Page 159 of Major Love

“Really bad timing, man,” I tell him gruffly.

“We can get another guy there in forty, if you’re held up,” he says, but I’m already shaking my head as I gently tuck Sunday’s note into the chest pocket of my work jacket.

Exactly where it needs to be. Right over my heart.

It shouldn’t take too long to get to my place and grab the snowmobile, and, if the hikers are low down, the mission might not even take two hours start to finish.

Meaning that I can still catch Sunday before she leaves.

It’s cutting it fine but I want her to know how much she means to me, and that I’ll be right here, counting the minutes ’til my girl’s back home.

And hopefully she won’t be too mad when she hears that I had a mission up Bear Pass.

I gesture to Madden across the lot and he jogs over, the snow sticking to his long dark fringe as it drifts through the square. Then I show him the alert on my phone before letting him know how long I’m going to be gone.

He jerks his chin at me in response and I give him a nod before he heads back to the crew.

Then I hunch down inside of my truck and say into my cell, “Give me the coordinates.”

Chapter 40

Sunday

I press my cowgirl boot to the brake as I reach the parking spot where Jason’s truck had been – right beside Casey’s before I’d peeled out of the lot.

I blink in confusion at the empty space, blowing a loose curl away from my forehead.

Jason’s truck isn’t here anymore… but the rest of his crew still is.

I slowly ease Casey’s vehicle into the space where I’d parked it before, trying to calm the quickening of my heartbeat as I step down from the truck and into the snow.

I close the door behind me and turn in a slow circle, before finally coming to the conclusion that he’s not on site anymore.

I gnaw on my lip as my brow creases.

Where the hell did he go?

Did he… did he get mad? When he found the note? Or is he somewhere on the highway, chasing after me right now?

I fold my arms over my chest, shivering as the icy snowflakes kiss my cheeks, and then I flick a glance toward the diner when I sense someone watching me.

And Beckett’s brow almost touches his hairline as his big fist pauses in midair, holding a lighter beneath his unlit cigarette as we lock eyes across the lot.

And then he does an immediate U-turn, trudging as quickly as he can back toward the diner.

“Wait!” I call out, running as carefully as I can across the snowy lot.

“Hell no,” he all but growls, but I’m faster than he is, and I manage to get a mitten around his forearm before the little bell tinkles over the diner door.

He breathes hard in exasperation before reluctantly dropping his eyes down to meet mine.

“What?” he asks gruffly, even though he knows exactly what I want to know.

If he didn’t know what I wanted to know, then he wouldn’t be running away from me, would he?

“Where is he?” I ask breathlessly. “Jason’s truck is gone – where did he go?”

Beckett cocks an eyebrow as he pockets his lighter and his cigarette. “Babe, if you hadn’t skipped out on him then you could’ve asked him that yourself.”

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