Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE | TARYN
Elena’s tongue darts out, licking her lips hungrily as a massive pile of chocolate chip pancakes is placed before her.
She swoops her finger through the whipped cream, unable to wait as the woman sets down Tristan’s crepes.
She sucks her pointer finger clean with a contented pop that makes me smile.
She’s so easily entertained sometimes.
I’m hoping she’ll hit that sugar high and crash so she can sleep peacefully on the hour drive home while I gloat.
There is no way in hell Colten will find us here.
Before we left the shop, he tried to give me his work cell so I could contact him if needed and have access to navigation.
I refused. I’m smarter than he gives me credit for.
He could’ve easily tracked that phone, and I wasn’t about to hand over an advantage.
Luckily, I remembered the route to Cascade Springs.
Our waitress returns with my French toast combo, and I glance at her IHOP name tag as she places it in front of me.
“Thanks, Melanie,” I say gratefully.
Yep. I chose IHOP for dinner because I highly doubt it would ever cross Colten’s mind to check a place like this. Plus, I am a sucker for breakfast for dinner. The way the kids quietly indulge in their meals makes me think that’s something we all have in common.
Or it’s because I let them choose meals on the menu that are complete sugar bombs.
Either way, points to me for being the cool nanny.
Seeing them happy has warmth spreading across my cheeks. Jess may be gone now, but I’m hoping I can be enough of a fun distraction that her being gone will hurt them less.
I glance around at the other tables, some with families and others with elderly singles.
I still have no idea why he created this competition in the first place.
Cascade Springs is one of the bigger cities around Cedar Creek, and I could’ve taken Elena and Tristan anywhere.
It hardly seems fair, but I want my phone and truck back.
The pathetic part is that I don’t even care to run. I just want to see if my parents have bothered to reach out. I would be perfectly content with one meager text asking how I am since they won’t ask about the new teaching position. Honestly, they don’t even know about it.
Or that I’ve moved.
I shouldn’t be surprised since it’s been three months since we last communicated, but the silence hurts.
Elena makes a humming noise of satisfaction as she reaches across the table for the syrup bottle. The drips cascade down the glass, creating a sticky ring on the tabletop.
She pulls it toward her, and I chuckle, popping a piece of fluffy egg into my mouth. “I don’t think you need any more of that.”
Tristan’s gaze snaps toward me. “I want more, too!”
Of course you do.
Raising a brow, I glance between the two sweet faces giving me their best begging eyes across the booth from me.
Where were these looks when I needed them earlier?
Locating my knife next to the plate, I slice through my French toast like butter. “Colten isn’t going to be very happy with me if I bring you two home all sugared up and hyper.”
He’ll already be pissed off that I’m going to kick his ass in this little game.
Which reminds me—
I peek up from my plate. “Hey, what time is it?” I ask Tristan.
Picking up his Switch beside him on the booth cushion, he clicks it on, his gaze darting across the screen. “7:50 p.m.,” he tells me.
My chest erupts with a little bit of adrenaline.
Ten minutes until eight.
Tristan arches a brow. “Why do you keep asking me the time?”
I place a slice of toast in my mouth, crunching through the buttery bread. “No reason.”
Someone at the booth behind me moves, shaking the wall my back is resting against. A large figure appears in the corner of my vision.
When I tilt my head up, my eyes clash with those vibrant green eyes that instantly consume mine.
With one look, it’s as if I just took a nosedive off a cliff into glacier-cold waters that sequester my entire body and turn it into ice.
My stomach somersaults. In excitement or fear, I’m not sure.
Fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck.
One side of Colten’s mouth crooks maliciously. “Your lack of belief in my ability to find someone is amusing.”
My lips part, my throat so dry that I couldn’t speak even if I wanted to. He sucked all the damn moisture out with just his daunting presence.
“Colten! Look at what Miss Taryn let me get for dinner,” Elena shrieks cheerfully. “The nice woman working gave me extra whipped cream!”
The sides of his eyes wrinkle while a raspy laugh shakes his chest.
The moisture is back in my mouth now.
He slips his hands into his pockets. “I can see that.”
I’ve decided that his genuine laugh is my favorite sound.
