“Not askin’ you to give it all up, I’m askin’ you to give it a chance. I’ll never ask you to give anything up. Not fuckin’ ever.”
I exhale, staring at my hands. “You scare me, Rhett. There is something about you...something I feel like I don’t deserve.”
“You fuckin’ look at me, Lei.”
I close my eyes for a second and then look up at him. He holds my eyes, a determined glance on his face. “You deserve the god damned sun and the world that sits beneath it. If you don’t believe that, you’ll never find peace. You’re one in a million, don’t fuckin’ forget it.”
I stare at him, eyes burning with unshed tears. I stand and walk over to him, reaching out to take his face in my hands, then I lean down and kiss him, long and soft, feeling every single emotion that is choosing to run through my body right now. I want to give this a chance, I want to see where this can lead, but I’m also scared. Terrified that if it goes wrong, it’ll break me into a million little pieces.
I pull back. “I want to see where this goes, too.”
He stands, curling his hand around the back of my neck and pulling me close. “Fuckin’ finally, you had me wonderin’ for a minute there.”
I smile up at him. “Well, I couldn’t show you all my cards, you might get bored and leave before you have the chance to see how well Diablo and I are going to get along.”
He grins. “He’s my horse, he’ll never betray me like that.”
“Oh, you just wait and see, it’ll be Diablo and I against the world. Soon, he’ll be saying ‘Rhett who’.”
Rhett grins and leans down, kissing me again. “If I didn’t just stitch your leg, I’d throw you in that water right now.”
“Pffft, if you could catch me.”
He gives me a wicked smile. “Is that a challenge?”
“It could be.”
“Accepted.”
I smile in anticipation.
This is going to be fun.
Oh yes.
Fun indeed.
“THAT BLANKET IS CREEPY as fuck,” Kara mutters, staring at the blanket on the sofa.
I showed it to her and explained everything I found. She isn’t a fan of the fact that I bought the blanket home, but I had to investigate it further. I told her about the phone and how it went missing, and the boot prints I found. She listens intently, writing it all down and then we both sit and try to figure out who is missing their phone.
“I haven’t paid attention,” she thinks aloud, “the fact is, most of us aren’t using our phones because we’re here to enjoy ourselves. I haven’t seen anyone spending a great deal of time on them.”
She’s right, I haven’t either.
“But someone must be missing one, we just have to figure out who and we might be able to work this out.”
“But that person now suspects we’re onto them, so they’re probably going to do something to throw us off, maybe go buy a phone to try and trick us. Whoever it is knows we’re getting closer, they have to be.”
“That’ll make them more nervous,” I say.
“We need to keep our eyes peeled or we’re going to miss something, something big. I have thought about it over and over, and I just can’t figure out who would do this. They’re all so...so good. I struggle to understand a motive.”
I too have thought of every possible scenario, and I just can’t see why anyone would want to hurt Taj. Unless there is something we’ve missed, something we just haven’t seen.
“What about the boot print?” I ask. “We could compare that.”
She nods. “We could, but again, each of us have a few pairs of boots and it could be hard to find them without it looking obvious.”
“We’re going on a hike soon, we could trail behind and take photos of any prints, try and do it like that.”
Kara nods. “That’s a good idea, actually. I’ll take photos and mark down who the boots belong to, we might be able to find something.”
God, I hope so. I hope so because Taj’s family deserves answers, and we deserve to know what has been going on right in front of us. Someone we trust has done the wrong thing, and I’m determined to find out who that is and why. Someone goes to sleep every night knowing they’re the reason Taj is dead.
“What if nothing comes up because whoever did it has left?” Kara murmurs, more to herself than me.
“Well, if we can’t find anything here, then perhaps it’ll narrow it down even more. At least we’re trying, that’s the best we can do.”
She nods, standing. “Well, on that note, I’m going to get dressed into something sexy because none of those cowboys have hit on me yet and I’m desperate for at least one sexual experience before we leave.”