Page 4 of Keeping Kaitlyn

All I care about is that when he decided to leave Barrett Valley, he took me with him.

“What’s going on in that head of yours, Sunshine?”

Shifting my gaze, I find him looking down at me with a perplexing mixture of worry and amusement.

Nothing.

I almost say it, but then I remember that the only thing I’m not allowed to be with Went is astubborn liar.

“How long will we have to stay in Helena?” I lift a hand from my lap to smooth out one of the wrinkles in his shirt because I’m nervous. I don’t want to sound demanding. Don’t want to give him a reason to regret asking me to come with him.

Worry edges out the amusement on his face. “I’m not sure…” He looks up, away from me for a second, nailing the chauffer in the back of the head with a hard look. Lifting his large, rough hand from my hip, he toggles a switch in his arm rest, instantly raising a dark glass partition between us and the driver. As soon as it’s raised all the way, Went looks down at me again. “Until this whole shitshow is behind me and Conner can get his hands on the proof he needs to prove I wasn’t the one driving Lexi’s car the night she hit Brian Maxwell.”

“Hmmm…” I give him a nod while letting my eyes wander away from his to watch my fingers nervously work against the creases in his shirt. I don’t say anything or look away until I feel his hand tuck itself under my chin and lift to angle my gaze up to meet his.

“I wasn’t driving, Kait.” He looks down at me with another perplexing mixture of emotions. Disappointment and regret. “I wasn’t even in the car. I?—”

I feel the corners of my mouth move briefly into a flat, reassuring smile. “I believe you.”

I do.

Seconds ago, I didn’t care if he’d been the one driving or not. I didn’t care about anything except the fact that I’m here. That we’re still together and now, I know that nothing they’ve been saying about him is true.

The disappointment on his face deepens. “But?”

I shake my head. “Nobut?—”

The lift of his hand underneath my chin relaxes a bit. “You can ask,” he says, his tone full of resignation. “It’s okay—you can ask me, Sunshine. Whatever you want to know.”

“Well…” I want to look away from him, but I can’t. “Some of Abbey’s magazines said that you and that girl broke up and some say you’re still together.”

“And you want to know who’s telling the truth?”

Disappointment is back, the sound of it stinging my cheeks with shame for doubting him even a little. When he learned about Brock—thought we were together by my own choice—he ended what had been building between us immediately. That’s not the behavior of someone who cheats on his girlfriend.

“No.” I shake my head, brow puckered. “I want to know how you ended up there that night if the two of you were already broken up.”

“Because she called me, crying, saying she’d just been in an accident and that she needed my help.” He says it like it’s the most logical, natural thing in the world. “It was only a few blocks away so, I?—”

“Your ex-girlfriend called you in the middle of the night for help and you just got up and went to help her?” I hate the way I sound when I say it. Jealous. Bitter.

“Yeah.” The corner of his mouth lifts in a quick, sheepish grin. If he catches the tone of my voice, he doesn’t react to it. “According to Delilah, I’m addicted to damsels in distress. She calls me arescue ranger. I suppose it’s something I inherited from my grandfather—he was always a sucker for a woman in trouble.”

Unease curdles my guts, squeezing so hard that for a moment, I can’t breathe. Nodding, I roll my lower lip betweenmy teeth while I contemplate my next question. “Did you love her?”

“No, Sunshine—I didn’t love her.” Went shoulders slump a bit while he shakes his head. “And she didn’t love me. I just ticked all her boxes.”

I arch an eyebrow at him. “And what boxes would those be?”

“Famous. Rich.” He flashes me that wicked grin of his. “Devastatingly handsome.”

I laugh because I’m supposed to. Because if I don’t, the doubt and unease that’s suddenly taken up too much space in my chest with swell and grow. Make it impossible to breathe.

Fingers falling away from the smoothed-out creases of his shirt, I sigh. “So, you helped her because it was the right thing to do?”

When I ask it, the wickedness in Went’s smile is replaced by relief. “Yes.” He nods, lifting his hand to push my hair away from my face. “Even though it’s turned into a huge mess and could possibly end me, I don’t regret it. I’d do it again because helping her was theright thingto do.”

Like helping me escape Brock was the right thing to do?

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