Page 99 of The Lonely Road

After a long moment, so long I’ve started to think that’s all there is, he says, “My brother thinks I work too much. My sister thinks I’m emotionally stunted. My mother thinks I need to eat more.” A pause. “Everyone who knows me has a theory about what’s wrong with me.”

“And what do you think?”

He considers this with the seriousness he brings to things that actually matter to him. “I think I’ve been very good at moving. And I don’t know yet what I am when I stop.”

“Maybe, that’s what you’re finding out….” With me.

He doesn’t comment, but his hand finds mine across the console, and he holds it for the rest of the drive home.

When we pull into my gravel drive, and he cuts the engine, I sit for a moment before getting out.

“Mason.”

He glances at me.

“I’m glad you were there today with me.”

CHAPTER 25

mason

Iopen a bottle of wine. She tells me to pick a red, so I go with a Pauillac. It’s been a long day—and a dry weekend in Ignacio—so I’m as ready as she is for something with a bite.

She sits at the kitchen island with her laptop.

Part of me says I should leave. Now.

I still have to deal with Trafton.

Then I have to go.

I also need to make sure Jessup understands that Taya and Clara Whitman are off-limits. Keep the intimidation legal. No more breaking into offices. It’s an easy place to get into—Trafton didn’t have to hurt Mac or tear it apart.

Then I go.

Her composure is off.

She’s running on adrenaline despite the exhaustion of a day that started at her grandmother’s place, ended in a hospital corridor, and has not, by any measure, been kind to her.

She takes a sip of the wine and murmurs a thank you.

The lawyer is operating—I can see it in the set of her eyes, the way she’s ruminating—but the rest of her is very tired.

“Do you think they’ll break into my place…here?” she asks without looking away from her screen.

“No.”

Now, she looks up. “How do you know that?”

Because I’ll fucking make sure.

“I’m going to set you up with security.”

She frowns at that. “This is Wildflower Canyon, most people don’t even lock their doors, Mason.”

“Oh, you’ll lock yours.”

Her eyebrows go up. “Mr. Brooks, you’re being very bossy.”