Chapter 8 #2
She shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. I’ve never seen anyone. Did you get a look at this person?”
He shook his head. “When I tried, they drove off.”
“And you sped off after them,” she said, her breath catching. “You could have been hurt or worse, Troy. That was so dangerous.”
“Yes, it was,” he agreed. “This person following you is dangerous.”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “I just can’t be certain someone really is and that it’s not just paranoia about the serial killer and the other things that have happened in Shelby lately.”
Maybe because he finally knew about all those dangerous occurrences, he’d assumed his supervisor’s call was a threat. But it could have been empty. What had happened on the mountain could have been an accident. But he didn’t really believe he was overreacting to any of it.
“I think it’s better to be safe than sorry,” he said. And he would be more than sorry if something happened to Lakin; he would be devastated. “We should call the police.”
Though he wasn’t sure what they could do about him being run off the road. There were no cameras up in the mountains, and he wouldn’t be able to give them a license plate number or even a good description.
“Bobby Reynolds was here the other night with Eli and Kansas,” she reminded him. Bobby was the officer who’d been with Shelby PD the longest. “He wasn’t concerned about the break-in here at the cabin.”
“I’m concerned,” Troy said. “About the break-in. About this man claiming to be your father. And whoever’s following you…” He wasn’t just concerned; he was scared to death that something was going to happen to her. “Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”
Her dark eyes widened for a moment, and her mouth opened. Finally she said, “Yes.”
He gasped. “What?” Had something else horrible happened?
“When you didn’t reply to my emails and texts about the Shelby Hotel, I went to the auction anyway,” she said. Then she paused, drew in a deep breath and said, “And I bought it.”
“What?” That was not what he’d expected her to say. It had nothing to do with the break-in and Whitlaw. “I don’t understand.”
“I bought the Shelby Hotel,” she said. “I actually got a great deal on it.”
“But the auction meant you had to pay cash. No matter how great a deal, how would you have enough cash to purchase it?” he asked.
Her face flushed slightly, and she glanced down. “My dad helped me.”
Her dad had helped her because Troy wouldn’t. He hadn’t seen her texts or emails until after he’d recovered in the hospital. But even if he had seen them before the auction, he wasn’t sure he would have been able to help her no matter how cheap the hotel had sold.
“I’m going to pay him back,” Lakin said. “I’m working on getting a business loan now for that and for renovations and carrying costs. I have a plan.”
“I…” It used to be we. We had a plan.
“I got sick of waiting for our future to start, Troy,” she said. “I love the idea of turning the old hotel into an experience with gorgeous suites for guests to celebrate their special occasions, like honeymoons and anniversaries.”
“The renovations are going to take a lot of money,” he said.
He’d driven past it earlier when he’d followed her to her parents’ house.
Because she’d slowed down as she’d passed it, he had, too.
And he’d really studied the place. The wood siding was weathered, and while he hadn’t been able to see the roof of the two-story building, he was worried that it probably needed to be replaced, too.
If the roof had been leaking, there would be a lot of renovations required inside, too.
“And it’s going to take a lot of hard work, too, to get it up and running,” he said. He wasn’t really capable of the hard work, not yet. And the money. He’d already lost too many weeks’ wages, and if he lost his job, too, now, there was no way he could help her with anything.
She nodded. “Yes, I know all that, and I’m willing to do the hard work.”
“You have a job.” One that he thought she’d enjoyed since she was working with her family.
“I’m going to give Parker my notice soon, once the business loan is approved,” she said.
“You’ve made a lot of decisions while I was gone,” he said. He felt left behind and left out, like he was still stuck in that hospital bed, paralyzed while she was running circles around him.
“I tried to get in contact with you—”
“I was in the hospital!” he said, his voice a bit sharp. He would have answered his emails or texts. But his phone had gone in the water with him, and he hadn’t been able to replace it until he’d gotten better.
“I didn’t know that,” she said, “because you didn’t let me know that.” The hurt was in her voice and in the depths of her dark eyes.
He released a ragged sigh. “I’m sorry,” he said, and he stepped closer to her. “I never meant to hurt you. I was trying to spare you…”
“What? All the fear you must have been feeling?” she asked. “You should not have had to go through that alone, but you chose to. And I don’t understand why.”
“You don’t?” he asked. “You’re clearly not eager to call the police about someone following you, about Whitlaw…”
“I don’t know that there is anything to tell,” she said. “You have more to report with someone running you off the road.”
“I’ll go by the police department tomorrow,” he said. “And you should go with me.”
“I’ll talk to Eli,” she said. “I don’t want it getting around town about Whitlaw.”
“So you didn’t tell your parents about him and the photograph he gave you,” he surmised.
She sighed. “No. I didn’t want to worry them.”
He touched her chin, tipping it up to him. “Why not? Because you love them? I love you, Lakin. That’s why I didn’t want to worry you.”
“It’s not just your accident, though,” she said. “You’re gone so much, and I hear so little from you when you’re on the rig.”
They were drifting apart. He hadn’t realized how much until now.
“Lakin, what’s going on with us?” Their relationship had always been so loving and easy. Until now. And he didn’t know how to fix it.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. We just don’t feel like us anymore. Maybe our lives aren’t going in the same direction anymore.”
“I love you,” he repeated, trying to get through to her that he hadn’t changed and that his feelings hadn’t changed. When she’d been angry with him earlier about not calling her after his accident, she’d doubted his love.
“And I love you,” she said, but she sounded more resigned than happy about it.
Until now, he’d never realized that their love might not be enough.
* * *
The truck with the rust eating away at the bright blue paint was parked outside her cabin next to her SUV. It should have gone over the side of the mountain with the man inside it. He should have died.
While he’d survived this time, the boyfriend had to go. He was a pain in the ass, and he was going to get in the way and mess up the plan.
He had to die.