Page 77 of Quarter Miles (Runaway 3)

“Hey,” I answered Gemma’s call.

Cash touched his invisible watch, reminding me that we were kind of in the middle of something, but I held up a finger. I wouldn’t have answered except it was the first time on the trip that she’d called, and I wanted to make sure everything was okay with her and the baby.

“Hi,” she whispered. “How are you?”

“Fine. Why are you whispering?”

“Because I’m breaking the rules by calling you and if Carol finds out, she’s going to banish me from the lodge.”

“What rules?”

“We’re not allowed to interrupt your vacation. Carol’s orders. She wanted you to have time to disconnect and explore and whatever. I would have broken the rule sooner but she promised to make me a fresh cherry pie and I was waiting until she delivered.”

Carol. So she was the reason that my phone calls and texts had gone unanswered. I should have expected her to lay down the law with the family like she had with the resort staff.

The only contact we’d had with home over the past four days was when Cash had called Liddy, assuring her that we were together and that everything had worked out. He’d also asked that she not tell anyone that the two of us were together before we had a chance to tell them ourselves when we got home.

“So where are you? How’s it going? Did you and Cash hook up yet?”

“Did Liddy tell you?”

“What?” Her voice got louder. “You hooked up? And Liddy knows? Why didn’t she tell me?”

“If she didn’t tell you, how did you know?”

“It was only a matter of time. You two needed to get away and do something without everyone in the family watching over your shoulders so he could realize how wonderful and beautiful you are and the idiot would finally pull his head out of his ass and fall in love with you.”

“Thanks, Gem,” Cash muttered at my side.

I laughed. “You’re on speaker.”

“Oh,” she muttered. “Well, I stand by my statement. Hi, Cash.”

“Hi,” he said. “When you made me camp out and search for a mountain li

on, there wasn’t really a lion, was there?”

“Nope.”

And his appearance the morning I’d been slated to leave hadn’t been coincidence either. It was why she’d made me take cookies. Why she’d had Easton go fill the car with gas.

I’d hug Gemma for that later and bake her a dozen cherry pies.

“Where are you?” she asked. “When are you coming home? I’m bored. So, so bored. Carol took this activity rest restriction from the doctor to the extreme. She has me at the front desk and I’m slowly losing my mind. And you should know that things are totally falling apart around here.”

“Really?” A smile spread across my face. “That’s great!”

“It is?” Cash asked and I waved him off.

“What’s happening?” I asked Gemma.

“Well, let’s see. Annabeth got into a huge fight with one of the housekeepers and the two of them made this big scene in front of a guest. It was wildly uncomfortable and Easton had to step in. You can imagine how well he handled that.”

I cringed. “Who’d he fire?”

“Both of them. But Carol rehired them ten minutes later.”

“Okay.” That was going to take some fixing. It had to have been bad because Annabeth wasn’t one to lose her composure. My guess was the stress of my absence was taking its toll. My chest swelled with pride.