Page 16 of Love on the Run

Gage picked up the mug of coffee Hadley had brought Beau and took a sip. “Time for a vacation.”

Vacation. How ridiculous was it that Beau had no idea how to go about taking a break. “Maybe they’ll tell Anna the idea, and she’ll shut it down.”

Gage shrugged. “You’re right. Who wants to go on a vacation with the Grinch?”

There. Beau wouldn’t start packing until he knew for sure he was actually required to go.

Gage chuckled as he headed for the door. “You need to borrow a suitcase?”

Chapter 6

Anna

The weight crushing her chest followed them out of Blackwater, Wyoming. Even with four hours between them and the chaos she left behind, the ghost of her mother’s hands might as well be wrapped around her throat.

The emails. The messages. The voicemails. Trying to manage them was like trying to drink from a firehose.

Add in the slight nausea from looking down at her phone while riding, and she was five minutes away from full-on motion sickness.

Dropping the phone onto her lap, she rested her heavy head back and closed her eyes. Beau was a surprisingly good driver. He obeyed all traffic laws, including using his turn signals and maintaining a speed within the limit.

It was unexpected from someone she’d alwaysassumed lived by his own rules. Not that Beau had ever been a troublemaker. He just didn’t care much about what other people thought.

At least, that’s what she thought he thought.

Okay, that was getting confusing. She’d assumed a lot of things about him over the years, knowing he wouldn’t give her an answer if she straight-up asked.

Now, he didn’t have much of a choice but to talk to her. Well, he could ignore her, but maybe if she didn’t push too far, he’d talk to her long enough to help the nausea ease.

Twilight settled like a blanket over the land around them. Shadows of forests and rocks crept over the hills and valleys. It really was beautiful.

She’d been looking forward to the drive to Colorado. Too bad she’d been too busy to look up and see it until it was almost too late.

The man beside her hadn’t said a word unless spoken to since he got in the car. His long arms were relaxed with hands placed correctly at the ten and two on the steering wheel. Anna turned her attention to him, “What are you thinking?”

Beau kept his attention on the road ahead. He’d changed into a gray, long-sleeve thermal, jeans, and worn boots before tossing his duffel bag into the trunk of her car.

He hadn’t put up a fight at all when she suggested they take her car instead of histruck. She felt bad enough for dragging him along with her. The last thing she wanted was to put miles on his vehicle.

“I’m not thinking. I’m driving.”

“Doesn’t that require thinking?”

Beau shrugged.

Anna picked up her phone and opened the Instagram app. The nausea had dissipated enough. “Nice talk. We should do this again sometime.”

The flood of messages brought the nausea back. One of the drawbacks of being followed by hundreds of thousands of strangers on social media was that they all wanted the inside scoop. Everyone wanted a piece of her life that no one else had, and that meant plenty of people had zero qualms reaching out and asking how her wedding went.

It didn’t matter that as far as they knew, she should be spending this time with her new husband.

It didn’t matter that what she’d thought would be the best day of her life turned into the worst.

It didn’t matter if she wanted to share the most private parts of her life or not, someone was going to find them and exploit them.

There were also plenty of wonderful people out there who genuinely wished her the best. Those were the ones she appreciated. If only she had time to cultivate all of those sweet friendships the way she wanted to.

Her phone rang, displaying the name of the wedding florist. She answered the call and pressed the phone to her ear. “Hey, Fiona.”

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