Page 49 of Love in the Wild

Hadley’s hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, showcasing every inch of her smooth neck. As soon as she spotted him, her eyes lit up like neon lights in the night. Her lips stretched into a smile that had his heart short-circuiting.

“Hey! I brought–”

Gage reached her side and took her arm, turning her around as quickly as possible. “You have to go.”

“But you said we were having lunch.”

“I meant lunch is canceled. You can’t be here.” He opened her door and practically folded her into the car. His skin flashed hot and cold as sweat beaded on the back of his neck.

“But I–”

“I’ll text you later. Don’t look back,” Gage ordered as he closed the door and stalked back toward the garage. If he was the praying kind, he’d beg a higher power to rush her as far away from there as fast as possible.

Even rushing her away wouldn’t help. Everyone inside the garage probably got a good look at her, and now she’d be a person of interest to his family and Rome.

Gage huffed a breath out his nose. She’d just tied herself to him, and not in a good way. A bright-red target might as well be painted on her back.

Back inside the garage, Gage wiped every trace of emotion from his features and locked his attention on Rome. “You ready to head out?”

“Who was that?” Cain’s smirk and taunting tone lit a fire under Gage’s skin.

Gage leveled his cousin with a warning glare. “Nobody.”

“Hm. I might have to go after her.” Cain turned to Rome and jerked his head the way Hadley drove off. “You see those legs?”

Gage took a step toward Cain and let the fire in his chest build into a raging inferno. Lifting his chin and shoulders, Gage measured his words carefully. “Touch her and die.”

Cain chuckled, and the sound was anything but jovial. It was a laugh of madness mixed with unchecked entitlement. “We’ll see about that.”

Gage jerked his chin at Rome. “Let’s go.”

Ignoring the same wild grin on Rome’s face, Gage stalked toward his truck. He had to think of a way to minimize his involvement with Hadley before his family used her against him.

15

HADLEY

Hadley leaned against the wooden wall in the children’s event center. The faint light from her phone cast an eerie glow around the small room. She’d been staring at the message from Gage for a quarter of an hour, and her heart rate still matched the thunder of horse hooves as the wranglers drove them home every morning.

Gage: Red Bend. 9.

He said he’d meet her later, but what was she supposed to do with this? The map on her phone showed a road called Red Bend about a twenty-minute drive out of town, and she assumed the number was the time. Or was it the street number?

The clock on her phone turned over to 8:35 and she shoved it in her pocket. No sense waiting around if she was planning to meet him.

After misunderstanding his message earlier, she didn’t want to mix things up again. She couldn’t forget the fire in Gage’s eyes when he’d walked straight up to her only to shove her back in the car with a warning.

Ugh. She’d thought he meant the place they were meeting was changing. Since his uncle’s place was open to the public, she didn’t think it would be dangerous.

Walking through the night to her car wasn’t scary, but the thought of facing Gage was enough to make her feet heavy. He definitely wasn’t happy with her right now. Maybe she’d thrown a wrench into everything.

She gripped the wheel and glanced at the dining hall. Everyone was still hanging out. Should she tell Cheyenne where she was going just in case she ran into trouble?

No, she trusted Gage.

But did she trust his family? Absolutely not.

Hadley shifted the car into gear and headed out of town. Her breaths were uneven and shaky as she prayed. What could she do to fix things? Why did she go to his uncle’s today?

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