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I was paralyzed by all the possibilities.
Aspen followed me upstairs, and I busied myself by taking a shower. Washing my face. Shaving my legs. Doing everything I could not to think about what was happening. And finally, I curled into bed with Aspen and willed myself to keep my eyes closed and not keep waiting for the phone to ring.
The shrill tone ripped me from sleep, and I sat up, startled, Aspen suddenly alert. I hadn’t realized I’d dozed off. Fumbling with my camisole, I got the phone out and answered without looking. “Lucas?”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Lena’s amused voice says. “Just me.”
“Oh my gosh.” I sagged back down onto bed. My entire body was thrumming with adrenaline. “What time is it?”
“Like one,” she said. “I’m really sorry for waking you up, though I’m curious why you’re waiting for Lucas to call like you’re panicked.”
Sighing, I curled toward Aspen and cuddled him closer. “I’ll tell you later. I’m guessing it’s not a social call at one in the morning.”
“No. Bessie quit on the road home. Inconvenient as fuck, I know. But I figured you wouldn’t completely hate me if I asked you to come jump it?”
My heart stuttered. Her car had died? Tonight? It could be a coincidence. But if it wasn’t, we needed to get her out of there right the fuck now. I kept my voice even. “You’re just now going home? Girl, you need to get some sleep.”
She made a sound, no doubt rolling her eyes. “I got caught up in trying some new recipes. You know how it is.”
“I don’t, actually,” I said, laughing. “But I need to check and see if we can come get you. I’ll let you know in a couple minutes, okay?”
“Okay.”
I changed out of my sleep shorts and camisole into sweatpants and a shirt with longer sleeves. The others on the ranch hadn’t seen my scars, and this wasn’t the time to have that conversation.
One in the morning, and nothing from Lucas. That was okay, right? Maybe they were waiting to do something until they knew for sure that Nathan was asleep.
Aspen came with me down the stairs, nearly making me trip over my own feet. “Liam?”
He looked over at me from his post. “Hey. I didn’t know you were still up.”
“I wasn’t, but Lena called me. Her car broke down again, and she needs a jump.”
“Jesus,” he said. “Talk about a bad time for that to happen.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But I don’t want to leave her out there alone. And with the timing, if it’s a coincidence—”
“Lucas will fucking kill me if I take you where there’s even the possibility of danger. He will also murder me in my sleep if I leave you alone.”
“We can all go,” I said quickly. “Noah too. I wouldn’t ask you to leave me alone, I don’t want to be. It will be fast. But we can’t leave her out there.”
His jaw flexed. “Let me call Noah.”
While he did, I got my shoes and a jacket. I wanted to be ready to go.
“He’ll be here in three minutes,” Liam said. “We need to go fast. We’re risking this because of the coincidence, and the fact that Jude would make sure that they never found my body if I left her out there to wait for a tow truck.”
“I know,” I said, following him. But I turned to Aspen. “Stay.”
Aspen stayed obediently. I felt better, having him stay here. Quickly, I texted Lena to let her know that we were on our way.
There was tension under my skin as we waited on the porch, and Noah pulled up with a car. I tucked my phone back into my bra so that I could still feel it the second it rang. “The fact that I haven’t heard from Lucas yet. That’s not bad, right?”
“No. They should be getting started right around now,” Liam said as I slipped into the passenger seat of the car with him in the back.
It was only a five-minute drive to where Lena was, and she was leaning against her car like a woman in a movie poster, the damsel in distress. But I could read embarrassment in the way that she was standing.
We pulled around so our car was facing hers and could jump it. The hood of her car was already up and waiting.
