Wolf's Fake Bride (Shifter Marriage Service Book 1)

Throwing the car into reverse, she rapidly backed onto the street and switched to first, the tires squealing as she shot out of their neighborhood toward . . . somewhere undecided. Her phone began to ring from inside her purse. She was sure it was him. It rang until voicemail picked up, then began to ring again. Definitely him. After a few times, the ringing stopped, but the message chimes began. He was texting. As the car approached a nearby bridge, she rolled down the window, pulled the phone out of her purse and hurled it over the railing to careen toward the river below.

She needed a phone, but not that one. It was one he had given her and there was no doubt it would be cut off before she even got to her destination. Whatever he had to say in his messages and texts weren’t something she thought she would want to see anyway. The car was solely in his name as well. He’d take that too. Likewise with their house and pretty much everything they owned. He had pushed for her to give up her career, and the result of her doing so would be that she now had nothing but the contents of her purse and the clothes she was wearing.

As she reached the edge of town, she pulled into the local police station. Parking the car in their lot, she retrieved her purse and dropped the keys in the driver’s seat. She was tempted to leave it unlocked and see if anyone was brave enough to steal it, but she’d probably just end up in more trouble if they did. Instead, she locked it and walked away. She knew he would report it stolen and they would use the lo-jack that came with the road assistance to track it down. She wanted it nowhere near where she might be, so this seemed the safest place to leave it. Plus, it would scare him to think she had gone to report him.

Out on the sidewalk, she looked around, trying to decide where to go from here. There was nothing in this place but bad memories. Rather than hanging around to see what else might happen, she made up her mind. She made her way to the bank and withdrew what little money she had in her personal account before making her way to the bus station.

She was tempted to go back to the machine, to empty whatever she could get from the machine from their joint accounts, but she knew he would come after her for it. In his mind, she was a failed wife, an empty vessel, and she deserved nothing, which is what he would make sure she got, even if he had to track her down and take it back from her.

She shook all over, fear having taken hold of her entire being. He had gone too far this time and now that he had crossed that line, she didn’t believe he would ever cross back. Instead, it would only escalate. She could stay here, try to go through lawyers and the police to maintain her safety and standard of living, but she had seen how that had worked for friends in similar situations and she couldn’t be bothered to deal with such carnage.

Looking up at the timetables, she tried to decide where she wanted to go, finally selecting Eugene, Oregon. It was a long way from Red Bank, New Jersey and would give her more than two days to sort out what she was going to do next. She purchased her ticket under a fake name and darted next door to the large petrol station to buy some snacks and the cheapest smart phone they had, one of those pay as you go deals that didn’t care who she was or where she lived.

Jocelyn doubted Carter would bother to look for her, but she just couldn’t deal with his shit anymore. She was going to make sure he left her alone until she was ready to come back and deal with him and the divorce he would no doubt file as quickly as possible. Right now, she just needed some peace from it all. Dealing with him had been bad for her psyche and she needed time to regroup. She’d never get that if she stayed here or if he could find her.

Less than an hour since she had fled the suburban home she shared with her husband, Jocelyn Wray took her seat on a bus to travel cross country to somewhere she had never been with less than three hundred dollars to her name. She didn’t dare use the joint credit cards and they had always maintained separate bank accounts, so she would have to make do with what she had. Her plan was to get somewhere, find a cheap place to stay for a few days and get whatever job she could find to make ends meet until she could do better.