Page 89 of The Hard Way

All this time I’d thought she was silently disapproving of us—of me. But it was just the opposite.

I grinned. “It’s a good business. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

Across the table, Zeus smirked.

We packed up and said goodbye. The guys seemed to be in a big hurry; I didn’t know why. We had reservations at a luxury hotel near the Milwaukee airport. It was a three-hour drive, but they’d hold the room.

Maybe they were eager to soak in the hot tub. Hopefully the hotel bathrobes would be nice and fluffy, the way we liked them.

We said goodbye to Margie. Zeus and Odin and I took one rental car, Thor took the other. We headed out. A few minutes into the drive, we missed the road to the highway.

“Hey,” I said. “U-turn. We passed the way out.”

“We’re good,” Odin said from the passenger seat.

I leaned up between them. “We have to make a U-turn. I’m telling you, this isn’t the way.”

“Pit stop,” Odin said.

I stiffened. We’d already had breakfast. “What kind of pit stop?”

“You’ll see,” Odin said.

But my pounding heart already knew. My racing pulse already knew. “What are you guys doing?”

“Just a quick stop,” Zeus echoed.

“No. Tell me.”

Odin twisted around. “We arranged something.”

“What?” I demanded. “You’re not bringing me there. They can’t—I can’t. We’ve been through this!”

“Don’t you want to see them, though?” Zeus said. “Just lay eyes on them from afar? See them happy?”

“No.”

Zeus looked nervously in the rearview.

“Turn it around.”

“You want to, goddess,” Odin said. “We know you do.”

“I can’t.”

Still they kept driving, passing the old familiar landmarks; the fallen-down shed at the edge of the Tuckers’ alfalfa fields. The stop sign with bullet holes in it. The old hickory that looked like it had scary hands in winter. The entrance to Miller’s Acres.

“It’ll endanger them.”

“For you to lay eyes on your sisters from afar? No, goddess.”

In truth, it would endanger me. “I can’t see them.”

“Why?”

“It’ll hurt too much.”

Odin climbed over the seat and sat in back with me.

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