68. Chapter 68
The women were surprisingly amicable today. Graham expected dirty looks and backhanded insults at the very least. Helen and Lindsey were perfecting the art of ignoring one another. The trip was starting to feel easy. Shorter drives. Uncomplicated miles.
Until Lake Havasu.
Walking up the grassy bank, Graham read the new letter aloud, his voice dragging as if through mud thickening with every word: “‘Keep your swimsuits on. Your time in Lake Havasu City isn’t done yet.’ What the hell?”
His airway tightened and his heart dropped with a heavy thud in his chest. The letter he didn’t want to read crumpled in his fist.
Helen took the paper from him and smoothed it out, continuing to read. “‘I figured the only way to slow you down is to grab the reins myself. Your next stop is the London Bridge here in Lake Havasu at sunset. Doesn’t matter where on the bridge, but it must be at sunset.’”
“Sly devil,” Jase muttered, his eyes branding Lindsey’s ass in her green bikini. She smacked him in the ribs.
“Hey, stop fucking around,” Graham wheezed through the sliver of air making it down his windpipe. “Are you hearing this?”
“I’m hearing it,” Jase said. “Are you dying?”
“I’m pissed,” Graham said. Pissed and in terrible pain. He massaged the tender center of his sternum.
“‘Now, maybe you lucked out and you can go over to the bridge and take your picture now,’” Helen read.
“‘On the other hand, maybe it’s early and you have some time to kill. If you do, then I did my part to slow you down and I hope you make the most of it. I suggest a day at the beach and some cold drinks, but what do I know?’”
“You’re such a creep,” Lindsey was saying. She squeezed Jase’s arm, and he laughed and didn’t bother shaking her off. Playing, flirting as if their entire day hadn’t been hijacked.
“‘Oh, and if the sun isn’t low enough,’” Helen continued, “‘Whitlock has been instructed to request another shot an hour after the first, so make it good.’”
“Son of a bitch,” Jase said.
“That’s it then.” Lindsey spun, whipping Graham with the ends of her wet hair. He bent and set his hands on his knees.
“What’s it then?” Jase asked her. The man-slut stayed glued to Lindsey’s ass back down to the beach.
When they were gone, Helen asked, “Are you okay?”
“I should be asking you that,” he said.
She offered him the letter he’d rather burn than read again. Graham took it and headed farther up the bank to contemplate a way out that wasn’t immediately apparent, his legs jerky and stiff with mileage and denial.
Helen followed and set her hand on his shoulder. “You’re the one who looks like they’re having a panic attack.”
Panic attack. One of the many possibilities the internet diagnosed when he searched for answers when it was hard to think and breathe.
Like right now. If there was ever a time to panic, it was facing a delay that could send Helen packing.
She almost left last night after Lindsey’s spiteful confession.
His apologies hadn’t exactly landed. He had slept with Lindsey the morning of the night he got back together with Helen.
Explaining to his fiancée that sex and waking up with another woman had given him the clarity that he’d needed almost earned his already sore jaw another smack.
Helen’s guilt over Nick was the only reason, Graham was sure, that she was willing to forgive him. They’d both fucked up. Again.
And both agreed to let the past stay firmly there…and that Graham would spend the next few weeks on his knees paying homage to her loveliness.
It was hardly punishment. The pain in his chest? Different story.
“We need to end this,” Graham wheezed.
Helen pulled the sides of a sheer swimsuit cover across the front of her black one-piece and tucked her wet hair behind her ears. She didn’t look pissed or ready to bolt.
“It’s fine, Graham.”
The pain nearly bringing him to his knees right now suggested otherwise.
“It will be fine,” his fiancée insisted. “Should I call an ambulance? You’re scaring me.”
Peering past her, he saw Lindsey laying out a towel on the beach and Jase sitting beside her.
Last night, when Lindsey went nuts on him, Graham noticed how easily Jase talked her down.
It was a small thing that he’d added to the pile of mounting evidence he’d been collecting every time he saw them cuddling in the back seat.
It wasn’t just his imagination that they were getting too close.
He still couldn’t shake the image of his brother holding Lindsey’s hand in the car last night.
“Graham.”
“All I wanted was to make up some ground today,” Graham said, focusing on Helen. “I didn’t know he was going to drag this out this much.”
“I asked if you need a doctor.”
He forced himself to stand. If he ignored the tingling in his lips and fingers for another minute or two, the blood would come back to them.
“No. No, I just…fuck.”
Graham jumped out of the way as a group of kids with sand pails nearly plowed into him on their way to the water.
“You’re really upset about this, huh?” she asked.
“I need this to end,” Graham said. He laced his fingers in her swimsuit cover, finding the curve of her waist. “I need you, alone, no maps, no Jase or exes or anyone else.”
“He could’ve picked a worse place for us to stay,” Helen said. “He’s forcing you to have fun.”
“I have a really, really hard time having fun with them around.”
Graham looked down the beach, expecting to find Jase with Lindsey. His ex was alone, staring at her phone, and his brother was coming up fast, glowering with more bad news.
“Guys,” Jase said. “We have a problem.”
“What?”
Jase’s pecs rose and fell with a heavy sigh. “Declan.”