Page 29 of Frisco

“What?!” Aly said. “That’s amazing.”

“For you maybe, Miss I Want To Marry a Millionaire Farmer and Instead I’m Boinking a Super Hot and Young Fireman Stud. Marriage isn’t for everyone, sweetie.”

I grunted, on his side.

No one should get married.

Ever.

We’d been switching off driving, and I took over in Oklahoma City. I could go another four hours before needing to stop.

Harper had sprawled in the back, needing nap time. He’d been the last to drive. Aly could handle four hours. Harper could do two. Not me. I enjoyed a good eight hours. I forgot how much I loved road trips.

Good thing we hadn’t flown.

I was overruled.

We stopped in Amarillo, Texas, for the night. Sixteen hours on the road, and everyone was tired… Or they should’ve been.

I wasn’t.

I was wired, and I didn’t know why.

The closer we got to California, the more tight I felt.

It was as if I was a wire, and both ends were being tightened, tightened, tightened. I wasn’t quite to the point of snapping, but I was close.

Aly found me in the hotel’s bar. I was ready for bed, head wrap and all except my pajamas were a normal legging and an oversized sweater. My sleep tank was underneath.

She slid into the chair across from me and eyed my drink.

“You know all about my bed-capades with Scott, and now we know we don’t need to hate Justin. Him wanting to marry Harper is a good thing. But hon?”

I bristled, hating and loving that hon part. I knew I wouldn’t want to hear what she was going to say. But I also knew she loved me, and that’s why she was going to say what she was going to say.

“It’s been three months, almost four. You don’t get on with your sister, but here we are—on a road trip going to get her. You gotta talk.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “You know you gotta talk.”

I didn’t want to talk.

That meant thinking about what he’d done to me, remembering it, being back there, and God, I didn’t want to go back there. Also, Shane’s question haunted me.

Why had I stayed? I didn’t know myself.

I shook my head. “I can’t. Not yet.”

She tapped my drink. “You are not a drinker, and you’re here after riding for sixteen hours, having a drink. Kali, that says everything.”

That wire tightened another notch, but I still didn’t snap. Not yet.

It was coming.

9

SHANE

“How’s it going in Frisco?”

I was surprised Max held off as long as he had. We’d arrived two weeks ago, and since then it’d been a shitshow.

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