Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
LOLA
I’ve spent all morning refreshing the local news website.
Scroll. Refresh. Nothing. Scroll. Refresh. Nothing.
Part of me wants to jump in my car and drive to him.
I’m aching for him in a way that doesn’t make sense.
Not for a man I’ve slept with once, not for a man who told me to forget he exists.
But I know in my gut, in that deep and stubborn place that hasn’t often steered me wrong, that he didn’t do this.
That same part of me led me to New Falls.
This pull between us is real. It was real in the truck. It was real when he pressed his forehead to mine and said he’d come back. And it’s real now, sitting on this couch in my pajamas while I try to refresh my newsfeed.
I bite my lip and watch Violet pour her coffee into her takeaway mug. She’s going to her kitchen to clean up after the party. She and Luke left her unit in a state, and the van half unpacked.
With her out of the house, this leaves me on my own all day, with nothing but my phone and a very bad idea forming at the back of my brain. I’ve spent years behaving and doing what everyone tells me to do.
That is the Lola I want to leave in New York.
Maybe I could drive out to Sterling Ranch. Just to check in. Just to see. Because this man doesn’t exist on social media. I’ve looked. I’ve scrolled through every platform like a woman possessed and found nothing. No profile. No tagged photos. No digital footprint of any kind.
His brother, Ace, is a professional bull rider, but his accounts are clearly run by a promo team, with polished graphics and sponsor tags, and not a single candid shot. Other than that, there’s nothing. Hunter Sterling is a ghost online.
The complete opposite of me.
“Lola, I might not be home tonight. Luke is taking me out for dinner after we finish the cleanup. If things go well…” She trails off.
I set my phone face down on the couch and look up at her. The smile on her face tells me everything I need to know. Luke is good for her. The kind of steady, unflashy good that Violet has always deserved and never let herself have.
“Oooo. Violet on a date.” I pull my knees up to my chest. “He better be taking you somewhere nice.”
She nods, grabbing her purse. “Nice enough. We’re heading straight there, so I didn’t want anything fancy, since I’ll be in my work clothes.”
“Whatever makes you happy, V.”
She smiles. But then her face shifts, her eyes narrowing, head tilting, in that suspicious look she gets when she knows I’m about to do something reckless. “What are you doing today?” she asks.
“Nothing. Might go for a walk. Maybe shopping. Not sure, I will see where the day takes me.”
She takes a step closer. “Your adventures better not take you to Sterling Ranch, Lola Jackson.”
I press my hand to my chest in mock horror. “How dare you think so little of me!”
“I mean it.” Her tone hardens. No trace of humor left.
“I know, V. I promised I wouldn’t. When have I let you down before?” I say, keeping my voice sweet.
But, for the first time ever, I’m going to have to let my best friend down. And I hate it.
That softens her up enough that her shoulders drop an inch. “If it’s meant to be, it will be, Lola.” She slings her bag over her shoulder. “It’s annoying as hell that the one man I’ve seen you giddy over is currently in a cell.”
I sit up straight. “Have you heard anything else?”
“No. I’ll ask Luke and report back.”
“Thank you.”
By the time she actually leaves, after two more warnings and a pointed look at my car keys, I’m watching the hands tick on the clock above the kitchen counter.
Maybe Hunter’s life isn’t my business. Maybe we just aren’t meant to be anything. Maybe I’m projecting a connection onto a man who was clear about walking away, and the universe is confirming it in the most brutal way possible.
I pick up my phone. Open the browser. Hit refresh on the news.
Nothing.