Page 34 of The Truth

“Partially. I think I’ve spent more time in aquatherapy than regular physical therapy over the years. It hurts less and feels great.” She grinned at her friends—and ignored the three guys at the opposite end of the pool. They’d been making eyeballs at her, Greer and Hala since they’d arrived. And had started swimming far more… vigorously once they had seen them.

They were boy-sharks, and they were circling.

It was just a matter of time until they swam in for the kill, so to speak. But she had no fear—Greer would chase them off.

“In the water, I can move without being afraid I’ll fall down. Remarkably freeing. After I graduate and don’t have any more tuition costs, Aubrey is talking about putting one of those swim gym indoor exercise pools in the garage. We just have to find a way to pay for it. And make sure it will fit. We’re going to go all tropical themed, and tile the floor around it, and add handrails. That kind of thing. If it’s big enough, we need to measure. The small oneshouldfit, but there isn’t a guarantee.”

“We have an old workshop building behind the horse barn that’s empty, you know. I bet if we told Gunn about those pools, you’d have one within a week,” Greer said, swimming around her. She was much stronger at swimming than Hala. “I think my big brother is in love.”

“I think your big brother is beautiful when he’s in love,” Hala added. “But Greer is probably right.”

Love.Well, Ayla wasn’t ready to think about that yet. She just wasn’t. “I don’t know that I would call it that.”

That word kind of made her feel a little panicky, actually. It was far too early to be thinking like that.

“So what would you call it? Are you involved with Gunn? I’m totally hoping you are, but if you aren’t and it’s just friends—that’s cool, too. So… spill. What’s he said?”

Ayla treaded water, then reached out and guided Hala closer to the edge of the pool. Just in case. Her friend was looking a little pitiful there.

“We… I think… we may be beginning todate.Like… seriously date. Not Chan and Gene or Genny and Chad seriously. Yet. We are goingslow.But that’s all I really can figure out. I’m not good at this kind of thing. The last guy I was involved with was almost eight years ago and that ended with Aubrey beating him up in the front parking lot of our townhouse. He kissed me and wouldn’t stop when I told him to.”

“Ninja Aub. I would so believe it,” Greer said.

“Has Gunn kissed you yet?” Hala asked, a strange look in her big brown eyes.

“Not… yet.”

“Do you think hewill?” Hala asked, clinging to the side of the pool, as those three guys swam closer. And closer. Ayla swore she heard the theme music toJawsplaying in her head now. “I keep trying to figure out what he’s thinking, whenever I see you together, but Gunn has always been seriously hard to figure out. As is his clone, I might add.”

“What is going on with you and Grady?” Greer asked. “I know you’ve been arguing with him.”

“He seems to think that I need him to tell me what to do every time I move lately. I think he has misplaced the whole ‘big brother’ thing, since you aren’t cooperating.”

Yeah, Ayla somehow didn’t think it was that. There wasn’t anythingbrotherlyin how Grady looked at Hala. He looked at Hala the way slobbery men looked at Aubrey.

But well… Ayla was just going to keep that opinion to herself. Hala was ranting about the latest thing that Grady-man had said to her. But her cheeks were bright red. And it wasn’t just from exertion, either.

Ayla hadquestions.

Then, they didn’t have time to talk at all.

Those idiot guys from clear across the pool decided to introduce themselves.

And well… that just took all the fun out of spending the day at the pool with her besties, didn’t it?

26

Gunn was goingto have to find Ayla as quickly as he could. He was fighting the fear again. This… Gunn didn’t understand how this had happened. He was focused on finding Ayla and getting her where she needed to be now. He would try to make sense out of the random violence again later.

He wasn’t about to let her go into this alone. Dr. Alvaro’s wife had told him specifically that Aubrey was going to be just fine, that her arm was broken but she would be fine. Aubrey had just wanted him to get Ayla so that she wouldn’t be afraid. He just had tofindAyla first. She was a little harder to track down than he’d anticipated.

His best bet to accomplish that was through Greer. She knew Ayla’s schedule and she and Hala had been pitching in to help drive her places when Aubrey couldn’t lately. He called his youngest sister. He barely gave her time to say anything. “Do you have Ayla with you?”

“Yes. We’re at FCU. Ayla needed to spend a few hours working out in the pool, and we joined her here. Why? What’s wrong?”

He looked at Emerson next to him. “Where at exactly? I’m about ten minutes from Finley Creek now. I need to get to her, and she didn’t answer her phone.”

“Why?”

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