not to think about how many previous owners they’ve covered.
I pull a plain white T-shirt over my head—the kind found in packs of five—and as I do, something catches my eye on the frame of the mirror sitting atop the dresser.
Two photos. The first is Benji and Gina’s Vegas wedding.
They’re both pink-cheeked and grinning at each other like the world doesn’t exist outside the two of them.
The second photo might as well be a duplicate of the first, except for the setting.
It’s their wedding here, earlier this month.
The day Louisa Gallo stormed into my life.
The pure happiness and dopey, loved-up expressions on their faces should be nauseating. Is nauseating. That life isn’t for me. It never has been and never will be. I was fooling myself to think I could find it here with Louisa.
Running a backwater dive bar? Waking up to the same person every day? No, I need my space and my luxuries, my freedom and my comforts. I need variety.
I do not need Louisa Gallo.
Briar is nowhere in sight when I leave the cabin with a backpack slung over each shoulder. It was too much to hope she would’ve found her cat already.
I stand in the clearing, staring up at the blue sky. What do I do now? Help Briar? Aside from Milo’s workshop, I wouldn’t have a clue where to look for the Tonkinese, or what to do with it if I found it.
The only thing I can do is wait. And stew. And unfortunately think about Louisa Gallo.
She lost her bar today.
Maybe she never felt anything for me, but she loved that bar, and the insurance on it won’t be enough to rebuild. Gallo’s will sit beside the highway, a burnt-out husk of a building, just like Rita’s house. What will Louisa do?
I don’t care.
Fuck. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
I need to stop caring.
Instead I turn and go back into Gina’s cabin to find a box or a bag.