Page 2 of Keeping Kaitlyn

Standing here, all I hear is the pounding of my own heart. The uneven hitch of my breath echoing through my head… and that’s when I know.

Luke isn’t going to answer me.

He’s gone.

Suddenly sure there’s no reason to stay, I make my way through the dark house, clutching the photograph of the three of us to my chest, intent on taking this last bit of happiness with me when I leave.

TWO

WENTWORTH

While Kait drivesus down the mountain, I text the driver to see how close he is.

Unknown: I’ve arrived and am parked at the ranch entrance as instructed, sir.

Me: Thanks. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.

Hitting send, I drop my phone into my lap and look at Kait. She looks nervous. Fuck that—she looks scared.

Of course she’s scared, asshole. You asked her to marry you and she said yes, which means she just wiggled her way out of one trap and into another.

I open my mouth to tell her that she can change her mind. That she doesn’t have to marry me. Not if she doesn’t want to. That it was a stupid, impulsive thing to ask, but I don’t because as stupid and impulsive as it was, I don’t want to take it back. I don’t want her to change her mind.

I wanther.

To keep her, for as long as she’ll let me.

“It’s going to be okay.” I keep saying it and even though I sound like an idiot every time I do, I can’t seem to stop. “We’ll belong gone before anyone even knows we left and married before anyone can do anything about it.”

“I know.” She shoots me a quick look before she refocuses on the road in front of us. “It’s just…”

I think I’m making a mistake.

I got caught up in the moment.

I don’t really want to marry you.

“Just what?” When she doesn’t answer me, I reach across the SUV’s console and give her thigh a gentle squeeze. “It’s okay, Sunshine—you can say it. Whatever it is, I?—”

“Where will we go… after?” She finally blurts it out. “I mean, after Helena. After?—”

After you’re cleared on vehicular manslaughter charges and the tabloids stop chasing you around.

“Anywhere.” I give her another squeeze, more relieved that she doesn’t want to bail than I have a right to be. “Anywhere you want.”

“I’ve never been there,” she tells me while the road levels out beneath us. Instead of taking a right that will take us to the house, she continues straight ahead, toward the long service road that’ll lead us off the ranch.

“Never been where?” I ask while I reluctantly let go of her thigh to settle back into my seat.

She flashes me another look, this one accompanied by a quick grin. “Anywhere.”

Letting out a loud bark of laughter, I give her a nod. “Thenanywhereis the first place we’ll go.”

Kait parksthe SUV on the side of the road, about thirty yards from the wrought iron arch that marks her family’s ranch. Onthe other side of it, a stretched, black Escalade is idling with nothing but it’s running lights to show us the way.

Killing the engine, Kait stashes the keys to her mother’s car under the seat while I go around the back to open the hatch. Shouldering both my duffle and her backpack, I close it as quietly as I can before making my way to the front of the Land Rover where she’s waiting for me, my brown leather portfolio clutched to her chest.

“Ready?” Against my better judgment and everything that I’m hoping, I give her one last chance to change her mind. All she has to do is get back into her mother’s car and drive home.

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