Page 132 of Tangled up in You

“I think you’re right.” She wiped her tears. “Sorry our plans changed. Do you want to come with me?”

The men exchanged a glance. “Maybe it’s better we don’t,” Mark said, reaching out to silence Chris. “I mean, maybe we should let them have time with you before we drop this on them.”

She took a deep breath. “I think you’re right. Daddy can be pretty overprotective. I have a feeling he’ll want me to wear one of those radio tracking collars like that bear.”

The men burst out laughing, which finally made her smile.

Mark leaned in and kissed her. “You go. We’ll do your laundry while you’re gone. I’ll need to file an incident report, and I’m sure Chris has a to-do list.”

She nodded. “I should get a shower.” She smiled. “Maybe wait to take yours, if you can, and I’ll take another with you when I get back.”

Chris laughed. “Deal.”

She quickly did that in the guest bathroom and fortunately she didn’t have to do much in the way of packing later, because she’d left everything ready to go before they’d left. She dressed in clean clothes from her suitcase and after another round of kisses, she headed to Gardiner in her rental.

MARK

Jesse was no sooner out the door when Christopher’s mind raced as he started spinning ideas to Mark.

All of them involving futures with Jesse.

What he didn’t want to remind Chris of was the fact that they were no longer stuck in the wilderness, and Jesse had a life, a career, that wasn’tthere.

To expect her to stay when her life was literally on the other side of the country was emotionally masochistic.

Still, he didn’t take a shower before he threw on clothes and drove to the station.

When he returned home two hours later, Jesse wasn’t back and Chris worked on his laptop in the living room while also talking on the phone with someone at work.

He walked down the hall and glanced at the guest bedroom, where her packed suitcase lay on the bed. Meanwhile, her laundry churned with theirs in the washer and dryer, with another load ready to wash once those were done.

She won’t stay.

He didn’t want to admit this, but if he tried to adopt Christopher’s thinking he knew he’d end up hurt.

Yes, he kept them alive—they kept her alive—and had clicked on many levels.

But when the horniness wore off and she returned to her everyday world, the fact was she was not only out of their league, but out of their solar system.

She was a rich scientist with a busy career and they were, what, a diversion when she thought she might die?

I won’t let her hurt Chris.

CHAPTER 16

JESSE

She didn’t think her dad would ever release her when he nearly tackled her upon opening their hotel room door.

Especially because while she thought she was going to reassure him that she was fine, she immediately burst into tears.

Now she sat on their bed with her father and Josie holding her as she sobbed.

“Are you really okay, honey?” Josie asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. It was…something.” She looked at her dad. “Okay, I took time off work. Happy now?”

He froze before bursting into deep belly laughs, and she couldn’t remember the last time she heard him do that.

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