Page 64 of Everything We Found

Nadia’s head jolted back. “Did Cammy tell you that?”

He shook his head. “It’s the only conclusion I’ve come to as to why she hasn’t turned up dead yet. They’re holding on to her for a reason, otherwise they would have killed her like Phil.”

A ripple of unease crossed her face. She looked off into the distance, her mouth flattened into a compressed line for a strained moment. Then she held out her hand.

“Give me the car keys.”

“What?”

“The keys, give them to me.”

“You can’t leave.”

“You can’t tell me what to do. Now, give me the goddamn keys. It’smycar.”

They stared at each other, her glare challenging, his a warning. Handing over the keys went against everything he stood for in their situation, everything he was fighting to right. But he still withdrew them from his pocket and dropped them into her palm. He prayed he wouldn’t regret this.

20

NADIA

Sweaty. Dirty. Furious. And frightened. A gamut of emotions swarmed inside Nadia as she stormed back to Cammy’s ranch, the key fob gripped tightly in her fist. But those four words pretty much summed up what she was feeling.

Thomas followed, matching her erratic pace, his presence stoking the impulse to run that shot through her. “Nadia, wait,” he called out. “Where are you going? Let’s talk about this.”

She didn’t want to talk right now, not to him or anyone. She wanted to get away, to put some distance between them so she could think. Her mind was a chaotic whirlwind, thoughts swirling faster than a dust devil.

Thomas loved her.

He’d said the words, laid his heart bare before her. And in a moment when her senses had been chaotic and emotions had been overwhelmed, she’d thrown herself at him, frantic to lose herself in his touch, his kiss, his body. Anything to forget the impossible choice looming before her.

Heat crept up her neck as humiliation twinged inside her.Gawd. She would have ridden him right there on the desert floor if he’d let her. All because she’d wanted to forget, justfor a moment, that her life wasn’t only unraveling. It was disappearing. She’d have to disappear.

And she hadn’t behaved that way solely for those reasons.

If she was being brutally honest, she’d wanted Thomas with a desperation that unnerved her. And that want had only grown these last couple of days with their forced proximity.

Right now though, something else entirely was propelling her forward, something she needed to figure out on her own.

Nadia disarmed the car when she reached the Ford and yanked the door open. Thomas’s shouts for her to stop, to not leave, filled the air. She shut them out when she slid into the driver’s seat and closed the door with a resolute thud. The locks clicked into place.

Thomas appeared at the window, panic engraved in his face. He knocked on the glass. “Don’t you dare leave. I can’t keep you safe if you go.”

“Get over yourself. Just stop. That’s not your problem,” she shouted back. It was hers. And she was tired of feeling like a transaction he’d invested in and needed to protect.

She stabbed the key into the ignition and gripped the steering wheel at ten and two. Her jaw immobile, a muscle feathering along the edge as she fought to control her rising anger. He’d done this to her. His unorthodox generosity cracked her open and took up residence, forcing her heart to face off with her head. If she looked at him, if she saw how much her leaving was freaking him out, she’d continue to do whatever he asked of her. She’d give up her identity for him without knowing if it had ever been her choice.

The screen door to the ranch house creaked open and Cammy emerged on the porch. “Let her be, Tom.”

“You told me to go after her.”

“To talk with her, not tell her what to do.”

He shook his head, vehement. “I can’t let her leave.”

“You can, because you can’t choose for her. Not this,” she insisted.

“Cammy—”