Page 17 of Without a Trace
I hesitated, looking ahead to Trace. To Alden. To the quiet tension hanging between all of them.
“No,” I said slowly. “I’ll keep going. Help wrangle the guys.”
Lena kissed my cheek, squeezing my arm. “You sure?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I want to stretch my legs. I’m good.”
They smiled, shared a look, and veered off at the fork in the trail that looped back to the house.
And just like that—I fell in step with them, the men who watched me too closely, knew too much, and hadn’t left yet.
God help me.
Scarlett
“You’re all idiots,” I said, hands on my hips, glaring at the four very large, very confident and completely lost men in front of me.
“We’re not lost,” Kane replied, squinting at the trees like they owed him directions.
“You said that thirty minutes ago.”
“And it was true then.”
Rhett spun in a slow circle. “I don’t even see a trail anymore.”
“That’s because we’re not on one,” I snapped.
Trace stood with his arms crossed, gaze hard on the tree line—as if staring long enough might redraw the path.
Alden leaned against a tree, sipping from a water bottle ignoring the fact that he’d just marched us into the middle of nowhere. “Relax. We’re not that far off.”
Hemingway let out a wheezy snort beside me collapsing in the shade, his little chest rising and falling dramatically. His tongue hung to one side, eyes bulging more than usual.
“Can he even breathe?” Rhett asked, crouching next to him. “Like genuinely? His face is… so flat.”
“He’s built like a loaf of bread,” Kane smirked. “But one that sounds like a broken air conditioner.”
“He’s perfect,” I said, scooping Hemingway into my arms. He was sweaty, snorty, and deeply offended by everything. “And he’s the only man here I trust to get us home.”
Rhett placed a dramatic hand over his chest. “Wounded.”
“Deserved,” Trace muttered.
I gave him a look. “Oh, so youcantalk.”
He met my eyes, a smirk tugging at his mouth as he bent to grab a stick off the trail.
God, he was infuriating.
Kane picked up a stick drawing something obscene in the dirt. “I vote we just set up camp here. Start a new civilization. No rules. No pants.”
“I will literally kill you,” I muttered.
“You’ll miss me when I’m gone.”
“Unlikely.”
Alden had the decency to look sheepish. “Okay. I might’ve misread the last marker.”
