107. Chapter 107
It was over.
Jase had bent to her whims, and begged her to stay, and worked magic with his tongue because his inheritance depended on it.
If she meant more to him—if they really did have a good thing, maybe even a great thing, something more than nothing—he would’ve told her about the money.
He’d had every opportunity to come clean.
Gingerly, as if held together by a fine thread, she walked down the row of storage units until she could hardly hear the Young brothers anymore. Gripping the package to her chest with one hand, she reached with the other into her purse to find her phone.
Cracked screen. Damn it.
She didn’t have a car or a phone to call one. Were there still pay phones? Think, think. How do I get out of here? Why, now that she was really and truly ready to go, was it so hard to leave?
“Hey.”
Lindsey turned and found Helen standing behind her.
“They should’ve told you about the money,” she said.
So, Helen knew. Graham hadn’t told Lindsey even though she’d been written into the trip, but he’d told Helen.
Of course he did. They’re engaged.
“They’re…” Helen trailed off. “…really screwed up, you know? Both of them.”
I thought I saw something in his eyes in Monterey.
Chloe was in Monterey. Jase would probably head back there now that he didn’t have to keep up the charade with Lindsey.
Her dad was right about her taste in men.
“I know,” she managed to say.
Helen nodded. “What will you do now?”
Lindsey looked around, finally unencumbered by hopes of a tomorrow with Jase.
Everything she found charming about California—the bright flowers on the sides of the highway, the ocean, the smell she couldn’t place—was gone.
It was never about flowers or the ocean anyway.
Now there were only flattened pop bottles in the parking lot, cigarette butts under her feet, a blazing sun.
An aching in her thighs and a package wrapped in twine growing heavy in her arms. She still hadn’t spotted a pay phone.
“I was going to get a car to the airport,” Lindsey said, holding up her phone to show Helen why she couldn’t.
“Oh. I’ll replace it,” Helen said. “Not my proudest moment.”
“This isn’t mine, either.”
Helen glanced over her shoulder. If she expected to find her boyfriend—fiancé—bloodied and ready to grow up, she was disappointed. Graham and Jase were still in the throes of a fight twenty years overdue.
“I’ve got the keys,” Helen said. “Let’s get out of here.”