Chapter Seventeen
Ramona
Bob was halfway to the door before I managed to grab the back of his shirt. “Wait.”
He stopped.
That was the good news. The bad news was the look he gave me when he turned around.
I had seen Bob annoyed. I had seen him frustrated. I had seen him tired, horny, amused, and pissed off at his own body because it wasn’t recovering as fast as he wanted it to.
This was different.
This was the look of a man who had just been told the person responsible for scaring me halfway across the country was standing outside the gate.
“Bob.”
“What?”
“Maybe don’t go out there looking like you’re planning to murder him.”
“I don’t.”
I stared at him. He stared back.
“You absolutely do.”
“I look normal.”
Piney snorted from somewhere behind us.
I stepped toward him. “I’m serious.”
Anchor moved toward us. “Nobody’s killing anybody.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Bob looked at him. “Didn’t say I was gonna kill him.”
Skull walked up beside Anchor. “You’ve got murder face.”
Bob glared at him.
Skull nodded. “That one.”
Despite the knot sitting in the middle of my stomach, a laugh escaped me.
Bob looked down at me. “Not funny.”
“A little funny.”
“Doll.”
I slid my hand from his shirt and around his arm.
“Your crazy boss that was terrorizing you is here,” he reminded me.
The laughter disappeared as fast as it had come.
Wade was here on Skull Island.
I didn’t know how the hell he’d found me, and I didn’t know why he’d driven all the way from Iowa, but there weren’t many reasons that ended well.
The last time I’d seen him, I’d walked out of his office after telling him I knew he’d been stealing from the campground.
After that, someone had broken into my RV. Then I’d started seeing the same dark truck. My tire had been damaged. Then my RV had been tossed again. I’d left Iowa because I hadn’t wanted to stick around long enough to find out what came next.
Now whatever I’d run from had followed me all the way here.
Bob covered my hand with his. “You stay here.”
I looked at him. “No.”
“Ramona.”
“He came here for me.”
“Exactly.”
“So I’m going with you.”
His mouth flattened.
I squeezed his arm. “I’m not hiding in here while you handle my problem.”
“That’s the whole reason why you came here in the first place,” he pointed out. “I am going to handle him.”
Piney cracked his knuckles. “I wouldn’t mind taking a crack at the guy.”
Prime pointed at Piney. “Me too. We could get some pent-up aggression out.”
“I will handle this,” Bob growled.
Anchor sighed. “Can we deal with the asshole at the gate before you three start fighting over who gets to deal with the asshole at the gate?”
“Please,” I said.
Anchor looked at Lost. “He’s alone?”
“Far as I can tell. Came across the bridge in a pickup. He’s waiting by the gate.”
“Weapons?”
Lost shook his head. “Didn’t see any.”
Anchor looked at Skull. “Come on.” Then his eyes moved to Bob. “You and Ramona stay behind us until we know what we’re dealing with.”
Bob nodded.
I didn’t.
Nobody seemed to care.
The four of us headed outside.
The bright sunlight made me squint as we moved past the haunted house and toward the lot. Bob stayed close enough that our arms brushed with every few steps.
A couple of weeks ago, he wouldn’t have made it halfway across the lot without needing to stop. Now he was keeping pace with Anchor and Skull like he’d never spent weeks stuck in a hospital bed.
We rounded the corner, and I saw him.
“Oh.”
Bob looked down at me. “What?”
“That’s him.”
Wade Mercer stood on the other side of the gate beside a dark blue pickup—the same dark blue pickup I’d convinced myself I’d seen behind me more than once in Iowa.
My stomach dropped.
Bob felt me stop.
His hand immediately wrapped around mine. “That the truck?”
“Yeah.”
One word, that was all it took.
Bob’s whole body changed. “Stay here.”
“Bob—”
“Right fucking here.” He walked forward with Anchor and Skull.
I made it exactly two seconds before following them.
Bob looked over his shoulder. “Ramona.”
“What? I’m behind you.”
“Not what I meant.”
“I know.”
Skull’s mouth twitched.
Bob pointed at him. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
Anchor reached the gate and stopped.
Wade looked different than the last time I’d seen him.
That was the first thing I noticed.
He’d lost weight. His normally clean-shaven face had several days of gray stubble covering it, and there were dark circles under his eyes. His clothes looked like he’d pulled them on after sleeping in them.
He didn’t look angry. He looked exhausted and nervous. Very, very nervous.
His eyes moved from Anchor to Skull. Then Bob. Then they found me. “Ramona.”
Bob stepped sideways and blocked me.
I sighed. “Seriously?”
“Yes.”
Wade’s eyes widened. “I’m not here to hurt her.”
Bob’s voice was quiet. “You already did.”
Wade flinched.
Anchor folded his arms over his chest. “Who are you?”
