Page 73 of Tied in Knots
“Go back,” I instruct after another sweep bears no fruit. “Go back an hour and scan forward.”
He does as I ask.
My breathing is short, sharp and painful. If she has run, it’s going to tear my heart out. I feel sick with the anxiousness running rampant through my body.
The thoughts are irrational. She left the few clothes she has, plus the pill.
She hasn’t run. She hasn’t. She wouldn’t.
But it wouldn’t be the first time she’s run. I shouldn’t taint her present with her past, but it is still very close, and my obsessive side has gone loopy with bad thoughts.
Trust her, Seb. Don’t do this.
“Here,” Xander says after a few minutes. “Forty minutes ago, she left the house.”
We watch her scamper down the paved steps and then lose her.
Xander picks her up heading towards the tree-lined private road.
“What the fuck?” I snarl.
Sheisfucking running.
However irrational it might seem, she’s running.
“The gates,” he says quietly.
“What the fuck is she doing?” Ben asks incredulously as we watch herclimbover them.
“Fuck,” Harvey breathes out when one of the spikes jabs her in the arse.
“She really wants to leave, doesn’t she?” I mutter.
“Jesus!” Ben exclaims as one of the spikes nearly takes her eye out. “No! Just no! She wouldn’t run. This has to be doctored somehow.”
Xander shakes his head and stands up, pushing past us. “One way to find out,” he growls. We follow him out of the small room and watch him pick up a set of keys from the key rack on the wall next to the front door.
“Wait, we don’t know where she went,” Harvey says, trying his rational approach.
“Not this time,” I growl. “Shut it and get in the car or stay here and talk to yourself.”
“Fucker,” he snarls back, the aggression getting to both of us.
He shoves past me and storms to the Range Rover, getting in and slamming the door. Xander is already gunning the engine. I climb into the passenger side while Ben takes the back next to the grumpy Scot. Rather him than me. Harvey is the mildest man I’ve ever known, but when his back gets up, you’d better fucking run, and I poked that bear good.
“Which way?” I ask as Xander screeches round the circular driveway and down the private road.
“She went right,” he grits out, his hands white knuckling the steering wheel.
I open the gates with the remote control from the glove compartment when we approach. Xander takes the corner on two wheels, making us wish we'd remembered to put our seatbelts on.
Doing about seventy miles per hour down the thirty zone, he slams on the brakes when we reach the junction at the top.
As soon as I see the sign for Woodthorpe, a light bulb goes off that I refused to acknowledge before.
“Head towards the town. I know where she’s going.”
She isn’t running. She left to get more birth control. It’s not as painful, but it still stabs me in the heart and the gut and the balls. She doesn’t want kids. That’sallI want. I don’t even care if I never have a son. I just want children to love and build a family with her. I wish we’d talked about this before, so we knew where she stood. What if she never wants kids?
