Page 46 of Gentle Fox

“Wewill jump off that bridge when we come to it. You’re not in this alone anymore. It’swemoving forward.”

Yup, this was the swoon-worthy love people talked about. I was seconds away from choking up and making an ass of myself. I needed to change the conversation stat, so I cleared my throat.

“You never said what was wrong. What dragged you out of bed?”

Owen’s smile was gone instantly and so were the butterflies that fluttered around my stomach just moments before. Maybe changing the subject wasn’t the best idea.

“Oh God, it’s that bad. Is someone dead? Please tell me no one is dead.”

“No,” Owen rushed to reassure me. “I promise you no one is dead.”

Thank goodness. I’m not even sure what made me think that. If it was anyone here in Willow Creek, there was no way Owen would still be here, and so calm. He wouldn’t have let me change the subject earlier. And there was no one from Baton Rouge I cared about except my old neighbor.

Speaking of, I needed to call her and make sure everything was okay. I made a mental note to do that when the sun came up.

“Then what’s wrong?”

“Dennis chartered a private plane to Texas an hour ago.”

I saw red. I knew people talked about it happening, and honestly, I thought those people were exaggerating, but nope. I was so angry that my vision was legitimately tinted with red. I jumped off the bed and started to pace. I needed to move when I was angry. To let off some of the excess energy that was starting to build inside my body.

“How the hell did he find me?”

I ran every scenario through my head. I was so damn careful. I hadn’t used my name since leaving Louisiana. I hadn’t touched a single dime from my bank account or my inheritance.

I was a damn ghost and hestillfound me.

“My guess is the news article that was in the local newspaper.”

I stopped dead in my tracks and flung my head back to screech at the ceiling. “Of course!How could I forget about that fucking article?”

I had known that damn thing would come back to haunt me and yet I pushed it out of my mind in favor of everything else that was going on.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

“So what now?” I asked.

Before my father died, I would’ve sworn Dennis was harmless.

Lazy.

Incompetent.

Spoiled.

All words I had used to describe him not too long ago, but then he went and destroyed my apartment. Sure, it showed just how spoiled he was, but it also made me realize there was another side of him that I knew nothing about. I wasn’t too keen to see what else he would be willing to do.

“Lex is on his way to the airport to keep an eye on Dennis. We aren’t the police, so we can’t pull him in for questioning. Besides destroying your apartment, we have nothing to pin on him. We’re better off watching him to see what he does. Hopefully we can figure out what his plan is.”

“Won’t Lex stand out in his monstrosity of a Jeep?”

You couldn’t miss the damn thing.

Owen snickered. “You would be surprised how many people don’t give him a second glance. Dennis will assume he’s just another hick cruising around. Besides, he might take one of the company vehicles. Mav has two blacked-out SUVs we can use if needed.”

“Huh. I didn’t know that. Where does he keep them?”

There was that random curiosity again.

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