Page 47 of Forsaken Trail (Runaway 4)

I was moving to Arizona. I was buying a flower shop. I was becoming a mother.

I’d tackle them each, starting with the first, but not today.

“Now what?” Brody asked, seeming as lost as I was.

I shrugged. “How about that ride to Arizona? I have some Christmas presents to deliver.”

Chapter Nine

Brody

“Where is she?” I checked my phone for the tenth time.

“You’re worse than August,” Clara muttered.

Not quite. August was outside, bundled in a coat and hat for the cooler February weather, driving his child-size Jeep around the driveway. Circle after circle, his eyes were locked on the entry gate.

Mine were too.

We were both anxious for her to arrive.

I paced in front of the window. “This is fucking ridiculous.”

“So you’ve said.” Clara sat on the couch in my living room, her eyes locked on her phone. She’d been pinning recipes and baby outfits on Pinterest—I’d asked what had her so enraptured when she should be worrying about Aria.

Aria, the obstinate, exasperating woman who had refused to let me hire her a moving company. Aria, my pregnant—friend? associate? acquaintance?—someone, who had insisted on packing her own belongings and loading them into a U-Haul to drive from Oregon to Arizona.

Would she let me fly up to help her? No.

Would she let me hire someone to drive the truck so she could fly here on my jet? No.

Would she listen to reason that a pregnant woman should not be lifting boxes and hefting houseplants? No.

Aria hadn’t even let her sister come to Oregon and help when Clara had offered.

There wasn’t a more stubborn woman on planet Earth than Aria Saint-James. In the past two months, she’d pushed me to the brink of sanity.

“Never in my life have I met a person so inflexible as your sister.”

Clara scoffed. “Then you need to look in the mirror.”

“What?” I spun away from the glass. “I’m not inflexible.”

That earned me an eye roll. “If it’s not your way, then it’s the wrong way. Did you ever think that maybe Aria needed to do this herself? That she needed some time on the road to say goodbye to her old life? She loves surprises and spontaneity, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t let her roots grow deep.”

“If she needed time, I would have given her time. All I asked is that she not drive a rental truck from Heron Beach to Welcome by herself.”

“We lived in a junkyard, Brody. We were fifteen. Alone. Broke. Aria’s not scared of a two-day drive.”

I opened my mouth to argue but clamped it shut. Maybe I didn’t give Aria enough credit.

It was her beauty that made me forget about their childhood and all she’d endured. When she smiled and laughed, it was like she’d lived the happiest life in the world. Aria was strong, I knew that. So was Clara. Still . . . “I just want to help her. Make this easier.”

I had the means to make her life simpler. She’d called it charity. Why couldn’t she see it as generosity? What the fuck else was I supposed to spend my money on if not the woman who was carrying my child? How was offering to find her work and a home charity? I’d be an asshole if I let her fend for herself.

“You didn’t tell her about the flower shop, right?” I asked.

“No,” Clara said. “My answer hasn’t changed since you asked me yesterday. And the day before that. And for all the days before that over the past two months.”