“Wade Mercer,” he offered willingly.
“And why are you on my island?” Anchor asked.
Wade looked at me again. “I need to talk to Ramona.”
“You’re talking to all of us,” Bob said.
Wade swallowed. His eyes dropped briefly to Bob’s cut before moving to Anchor’s and Skull’s. “I figured.”
“You figured what?” Skull asked.
“That she came here because of you guys.”
“No,” Bob said. “She came here because of me.”
Wade shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and just looked defeated. “I don’t know what the hell you want me to say.”
“The truth would be a good fucking start.”
Wade’s eyes hardened for the first time.
Not angry exactly.
Defensive.
Then he looked at me again. “Can we talk?”
I stepped around Bob. His arm immediately came across my waist.
“I’m right here,” I told Wade. “Talk.”
He looked at Bob’s arm, then at Anchor and Skull. “This isn’t exactly how I pictured this going.”
I laughed once. “You broke into my RV. Twice. Followed me. Screwed with my tire. Then followed me all the way to an island run by a motorcycle club. How did you picture this going?”
Wade’s face fell. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
Bob’s arm tightened around me. “Better start talking,” he growled.
“I was just trying to stop you. I just… I really fucked up, and I knew that you weren’t going to just let it go,” he confessed.
Then Anchor asked the question I’d been wondering since Lost walked into the clubhouse. “Why come here?”
Wade looked at me. “To find out what she’s going to do.”
I frowned. “About what?”
His laugh was short and humorless. “The money, Ramona.” There it was.
“You drove all the way from Iowa because you’re worried I’m going to report you?”
“Yes.”
“You could’ve called.”
“You changed your number.”
I blinked. Right, I had.
“And I didn’t know where you went.”
“So how did you find me?”
“I went back through the campground computer.”
My eyebrows shot up.
Wade hurried to explain.
“You’d looked up the driving route. Skull Island. It was in the browser history.”
“Well, that’s creepy,” I muttered.
“I know.”
Bob’s hand settled against my back.
Wade noticed.
“I wasn’t trying to scare you.”
I stared at him. “You did a spectacularly shitty job of just that.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I know!” His voice rose.
Bob moved before I could blink.
One second he was beside me, the next he was in front of me.
Wade immediately lifted his hands. “I’m not yelling at her.”
“Sounded like it,” Bob growled.
“Bob,” Anchor called.
He didn’t move.
I touched his back. “I’m okay.”
He stayed there another second before stepping aside.
Wade blew out a breath. “I fucked up.”
“No argument here,” I said.
“I panicked.”
“Why?”
His eyes dropped. For the first time since we’d walked out there, Wade didn’t seem nervous about the Kings. He looked ashamed. “I needed the money.”
“You owned a campground.”
“My parents owned the campground,” he corrected. “When my dad died, Mom kept half, gave me the other half, and I’m in charge of the day-to-day. You saw the books. You know how much money that place actually makes.”
“Enough that you shouldn’t have been stealing from it.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
His mouth opened. Closed. He looked toward his truck.
For a second, I thought he wasn’t going to answer, then he reached into his back pocket.
Bob tensed.
Wade froze.
“I’m just going to grab my wallet,” he called.
Bob stared at him. “Slow.”
Wade pulled it out slowly. He opened it and took out a picture. He held it toward me.
I looked at Bob, and he nodded once.
I stepped forward and took it. A girl smiled up at me. Maybe thirteen. She had long brown hair and braces. She was sitting on a dock with her feet in the water and holding up a fish that couldn’t have been more than six inches long like she’d just landed a shark.
“That’s Ellie,” Wade said.
I looked up.
“My daughter.”
I hadn’t known Wade had a daughter. He’d never talked much about his family.
“She got sick two years ago.” Something in his voice made my stomach twist.
“What kind of sick?”
“Leukemia.”
All of the anger inside me didn’t disappear, but it shifted.
Wade stared at the picture in my hand. “Her mom and I haven’t been together since Ellie was four. She lives with her mother most of the time. Insurance covered a lot, but not everything. Travel. Hotels. Medications. Specialist visits. Time off work.
Then there were treatments they wanted to try that insurance fought us on.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I started taking money from the campground.” He paused. “Twenty-eight thousand.”
I sucked in a breath. “Jesus, Wade.”
“I was putting it back. I always planned to put it back. I only took what I needed, and I was going to put it back, I swear.”
“You were stealing from your own business and putting it back?”
“Trying to.”
I handed the picture back. “How is Ellie?”
Wade looked at it before sliding it into his wallet. “In remission.” The tension in his face eased for the first time. “Six months.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah.”
A small smile appeared. It changed his whole face. “Best fucking word I’ve ever heard.”
I believed him. That was the problem.
It would’ve been easier if Wade had shown up as the asshole I’d built him into in my head.