It nearly distracts me from imagining all the possible things he could do to me later.
I lost. My punishment for challenging him is on the horizon, and I’d be lying if I said I don’t get a trill of exhilaration behind my hip bones just pondering his threat.
He places an arm over the back of the booth, leaning into it. His spiced leather and woodsy scent overpower the sickly-sweet smell of pancakes and French toast wafting from the table.
Oh God. His cologne, natural scent, or whatever it is, makes me squirm in my seat.
I can’t keep the whine from mingling with my tone. “How the hell did you know we were here?”
Lowering his body to the booth, he uses his strong frame to shove me closer to the wall so he can sit with us. The equivalent would be him sliding an empty cardboard box across the floor.
He settles in, getting comfortable. Colten’s arm brushes against mine, shooting off all sorts of chaotic sparklers that dance across my skin.
A touch so simple, yet mind-bending simultaneously.
“Isn’t it entertaining to not know the answer to that? How about we make this even more interesting?”
I knit my arms together, the tops of my breasts breaking out in gooseflesh when his attention lands on them.
My response is flat. “And how would you do that?”
His eyes find mine. “This is the first place I checked.”
I press my tongue against the inside of my cheek. He must not miss the irritated look contorting my face because he grins.
He’s lying. He must be.
Why the hell would his first guess be an IHOP?
Breakfast for dinner. I thought I was being clever because who in their right mind thinks of that first?
Unless—
My eyes widen. “The kid’s tablets! Are you tracking those?”
He shakes his head, and my heart plummets into my stomach.
He knew precisely where we were. In fact, he knew exactly where I was when I went out on my run that one morning. The same way that Cameron and Brennan knew my location in the orchard when I tried to escape…
My chest hollows, allowing recognition to flood the space. “Oh my—” The wicked grin on his lips boils the blood in my veins to a temperature that’s damn near about to burn me alive. I’m sure there’s steam billowing out of my ears.
“Did you microchip me?” I seethe.
He lifts his water—my water—to his lips and takes a sip. Then he crunches an ice cube between his teeth, ignoring me.
Answer the damn question, Colten.
I concentrate on the movement of his tongue, wetting his lips. His mouth quirks.
“That’s perverted and completely unfair!” I blurt louder than necessary, attracting the attention of a few patrons at nearby tables.
“A win is a win, Little Ghost.”
“You cheated!”
“And you didn’t ask for specifics on what tracking strategies I would use. That’s your fault, not mine.”
Ugh.
My mouth tugs downward, and I sulk as I press two fingers to the juncture of my inner elbow. Pressing firmly, I dig my fingers into my flesh, trying to locate anything that feels abnormal or foreign.
Where are you, you little bastard?
Colten side-eyes me. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to find my microchip.”
“Why would you think it’s there?”
I don’t know, Colten, probably because that’s where they put them in The Hunger Games when they were tracking all the tributes. Another movie scene plays behind my eyes, and my hand flies to my neck.
His head lowers to mine. “I’ll give you a hint: it’s not in your upper body.”
My eyes narrow for a moment, then quickly expand unusually large. They enlarge to the size that encourages a twinge of pain behind my lids and urges a headache to form.
My head drops to my lap. Uh…is that even possible?
I mean, I guess IUDs are implanted, so it’s not…impossible. But that means they would’ve had to do that the night I was drugged, and usually, they are below the skin somewhere.
Hello, vagina, do you have an intruder in there?
He follows my gaze.
The sigh that leaves him is infuriating. “It’s not there either.”
I glare daggers at him as if they could slice through his perfectly cut jawline and beautiful eyes.
If his eyes bled from my fictional blades, I could only envision them looking like those pinstripe red-and-green candy canes at Christmas that my parents would let me hang on the tree—one of the only holidays where I didn’t feel as lonely as I usually did.
His hot lips scrape against the shell of my ear. “And save those cock-hardening eyes for later. I want you to look at me like that when I claim your ass tonight,” he whispers, the statement pouring down my spine like hot honey.
Sticky. Sweet. And sinful.
I pick up my fork, stabbing a soggy piece of drenched French toast. “You have no limits.”
“Not when it comes to you, Little Ghost.”