Page 57 of Never Say Yes To A Stranger

“I’d be surprised if his account is even still active.”

“You mean you haven’t checked?” she gasps. She isn’t faking the surprise.

How do I explain that I haven’t had the heart or will to log back in after Beau?

“A lot of things have been on hold in my real life and my…well, under my fake name too.”

“Thisisreal life.” Katie pats the bale and motions to the two cats, who are sitting side by side, staring at us with huge, unblinking cat eyes. It’s slightly creepy and a whole lot cute. “They’re real, and they love you. You’ve loved this place. I can see your touches everywhere. This is just the start of good things, and I’m glad you’re staying here.”

“Are you?” I ask.

“Well, I kind of hate you for it too. I miss you, bish.”

“I missed you too,bish.” What a terrible term. I punch her shoulder lightly and lean into her.

“Anyway, go online and check,” she says, leaning into me too. If either of us leaned away, the other would fall over, so we’re both holding the other up. “Maybe he left his account active just so you have one way to contact him if you ever wanted.”

“He did look sort of sorry when he left, even if he didn’t say it. There were so many times where I could tell he was feeling something, even if he was doing his best not to admit it to himself.”

“Feeling something and denying it is still better than faking a whole relationship. Ugh. If I could get my hands on Aiden, I would…I would…well, it would be soooo much worse than cheese toes to the face.”

“I know.” I can’t even sigh about it. All I can say is I know. Because what else is there to say at this point? Everything that happened still brought me here, or whatever it is that all the optimistic shits say about the extreme tribulations they may or may not have gone through. It’s such a romantic way of looking at life, but maybe life needs a little romance if we’re going to make it.

She leans into me even harder. It’s hot out here and in the barn, but I enjoy her warmth anyway. It’s good to be one-half of a sticky sister duo again.

“I’ll log on with you if you want. If he’s not on there, then you might have to leave it up to fate and to the Neanderthal himself. He knew you. It might not have been for long, but I can’t see how he couldn’t help falling in love with you. He seems like the kind that’s pretty ill-equipped to deal with that kind of emotional knockout, so it might take him a while, but if you have faith, good things will come. Or something.”

“Thank you.” I blink back my stinging tears. I’m the opposite of what Beau tried to do. I’m feelingeverything. “I needed that so freaking badly.”

The cats are still staring at us, but now, through the moisture blur, it looks like there are eight eyes and four of them. It’s also kind of creepy.

Two of them look like absolute units.

Chapter seventeen

Beau

It’s raining. Correction: It’s pouring. I’m not trying to sing old rhymes here. Nope. I got soaked to the bone in the time it took for me to go from the car to the porch. I should have parked closer. Or I should have called ahead. Quite possibly, I’m an asshole of epic proportions. Also? It’s September. And I’m starting to learn that September in North Dakota can be kind of wicked.

It’s cold.

It feels more like it should be snowing, not pouring. I guess it’s still too warm for that. Ironic, considering I’m back in the car with the heat cranked, shivering madly in the driver’s seat and trying to thaw out and get warm after waiting on the porch, soaked to the skin, out of said rain. I waited for five minutes. And then another five. Maybe another? I don’t even know how long it was. It might have been ten minutes, or it might have been twenty. I only rang the bell twice.

Ignacia—I still feel like I don’t have permission to call her Sam—had an old station wagon in the yard before, and it’s now parked in front of the barn. If she’s here and doesn’t want to see me, she could have come out to tell me to go away. Then again, she was always the sweetest, and I can’t imagine she’d like to engage in confrontation.

What am I doing now in the car besides trying to dry out and warm up so I don’t die of hypothermia? What’s my next step now that I came all the way out here—and yes, I know this is where she lived and still lives, even after the story about the up-and-coming fashion designer who had to quit her own life after an identity theft by her then-boyfriend broke. She was a sensation for five minutes, like most people are before someone else’s cruder and ruder story of the day took over. Aiden was sentenced to three years in jail. It’s not a lot of time, but he was facing up to sixty. Everyone knew he wouldn’t get that. Either way, I guess the world is going to be a slightly better place for those nine hundred and some odd days when he’s not in it. I hope jail doesn’t make him a better scammer. I hope he can reflect on the people he hurt, stole from, and ruined and then come out and do something else with his life.

Then again, if he doesn’t when he gets out, I’ll make sure he behaves. I’ll have someone from my team running surveillance on him at all times. He doesn’t have to know. No one has to know. It might be extreme, but I’m extremely sure if he ever hurts Ignacia, or rather, Sam, I will lose my shit. On the long list of things I’ve ever wanted to do, going to prison—even rich-person-style prison—isn’t one of them, especially not because I bash a guy up so badly that I nearly kill him.

For the record, even when I was working, I never had to discharge my weapon, and I only ever punched one guy out, and it was because he started swinging at my client, who happened to be his ex-wife, first. Yeah, he wasn’t a class act, and he fullydeserved the self-defense-induced black eye he got from me for his efforts.

I put my shaking hands up on the dash and let the heat vents blow warm air on them. I know diabetics don’t have the best circulation, and I do get cold sometimes, but this is ridiculous.

I run through options in my brain even though it feels cold and stunned.

Maybe Ignacia is home, and she doesn’t want to see me. She has every right not to answer the door. I should respect her wishes, shake and shiver my way back to the city, and fly my ass back home.

Or maybe she’s not home, and I should continue to sit here, looking droopy and wet and pathetic for a little while longer. Her truck is here, but it doesn’t mean she hasn’t gone somewhere else. She’s not in hiding anymore, and it’s been two and a half months. She could have made friends, and they could have picked her up.

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