Page 48 of Everything We Found

“I don’t mind.” Nadia dropped the plastic bag with her Walmart purchases on the white eyelet comforter covering the queen-sized bed. Matching curtains fluttered over an open window. Through the screen, she spotted the impressive slope of the Sierra Nevada range.

“There are locks on the doors. I’ll knock before I open mine.” He held his phone as if to keep his hand occupied, and he tapped the device against his thigh.

A smile pulled at her mouth over his nervous energy. She didn’t think his restlessness had anything to do with them sharing a bathroom. But she couldn’t resist poking fun. Humor or anger, pick one of the two. Her version of avoidance coping. “I’ve shared a bathroom with a man before.”

“Good.” Thomas went into the bathroom only to pause mid-step. “Wait, what?” He turned back to her.

A slow smile spread across her face. “I know how sharing a bathroom works. I’ve been in relationships.”

“Who with?” He tightly gripped his phone.

She crossed her arms. “None of your business.”

His mouth opened then crashed shut, his jaw working before he finally asked, “Were you in love with any of them?”

She huffed, incredulous he’d asked such a question. “What does it matter to you?”

He blinked. “It doesn’t. Never mind.”

She let the question die, deciding not to push. She’d feel compelled to give him an honest answer, that she’d ended every relationship before someone got close enough to matter. That the only man who’d ever made her feel untethered was standing right in front of her.

But how could she tell him the truth when she hadn’t fully admitted her feelings for him to herself?

He turned back into the bathroom. Nadia crossed the room to him. “Are you jealous?”

“I don’t do jealousy,” he said, right before he shut the door in her face.

She gasped again. “The nerve.” Then she remembered what she did want to ask him before he sidetracked her. She knocked on the door. “See? I do know how to share a bathroom,” she said when he opened the door. Thomas rolled his eyes and started to close the door. She placed a hand against the wood panel to stop him. “Wait. Kane… have you tried calling him?”

The lines between his brows deepened on a frown. “No.”

“Will you?”

“Haven’t decided. I’m waiting to see what Cammy can find out for us.”

“I’m sorry.” She felt for him. Kane had been someone he’d trusted not just with his life, but James’s too.

“So am I.”

“Have you been able to reach James?”

He shook his head. Nadia could sense how worried he was in the short, shallow breath he took, alluding to the constant state of tension he’d been in for the past forty-eight hours.

Had it only been two days? She felt like she hadn’t slept in over a week.

As if reading her mind, Thomas tilted his head toward the bed behind her. “Get some rest if you can. We’re safe here for now.”

“For now?” she asked, alarmed. “Do you think we were followed?” Her fingers twitched at her side with the impulse to reach for him, to keephimsafe. A buffer between him and the world, what he’d always been for everyone else.

But she fisted her hands instead so she wouldn’t move toward him. He’d believe she was seeking his reassurance they actually were safe, and maybe a part of her was.

“Doubtful, but I’m not taking chances.”

She thought of the traffic cameras that could have picked up their route here, the surveillance cameras at Walmart and the gas station. Were the Hidalgos sophisticated enough to employ hackers to breach the system? Could they have had their own lookouts along the route they took? Her breaths shortened, her hands squeezing her arms as she wrapped her arms around herself tighter.

“Nadia,” Thomas said gently. He touched her elbow and her gaze pivoted to his. “We’re safe.”

She nodded tightly, not entirely convinced.