Page 143 of Love Me Reckless

“Thank you.”

I hang up, feeling worse, but a text from Sawyer is like a burst of sunshine.

Hey gorgeous. Are you still at Zach & Sofie’s?

My heart does a pirouette.

Yes. Want me to come pick you up?

For some reason, the thought makes me giddy. Maybe I’m just excited to see him after what’s felt like a very long separation, or maybe it’s the idea of us doing little things for each other, like a ride home from work. Is this a taste of what our life might be like together?

From the front of the house, the door shuts, and moments later, Zach’s truck starts up just as Sawyer replies,

Zach’s on his way. See you soon

A tight knot forms in my chest. I stare at the message for another moment. Something is weird about this, but I shake it off and call Grayson.

“Kirilee, I’m so glad you called.”

He sounds tense, and while I’m sure he’s under immense strainright now, he sounds different than yesterday. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“I think you’d better sit down.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

He waits, and I get the feeling he’s serious, so I lower to the edge of the bed. “Okay.”

“Your identity and your bank accounts were compromised today.”

“Oh no.” I run a hand over my hair, trying to collect my thoughts. “What do you mean by compromised?”

“Someone used your private information to access your bank accounts. Fortunately, the added security stopped them from getting very far.”

“This is why there’s a hold on my account,” I say, shaking my head. “I thought it was Dad, or Birch.”

“The hold is an automatic security measure triggered by suspicious activity.”

“Right.” I should have thought of this. “How bad is it?”

“Your primary checking and savings accounts have been liquidated. They used your credit card and bought several thousand dollars’ worth of appliances and tools at a Home Depot in Florida.” He exhales a tight sigh. “We’ll contest the credit card purchases, but the cash they got before the hold froze means everything is gone.”

My insides quiver and my face flushes with a prickly heat. Thanks to Birch, money I’ve been setting aside for my community art center project is secure inside our home safe. The loss of everything else is painful, but the credit problems this will cause might be the bigger worry.

I tell myself that I’ll just have to work that much harder to make my dreams come true.

“How could this happen? I’m careful, Grayson.”

“They think it’s a Finn River Ranch employee.”

The tenderness in his voice makes my nose sting and emotions to lodge in my throat. “That’s terrible.”

“I know this is hard to hear. We love our staff. They’re like family. But the reality is that people steal. It sucks.”

“Do they know who?”

“Stu is handling it,” he replies.

That someone would do this hurts. It’s cruel and careless. I force a slow breath into my lungs, but it doesn’t soften the heavy sadness creeping into my chest.

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