Page 54 of His Runaway Princess

They disappeared.

17

When she opened her eyes, Amalia knew she’d been sleeping. She didn’t know for how long.

And it took a few seconds for her to realize she was at the North Shore home.

Blinking, she sat up, the blanket falling off of her. Ryker must have covered her up with it.

Where had he gone?

She looked around to see an empty room. After finding her phone, she saw a message from him that he’d gone to check out the area around the house.

After giving herself a few minutes to wake up, Amalia went to find him and see if her sister and brother-in-law had arrived yet.

As she walked, Amalia pulled her hair back into a fresh ponytail. On the main floor, she turned toward the doors leading to the plateau behind the house. Nearing them, she could hear voices outside.

The laughter that rang out belonged to Ryker. It gave her a bit of a start to realize she knew what his laugh sounded like. Despite everything, they hadn’t known each otherthatlong.

When she walked out the door, she found Ryker and Ollie doing something to the outdoor kitchen while Ginny sat at the bar with an amused look on her face.

“They haven’t blown us up yet,” Ginny reassured her. “But allegedly they’re going to make us dinner.”

Amalia quirked an eyebrow. “They are? Ollie can do that?”

“Hey!” The earl in question protested but not too much. He’d been raised as privileged as Amalia, if not more so. He’d seldom done anything for himself because of how entitled his parents continued to be.

“It would probably go better if I worked with Ryker, but they insisted.” Ginny shrugged. “I can sit around like a lady of leisure. That works for me.”

With a laugh, Amalia slid onto the bar stool next to her sister. Ginny had been raised in a fairly rural area of the States and knew how to do all kinds of things Amalia and Ollie didn’t.

Eventually, they were able to get the smoker turned on properly, and Ryker put some sausages and burgers in.

“They won’t take long,” he assured them as he washed his hands.

“Do you want to look around while we wait?” Ollie asked. “I know we interrupted your exploration earlier.”

Ryker chuckled. “My exploration was limited to seeing why you both disappeared and if you were in trouble.”

Amalia didn’t understand and looked between all three of them. “You disappeared?”

“We went down the trail on the cliff,” Ginny explained.

“Ah.” It wasn’t the first time the uninitiated had freaked out at least a little bit when someone suddenly left their field of view.

She hopped down from her seat. “I haven’t been out there in a long time. Who’s coming?”

All three of them joined her with Ryker taking her hand. “I didn’t actually make it all the way over there,” he told her. “They came back before I could.”

“I forgot my phone,” Ollie explained. “And I’m expecting an important call.”

Hand-in-hand they walked toward the cliff’s edge. What couldn’t be seen from the balcony was the moderate descent leading to a railing across most of the length. The path leading to a lookout a bit farther down also couldn’t be seen.

Amalia showed Ryker where the path started then followed him down the narrow trail.

“This is incredible,” he told them when he took the last turn leading to the lookout.

As far as the eye could see water led to the northern horizon. A moment later, a whale breeched in the distance with a splash large enough to make Amalia shudder.

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