Page 80 of One Night With You

“So she’s gone. She just left?” I asked, wondering what the hell was going on. She couldn’t just leave. Then again, she needed to. It was work. But hell, she hadn’t even said goodbye. Maybe I had screwed up. Well, beyond the obvious.

“When did she leave?” I asked.

“Just a few minutes ago. So we just got a weather alert that the storm’s coming in faster, I hope she got down the pass before it got icy. As it is, we’re going to have to go the back way to get home. But it’s okay, we’ll all be fine. We’re heading out soon.”

Alarms spread through me, even though it didn’t make any sense. I just had a bad feeling.

“I’m going to go down the pass and just make sure that she’s okay.”

“What’s wrong, Kingston?” Phoebe asked, not telling me that I was a lunatic for wanting to do that. That should have warned me more than anything.

“I don’t know. Just have a bad feeling.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” Phoebe asked, as Kane came forward.

“What’s going on?”

“Claire left to deal with an emergency at work, and I don’t know, with the storm coming in, I just want to get to her. So I’m going to go.”

“Do you want us to go with you?” Kane asked, and right then and there, I knew that my family would do anything for me.

Because every single person in this room would have freely dropped everything to help, even if it made no sense that I was following Claire to her place of business, just to make sure that she was okay. And I didn’t even know the fucking place. I was just going to drive and hopefully catch up to her.

“Yeah, I’ll just go,” Crew said as he came from behind me. “Aria snapped at me again, and I’m not in the mood to get yelled at for trying to help. So I’ll just help you. I drove in with Kane, so I need a ride anyway.”

“We’ll just head out, catch up to her.”

“Drive safe. I’m sure everything’s okay,” Phoebe said, but there was worry in her gaze, and now that bad feeling intensified.

We headed out to the car, jumping in quickly without words. Something seemed to be on Crew’s mind, so I let him be, as we made our way down the road. It was indeed getting a little icy, but the roads had been prepared with salt, so it wasn’t too bad.

At least I didn’t think so.

“Are you really worried? Where are we going?”

“Phoebe was going to text us the address, will you check?”

“Yeah, I will. So we’re just driving around aimlessly for now?” he asked.

“I just want to catch up to her.”

“And tell her that you love her?”

“That, and that she doesn’t have to do this alone. Hell, am I insane?”

“Yes, but that’s fine.”

We drove around the bend, and my heart stopped, everything icing over.

“Oh my God.” I didn’t slam on the brakes since there was indeed ice, but I pumped them, pulling over to the side of the road.

Claire’s car, because it had to be hers, was partway in the lake, tilting forward, and the doors weren’t open.

“I’ll call 911,” Crew called out as we both got out ofthe car, running toward Claire. There were skid marks all over the road, and I had a feeling that someone else had been on that road. And from the way that there was a huge dent in the side of Claire’s car, someone had hit her, run her off the road, and fucking left. Unless they were in the lake first? I didn’t have time to think, I just moved toward Claire.

I ran to the door and tried to pull it open, realizing that most of the front was under water, and now Claire was in the back seat, shoving at the door handle.

“Claire!”

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