Page 77 of Taking

My heart clung to that thought, telling myself my protector would do nothing less.

Clutching my quilt tight, I turned toward the kitchen area and headed for the one thing that would wake me up.

Coffee. I needed a clearer mind. Needed to put pieces of truth together in my head—

A piece of paper and cell phone sat on the table.

I leaped forward on weak legs, swiping the paper up.

Gideon had something to take care of on his own that he didn’t want me to have any part of. He’d be home in a couple days…on my twenty-first birthday, and he would come bearing gifts.

My legs gave out again, and I sank to the floor for a second time, clutching the paper to my bare chest. Tears once more rolled as relief left me shaky and grinning like an idiot.

He hadn’t left me.

He’d protected me the only way he knew how, hiding me away where no one would find me.

Gideon hadn’t lied—even if he did knock me out with a drugged tea, the jackass.

I sniffed, wiped my tears, and let out a shaky laugh.

He would return to me on my birthday once it was too late for Lloyd to hurt me.

If he’d explained what he planned, I wouldn’t have argued. I’d have sat in the cozy cabin as the hours slipped past, waiting for my birthday, for the day I could legally claim what belonged to me—leaving Lloyd with nothing.

* * *

March twelfth, my birthday, arrived, and I sat on the couch, warm from the fire and the cell in my hand.

Waiting.

Growing anxious.

The afternoon went on too long.

And Gideon never called like I had hoped and expected him to. Why leave me a cell otherwise?

I didn’t have the number to his phone, and the only one I knew by heart besides 911 was Ciarra’s.

Chewing my fingernails to the quick didn’t help pass time any faster or ease the tightness in my stomach.

Had something happened to Gideon? Had whatever plans he’d made gotten him arrested again? Was I sitting and twiddling my thumbs…for nothing?

Hands shaking, I dialed Ciarra.

She didn’t answer, but she rarely did if it was a caller whose number she didn’t recognize.

I called again.

A third time.

“Come on…”

The fourth time, I sat biting my lip, eyes closed, begging her to pick up.

Please…please…

“Hello?” She snapped, and the air left my lungs in a rush.

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