Page 89 of Traces Of You
“True,” she said.
“It’s nothing more than that,” he said. “I don’t have another girlfriend hidden in the basement.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t genuine. “I’d know if you did since your mother would smack you upside the head after she lectured you about it.”
His eyes grew as big as his grin. “She would. So then what is it? It’s something.”
He waved to his father and Clay as they walked to his truck. His family knew Reenie was going home with him tonight.
She shrugged and remained silent.
Ford wasn’t buying her nonchalant attitude.
He let her have the quiet on the drive to her place. He unlocked the door with the key he had and she went to her room to pack.
He looked around the place. Not much had changed. No touches of Reenie here.
She had the barest minimum of possessions, nothing added to the place that she’d made her home in the past several weeks.
He hated to think that was because she didn’t see herself staying, but there had been no updates. Grady had his ear to the ground and Reenie swore she hadn’t contacted the people who helped her escape again.
It was a waiting game when he didn’t know what they could even be waiting for.
It was possible that nothing would happen, and that Oliver would forget Reenie.
He wouldn’t take that chance and drop his guard until it was verified.
“Ready?” he asked when she came out with a backpack.
“Yep.”
He locked the door behind him, they got in his truck and then drove off his parents’ property. Clay would lock the gate to the entrance of the farm when everyone was gone for the night like he always did. Only the family knew the code to get it open after hours. There were cameras all around the entrance too, all hidden except the one right by the security pad that was in the middle. A nice view of anyone coming and going, even cars passing on the road if Clay chose to look.
“Are you hungry? I can order pizza.”
“Pizza sounds delicious,” she said.
He picked his phone up, found the number and hit the button. He knew what she liked since they had it last week one night.
He placed the order, was told it’d be forty minutes. “Plenty of time for us to shower and relax before it arrives. No reason to leave again.”
“Works for me. How long have you lived in this house? You own it, right?”
“I do. I bought it five years ago. It needed some work that me and Ash did most of. Blaze wasn’t around, neither was Clay. My father helped too. But I never wanted to ask him much since he was so busy on the farm.”
He pulled into his driveway a few minutes later.
“It’s nice,” she said of the two-story colonial that was set back behind trees and not visible from the road.
“Not new by any means, but not so old that it had to be completely gutted. The house is about fifty years old.”
He parked in his garage next to his sheriff’s SUV, the two of them got out, and he hit the button to close it.
Opening the door to the hall off his kitchen, he slipped his shoes off in the laundry room to the right, Reenie doing the same, then turned to the left and walked to his kitchen. She popped her head in the half bath they’d passed by the kitchen.
“This is nice,” she said. “It suits you.”
Ford looked around his kitchen. It was simple to him. Tan granite counters, dark wood cabinets, light wood floors. His backsplash was a mixture of brown, his walls tan throughout the whole first floor.
