Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 287(@200wpm)___ 230(@250wpm)___ 192(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 287(@200wpm)___ 230(@250wpm)___ 192(@300wpm)
“Somewhere around here with Hunter. I can take possession of it if you want. They could be anywhere.” I’d gone to the main house for lunch, and food was there, but my nanny and my son were not. “Any messages I need to pass on?”
Buck shrugged. “Now I can’t speak to all of that, but it was definitely a nail that sliced through all four tires. There were two slits in each tire, so it wasn’t a mistake. Had to replace ’em all instead of just patching them up, which is cheaper, you know?”
I nodded, but dread slithered down my chest and settled deep in my belly. Someone had slashed her tires on purpose, not just to scare her but to cost her money. To doubly screw her. “Thanks for that, Buck.”
“That’s not all, Colton.”
Shit. “What else?” Molly had only mentioned the tires, and I hadn’t noticed anything else.
Buck reached inside the car with a grunt, but when he stepped back, he tossed me a small black box, no bigger than an old-school cell phone. “Found that under the back tire. Looks like one of those trackers you can buy at those spy stores.” While I stared at the tracker, he lowered Molly’s car to the ground with ease.
“Shit.”
Buck nodded, a look of regret on his face. “Yeah, I sure am sorry to be the one to deliver the bad news, but I figured she’d rather know than not, you know?”
I shoved my hands deep in my pockets and nodded because I would have to be the one to tell Molly what Buck had found. “Thanks, Buck. What do I owe you?”
“Molly already took care of it. She’s a sweet girl. I’ll see you both around,” he said before ambling back to the truck and jumping behind the steering wheel.
I watched Buck take off, leaving a trail of dust in his wake, my mind unsettled at the possibility that someone was spying on Molly and tracking her every move. The news would not go over well, and I didn’t relish being the one to give it to her.
But it had to be done, and delaying it wouldn’t change the words I had to say. So, after I took one look back at the spreadsheets that haunted my existence, I headed for the main house. “Molly?”
There was no answer. In fact, there was no sound whatsoever. The house was completely silent; even Amelia had left for the day. I grabbed Molly’s keys to put her car away and stopped at the garden on my way back, but there was a distinct lack of conversation and laughter that usually followed Molly and Hunter everywhere.
I started to worry after a quick trip to the stables found Peanut Butter in his stall, alone except for the other horses. “Where are they?”
It wasn’t like Molly to leave without a note, and since her car had just been delivered by Buck, she couldn’t have gone far. I started on the east side of the property where a small pond sat mostly unused. My heart raced with every step I took; worry crept into my throat and my chest, and on the heels of that worry, my own anger took hold.
It grew into something dark the longer I searched without finding them. Worry and fear twined together in my stomach as it filled with acid. What if something happened to them? My footsteps quickened, eager to set eyes on Hunter and Molly, but they weren’t in the field of flowers or the small orchard.
The sun slowly sank behind the horizon, and darkness settled over the land, which only amplified my anxiety. “Molly! Hunter!” My slow walk turned into a jog and then a full-out run as worry gripped my chest. “Molly!” The pond was in view but still a few hundred feet away, and I ran until my lungs burned, stopping abruptly about halfway to the pond.
Molly was stretched out on a blanket in the grass with her eyes closed. One hand rested behind her head, and a small smile curved her lips. Her other hand rested on Hunter’s chest as he slept peacefully with his head cradled on her lap. It was a gorgeous picture, warm and familial.
Perfect.
But my anger only allowed me to appreciate the picture for a minute. “Molly!”
Her eyes shot open, and her hand flew to her chest as she sat up, careful not to wake Hunter. “What? What’s wrong?” She looked around and then down at Hunter before her gaze shot to mine, a frown on her face. “Colton, what’s going on?”
“What’s wrong?” The words bellowed out of me so loudly they shook. “What’s wrong, Molly, is that I’ve been looking all over the property for you, and I couldn’t find you. I couldn’t find Hunter. I wasted more than an hour looking for you.”